Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 10
At the Guesthouse of Ogya County, Matching the Rhymes of Academician Chae Bomun's Pear-Blossom Poem on the Board沃野縣客舍。次韻板上蔡學士寶文梨花詩。
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 10 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.
初疑枝上雪黏華。爲有淸香認是花。鬬却寒梅瓊臉潔。笑他穠杏錦趺奢。飛來易見穿靑樹。落去難知混白沙。皓腕佳人披練袂。微微含笑惱情多。
At first I thought snow had stuck to the branches in splendor, but there was a clear fragrance, and I knew they were flowers. They vie with the cold plum for the purity of its jade cheeks, and laugh at the extravagance of the deep apricot's brocade base. When they fly up they pierce the green trees and are easy to see; when they fall they mingle with the white sand and are hard to make out. As if a fair one with white arms had parted her sleeves of white silk, faintly holding a smile, they trouble the heart greatly.