On Behalf of My Fellow Graduate Jin Sik, Harmonizing with the Poem Sent by His Younger Brother Jin Hwa, Who Had Gone with Their Father to Donggyeong and Was Thinking of His Elder Brother代陳同年湜。和舍弟澕隨父之東京。憶兄見寄。
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 2 passages · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 8 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.
I say to my lord: come back early, early;
I would take for my model the Dan and the Eon, who lived together generation after generation.
Pity it is — he alone fans the pillow where the mosquitoes rise;
and I regret that it is hard for me to send a letter by a dog.
Do not take for your model Hu Wei (胡威), who asked after the silk in vain;
I have heard already how Yang Xu (羊續) hung the fish up long.
The drafts of poems in the brocade bag are three thousand,
and most of them are the leavings of drunken pleasure before the flowers.
Two years we have thought of each other, yet it is painfully hard to go back,
and I lodge my body under a hidden snail's shell.
When the clerks disperse I attend alone upon the shade of the wild pear,
and when a guest comes I write, as is fitting, upon a white skirt.
I think of Gao Feng (高鳳), who spread out the classics and let the barley float away,
and I think of Boyu (伯魚), who asked about the rites and hurried across the courtyard.
If you would know that the promise of your coming draws nearer,
look at the two streaks of yellow risen above my brows.
Interlinear notes 1
隨父在任。故用此事。
He was with his father at his post, and so this matter was written of.