Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 17

The Children Hung a Wind Chime on a Tree, and Its Sound Was Lovely, So I Drew It in a Poem兒輩以風甌掛樹。其聲可愛。以詩狀之。

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 · 80 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 17 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.

誰聯靑玉片。高掛綠林梢。工席敲方響。仙樓吸洞蕭。候風嫌暫靜。看樹喜頻搖。莫較啼枝鳥。堪欺嘒葉蜩。塔鈴終日語。天樂半空飄。深苑凄涼景。閑窓寂寞宵。亂棖全似競。微動乍如遙。休道聲無譜。分明曲自調。

Who strung together these shards of green jade and hung them high at the tip of a branch in the green wood? It is like striking the chime-stones (方響) in a musician's seat, like blowing the flute in an immortal's tower. Waiting for the wind, it dislikes being still even for a moment; watching the tree, it rejoices when it is shaken often. Do not compare it with the birds that cry on the branches, though it might well deceive the cicadas that cry in the leaves. The pagoda chimes speak the whole day long, and music of heaven is scattered through the air. It is the desolate scene of a deep garden, the silent night of an idle window. When they strike in confusion they seem all to be quarreling; when they sway faintly they suddenly seem far away. Do not say that the sound has no score: assuredly the tune is in tune of itself.