Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 7
Given to Sim Yunjang of the Cheonjo (天曹) — Made on This Day, Very Drunk贈沈天曹允章。是日大醉作。
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 7 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.
二月靑春光。浮動黃金柳。園花酒噤脣。林鳥已柔咮。問君氣俠豪。能復觴吾否。自言有醽綠。可以濡君口。君不見長篇短篇詩萬首。何人記我千年後。不若未死前一杯綠蟻酒。
The green spring light of the second month floats and stirs on the yellow-gold willows. The garden flowers close their lips upon the wine; the birds of the grove have soft beaks already. I ask you — your spirit is bold and gallant; can you raise a cup to me once again? He says of himself that he has a green wine enough to wet your mouth with. Do you not see? Though one make ten thousand poems, long and short, what man will remember me a thousand years from now? It is not worth one cup of green-ant wine before I die.