Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 10

A Beauty's Lament美人怨

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 · 40 Chinese characters · reading time 0.4 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.

膓斷啼鸎春。落花紅蔟地。香衾曉枕孤。玉臉雙流淚。郞信薄如雲。妾情搖似水。長日度與誰。皺却愁眉翠。

In the spring when orioles cry, my heart is broken, and the falling blossoms gather red upon the ground. Under the fragrant quilt the dawn pillow is lonely, and two streams of tears run down jade-like cheeks. My lord's faith is thin as cloud, and this woman's heart is unsteady as water. With whom shall I pass the long day? I knit my sorrowful blue-painted brows.

Interlinear notes 1

廻文

This is a palindrome poem (廻文).