Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 14
Making Fun of a Drunken Monk Who Rose at Night to Chew Ice嘲醉僧夜起嚼氷
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.
酒醒中夜嚼寒氷。百品珍羞敵未能。此味平生疑獨享。老髠先我飽嘗曾。
In the middle of the night, as the wine wears off, I chew cold ice, and no array of rare delicacies can stand up against it. I thought this taste was mine alone to enjoy all my life, but the old monk has had his fill of it before me.