A Few Days Later Master Jin Answered, so I Matched the Rhymes Again in Reply後數日。陳君見和。復次韻答之。
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 11 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.
A cold and bleak life — I weary even of being matched against a monk,
and I envy your heroic eyes, grown used to craving the lamp.
Drunk, you draw a red sleeve, and fragrance rises on the mat;
the chanting done, the moon climbs the jewelled tower tier by tier.
I salute your gaining a thriving pine — a nut pine above all;
the glossy jade that shines across to us must needs be ice.
Passing my gate, you steeled yourself and urged your horse on to court,
and in vain I gaze at the blue clouds, unable to master my sorrow.
Interlinear notes 2
陳未娶。故云。
Master Jin had not yet married, and so it was said thus.
陳時爲內侍。將赴闕。過門不入。
Master Jin had then become a palace attendant, and on his way to the palace he passed the gate without coming in.
Those I call are either partners at baduk or monks who make poems,
and what sees out the long night is only a single lamp.
The snow that yields to butterflies is fine, yet it still knows how to dance;
the cloud that imitates the peaks is thin and cannot make a tier.
What does the bottle resent, that it cries upon the brazier's fire?
The brush, sparing what is left of its tip, dreads the ice in the inkstone.
Happily, jewels have fallen into this poor alley,
dazzling, filling collar and sleeve, and again I sigh at your excellence.