Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 13

At Dusk in the Thatched Hall, Meeting a Guest Who Plays the Geomungo, I Set Out Wine草堂日暮。値琴客置酒。

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 min

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.

落日無端百感生。茅齋閑坐若爲情。霜風釀作秋光釅。烟月裝成晚景淸。賴有故人彈綠綺。時呼稚子酌烏程。此時酒令吾先畫。弄一聲來輒數觥。

At the setting sun a hundred feelings rise for no reason, and sitting idle in my thatched hut, what am I to do with my heart? The frosty wind brews and makes the autumn light strong; the misted moon adorns and makes the evening scene clear. Happily an old friend is here to play the Nokgi lute (綠綺琴), and from time to time I call the boy to pour the Wucheng wine (烏程酒). At such a time it is I who will first lay down the rule of drinking: each time a tune comes played through, straightway a few cups.