The Four Gentlemen of the National Academy Having Answered in Kind, I Use the Previous Rhymes Again and Reply to Each — Choe, the Academy Instructor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。 崔學諭
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.
Your poetic rhymes, sir, ring through the grove of letters,
and I am ashamed to have known them late, both my cheeks red.
What I sang before is nothing to boast of either,
being idly like a cold insect crying on a dew-fallen evening.
The great shaman has already taken away the lesser shaman's spirit,
and the skillful wife must despise the clumsy wife's weaving.
Seeing your clear poem once is like having seen your face,
and there is no need to wait again for the luster of the jade grove.
Though I have not seen the figured tiger before my eyes,
ten li of clear wind surge up after its whistling.
Your gift is so weighty it is as if I had received a pair of white jade discs,
and if a price were set, it would be fit to match a hundred catties of gold.
Your talent is fit to take up the hand that unrolls the royal rescripts,
and would briskly tip rivers and lakes to supply the inkstone's water.
Why are you still poor like Guangwen (廣文),
and have become a guest on a seat without even a rug to sit on?
Who, for your sake, will be the matchmaker to tilt the realm,
and have you chosen at once to be at the king's side?