Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 13
Replying Again復和
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 13 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.
一朶仙花在禁闈。年年長近柘黃衣。天工過與紅顔釅。世眼翻成紫色微。闕下方傳千品最。人間喧導兩京稀。聞名杜牧如相見。豈對姸姿更認非。
A single cluster of immortal flowers stands within the palace gates, year after year long close to the mulberry-yellow (柘黃) dragon robe. Heaven's craft gave the red too deep a strength, so that to worldly eyes the purple looks mean instead. Below the palace they pass word that it is first among a thousand kinds; in the human world they clamor and lead on that it is rare even in the Two Capitals. If Du Mu (杜牧), who had heard its name, were to see it, how, facing so fair a bearing, would he say again that it is not she?
Interlinear notes 2
牧丹有兩京身。
Of the peony there is the phrase “a body of the Two Capitals” (兩京身).
杜牧云。聞有紫雲誰是。
Du Mu said, “I have heard there is a Ziyun (紫雲) — which one is she?”