My Son Ham (涵) Answered, So I Used the Former Rhymes Again兒子涵見和。復用前韻。
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.
For lightness they hung it on a slender thread;
for swaying they chose a long branch.
Already it plays a zither without strings,
and again it blows a flute of pipes set side by side.
It is like the swaying of the bead tassels that weigh down a crown,
like the swinging of girdle-jades that follow one's steps.
Though there is no crane to dance facing it,
happily there are cicadas to take up the song.
It cries clearly together with the dew-beaded clumps of grass,
and flutters greenly together with the leaves in the wind.
It is lovely, and I would listen all day long,
but at bedtime I dislike that it should cost me a whole night.
It is just as if it were struck before my seat;
who would say that what hangs in the wood is far?
The singing courtesan is rather put to shame,
and leaves her Qin (秦) zither aside untuned.