Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 11

On the Sixth of the Fifth Month, Drinking at Gyerimja's House五月六日。飮雞林子家。

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 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.

竹間圍玉局。花下酌瓊觴。醉覺乾坤窄。閑知日月長。摘嘗櫻子爛。折揷槿枝芳。不有君家在。何時笑一場。

Among the bamboo we sit around a jade baduk board, and under the flowers we pour out the jade cup. Drunk, I find that heaven and earth are narrow; at leisure, I know that the sun and the moon are long. We pick cherries and taste them, full ripe, and break off a rose of Sharon branch to wear, and it is fragrant. If your house were not here, when should we ever have one good laugh?