Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 17
Fierce heat苦熱
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.
酷熱與愁火。相煎心腑中。渾身起赤纇。困臥一軒風。風來亦炎然。如扇火爞爞。渴飮一杯水。水亦與湯同。嘔出不敢吸。喘氣塡喉嚨。欲寐暫忘却。又被蚊蝱攻。如何流謫地。遭此百端凶。死亦非所懼。天胡令我窮。
The fierce heat and the fire of my cares Boil each other down within my breast Red welts have risen over my whole body And worn out I lie in the wind of the hall The wind comes, and it too is hot As if the fanned flames were blazing Parched, I drink a single cup of water And the water too is like boiled broth I spit it out and dare not swallow And my panting breath fills my throat I would sleep and forget it for a while But the mosquitoes and gadflies invade again Why is it that in this land of banishment I meet with all these evil things To die is not what I fear So why does Heaven press me so hard