Thanking Elder Gang (姜), Who Has Retired to Geumju (衿州), for the Gift of Wine謝衿州退老姜大丈惠酒
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 · 100 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 15 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.
Ten thousand men called your governing the best,
and said that you would stride on and rise to be one of the Three Dukes (三公).
How is it that, white-haired, you were blocked at a single post,
and in your late years came back to roost in an out-of-the-way place?
The fields you have are barren and yield little rice,
and I have heard that your whole household is near starving to death.
Where did you get a thousand-day wine brewed,
and write upon the seal and send it far off to this worn-out district?
The old clerk of a worn-out district grows the needier the older he gets;
dust rises in his crock, and there is no wine like green ants in it.
Having got your good wine, I dance for gladness
and plan to bring in my colleagues and get drunk together.
With what shall I repay a purpose so kindly and so thick?
I only pray that your years may overthrow those of Seonmunja (羨門子).
Interlinear notes 2
以中軍錄事。解官來居。
He gave up office as Recorder of the Central Army (中軍錄事) and came here to live.
君有峯城政譽。
He had a name for governing well at Bongseong (峯城).