Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 14
Thanking Choe the Licentiate for the Gift of Crabapples (林檎) and Sweet Melons謝崔秀才惠林檎甘瓜
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 14 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.
1First Poem
我家難制衆頑童。綠子生時已摘空。珍重先生能待熟。肯分消渴一詩翁。
In my house it is hard to keep the several rascals in hand, and when the green fruit sets they have already picked it bare. How weighty of you, sir, to have waited until they ripened and gladly shared them with a thirsty old poet.
Interlinear notes 1
二首
Two poems.
2Second Poem
多𤬞少瓣味如飴。狸首龍蹄品絶奇。自爾年年期見貺。此翁雖老舌猶兒。
Much flesh and few seeds, the taste like malt syrup; Lishou (狸首) and Longti (龍蹄) are kinds most strange. From now on I look for them to be sent year by year, for this old man, though old, has a tongue still like a child's.