Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 16
Three Quatrains絶句三首
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.
1The First
松亭春日永。午枕夢初驚。欲雨礎先潤。有風琴自鳴。
At the pine pavilion the spring day is long; from the daytime pillow the dream has just broken. Rain is coming, and the plinth stones wet first; the wind rises, and the zither sounds of itself.
2The Second
樹影晚斜窓。花陰晴蒲地。素琴猶嬾彈。始覺眞無事。
The shadows of the trees slant across the window at dusk; the shade of the flowers is spread over the cleared ground. Even the plain zither I am still too idle to play; only now do I know what it truly is to have no affairs.
3The Third
春暖鳥聲軟。日斜人影長。小園山意足。隨意自倘佯。
Spring is warm, and the voices of the birds are soft; the sun slants, and the shadows of men are long. In the little garden the mountain's intent is ample, and I stroll about of myself, as my heart goes.