Again, Using Bai Letian's Rhymes, on Elder Mun's Straw Sandals又用白公韻。賦文長老草履。
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 · 1 passages · 70 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 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.
You came from Jiangnan,
a thousand, ten thousand turns of mountain and water.
Who was it that sent the straw sandals?
Closely woven, they suit an aged venerable.
Walking, they take the scent of Chu's flowers,
and have trodden all over the green of Qin's grasses.
Artfully plaited — these are Taochui's (桃椎) sandals,
not Xie Lingyun's clogs, broken off.
How could one bear to throw away an old thing?
They guard the feet across streams and valleys.
They deserve to be enfeoffed at Xiapi (下邳),
for they have already made leather shoes bow down.
When I roam far I should borrow them from you,
and add a bamboo staff besides.
Interlinear notes 1
唐朱桃椎織芒履。促密環繞宜人。
Zhu Taochui (朱桃椎) of the Tang plaited straw sandals, closely woven and wound round, that suited whoever wore them.