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 · 6 passages · 120 Chinese characters · reading time 1.3 min
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.
林踈空自籟。雨細不成泥。墮羽爭巢雀。申吭叫屋雞。
The woods are sparse and sound of themselves for nothing;
the rain is fine and does not turn to mud.
Sparrows shedding feathers as they fight for a nest,
and the house cock stretching its throat to crow.
Interlinear notes 1
六首
Six poems.
飯殘飢鳥喜。釀熟亂蜂多。小圃雨初過。香蔬添幾何。
Rice is left over, and the hungry birds are glad;
the wine has ripened, and the bees are many and wild.
Over the little plot the rain has just passed:
how much more have the fragrant greens grown?
掃地林餘影。鋤園樹礙根。人閑如老衲。地僻似山村。
I sweep the ground, and shadows are left in the wood;
I hoe the garden, and the trees block me with their roots.
The man is idle, like an old monk,
and the place is remote, like a mountain village.
曲塢花迷眼。深園草沒腰。霞殘餘綺散。雨急亂珠跳。
On the curving bank the flowers confuse the eye,
and in the deep garden the grass buries my waist.
The afterglow lingers, and brocade scatters;
the rain comes fast, and wild beads leap.
閃閃風搖幔。微微日瀉簷。菌肥黃耳大。柳弱翠腰纖。
Flashing and flashing, the wind shakes the curtain;
faintly the sun pours over the eaves.
The mushrooms are fat, their yellow ears large;
the willow is tender, its green waist slender.
送老唯芳酒。驚人忽晚花。乞茶憑岳叟。看竹懶隣家。
What sees old age out is fragrant wine alone;
what startles a man is suddenly a late-blooming flower.
To beg tea I lean on the old man of the hills,
and am too idle to go next door to look at the bamboo.