Viewing the Fish Scroll Painted by Jeong Deukgong in the Abbot's Quarters of the Senior Monk Yeon淵首座方丈。觀鄭得恭所畫魚蔟子。
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 · 110 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 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.
Water is the home of fish;
lose it, and they are fish in the pot.
When a man paints fish in the water
it is like copying over what lies in the pot.
Though he has shaped them as if swimming,
they still look as though they had lost the water.
Master Jeong truly has a wondrous brush,
his marvelous skill received from Heaven.
One sweep, and dozens of them are drawn,
all flapping and leaping, tuna and sturgeon every one.
The force of having gained the water is already full,
so why must he paint the ripples too?
Their fins all at once seem about to stir,
the light in their eyes turns with the gleam of pearls.
Were you not a traveler to the isle of Bongnae (蓬萊),
long playing the immortal beneath the water?
Having gazed at fish until you knew them to the full,
you let the hand follow wherever it goes.
I raise a finger, meaning to touch them,
but fear they will leap and hide in the pool.
The strength of my poem is worn out,
yet I dare to compose "The Live Fish."