Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 17
Bitter Cold in the Second Month二月苦寒
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.
北帝已去東君來。胡奈餘寒猶烈烈。應是玄鑣去未遙。蒼精退讓方弭節。春風無力日色淡。未掃臘前三丈雪。會待東君行定位。緘桃蘊杏芳心泄。
The lord of the north has already gone and the lord of spring has come, so why is the lingering cold still so fierce? Perhaps it is that the black horse has not gone far, and, withdrawing and yielding to the green lord, only now halts its carriage. The spring wind has no strength and the sunlight is thin, and the three feet of snow that fell before the last month are not swept away. If one waits until the lord of spring has settled his seat, the shut peach and the hidden apricot will burst their fragrant hearts.