Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 17
Spring Placard Verses (春帖子) for a Private House私門春帖子
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.
1First poem
雪盡煙生瓦。氷銷水溢塘。陶門五株柳。隨分亦搖黃。
The snow is spent, and heat-shimmer rises from the roof tiles; the ice has melted, and water brims in the pond. The five willows before Tao Yuanming's gate also, each to its measure, shake out their yellow.
2Second poem
寒暄相代一宵中。向曉融怡氣蕩空。倒了椒觴霞上臉。自疑春與少年紅。
Cold and warmth divided from each other in a single night, and toward dawn a soft, bright air brims in the sky. I tip a cup of pepper wine (椒酒), and sunset glow rises in my cheeks; I half suspect that with the spring my youth has reddened too.