Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 13
Hearing the Oriole聞鸎
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.
已分年年殿暮春。千紅半謝不須嗔。解調淸管聲音雅。偸鍍黃金羽翼新。薄行少年誇聽早。學歌嬌女妬啼頻。擡頭欲賞毛衣好。飛轉喬林未易親。
I know already that year by year you take charge of late spring's rear, so there is no need to rage that the red blossoms are half fallen. You know how to tune a clear flute, and your voice is elegant; you have stolen gold to clothe yourself, and your feathers are new. The light-mannered youth boasts of having heard you early, and the pretty girl learning to sing envies how often you cry. I lift my head, meaning to admire your lovely coat of feathers, but you fly off to the high grove and cannot easily be come near.