The Four Gentlemen of the National Academy Having Answered in Kind, I Use the Previous Rhymes Again and Reply to Each — Han, the Grand Erudite大學韓大博昌綏，尹學正復圭，崔學諭宗裕，皇甫學諭琯見和。復用前韻各答。 韓大博
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 · 126 Chinese characters · reading time 1.3 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 16 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.
That year we signed our names together on the dragon roll (龍榜),
and the single sheet bestowed on us vied with the sunset clouds in redness.
It was a spring of green waves when chanting at Qujiang was bracing,
and a bright moonlit night when the banquet at Gyeongwon (瓊苑) grew ripe.
A grand gathering of examination fellows had not been known from of old,
and the women, greedy to see it, all left off their weaving.
How many branches of that time's peach and plum are left?
And those who are left are all of a haggard color.
Looking back on the old outing, it is all one round of dream,
and thirty-four years have passed like a stroke of lightning.
There is no need to sigh that the temples are flecked and the face wrinkled:
if we reckon our years, we have passed fifty.
I am old now and attached to the tail of the officials of letters (詞臣),
like a sick tree barely revived by a drop of spring dew.
You too have only just been appointed to the office of erudite,
and have not escaped being a sour and chilly guest in a green jacket.
I wait for you to follow after and reach the rank of the attendants,
when the potsherd will be startled at last that a jewel is at its side.