Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 16
The Riverside in Early Winter初冬江上
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.
黃蘆折脛垂。彩鴨插頭睡。乾雪響漁蓑。灣口孤舟艤。閑騎果下駒。獨往江邊寺。海風忽吹沙。浙浙衝面起。水國天早寒。初冬已裂耳。往來不須嗔。官事安可避。
The yellow reeds hang with their shins snapped, and the patterned ducks tuck in their heads and doze. Dry snow rustles on the fisherman's straw cape, and a lone boat has come in at the mouth of the inlet. Idly riding a gwaha pony (果下馬), I go alone to the temple by the river. The sea wind suddenly blows up the sand, rising with a hiss and striking my face. In this land of waters the weather turns cold early: even in early winter my ears already seem about to split. There is no cause to resent this going and coming — how should one shirk the business of the state?