Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 16
The Ninth Day of the Ninth Month九日
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.
少年遇重陽。汲汲索黃菊。不論酒醇醨。泛此香馥馥。如今祿稍豐。甕有浮蟻綠。緣我老且慵。索莫情味薄。任爾霜葩開。但悲時節促。客來強洗盞。一酌歡已足。免使籬邊花。厚顔終愧恧。
In youth, when the Double Ninth (重陽) came round, I hurried to seek out the yellow chrysanthemums. Never minding whether the wine was strong or thin, when these were floated on it the fragrance was deep. Now my salary is a little ampler, and there is wine in the jar with green ants afloat. But because I am old and idle, I am desolate, and my relish for it is thin. I leave you to bloom in the frost or not, and grieve only that the season presses on. A guest came, and I forced myself to rinse the cup; pouring a single cup, the gladness was already ample. In the end I did not let the flowers beside the hedge be ashamed of me as one thick of face.