Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 18

Matching the rhymes of Vice Minister Kim Chang (敞), who had answered the poem Reminder (拾遺) Bak Munsu (文秀) wrote on the peony painting the Duke keeps次韻金侍郞敞和朴拾遺文秀題公所蓄畫牡丹

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 · 5 passages · 140 Chinese characters · reading time 1.5 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 18 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

白玉床頭錦幄開。半窺西子倚歌臺。豈期海外重相見。應逐鴟夷一舸來。

At the head of the white jade couch the brocade curtain opens And Xi Shi (西施) leans on the singing terrace and half peeps out Who would have looked to meet her again beyond the seas She must have come following that one boat of Chiyi (鴟夷)

2Second poem

雲錦香囊殿上開。似聞西母自龜臺。知君不是劉家後。第幾函中得受來。

A cloud-brocade scent bag is opened above the hall And it is as though one heard that the Queen Mother of the West was coming from the Turtle Terrace (龜臺) I know you are no descendant of the Liu house So out of which numbered case did you receive her

Interlinear notes 1

牡丹有劉家紅。

Among peonies there is the 「Liu house red (劉家紅)」.

3Third poem

老大逢花眼嬾開。未客閑上賞春臺。君家近得無雙艶。莫爲灰心不噢來。

Grown old, I meet the flowers and my eyes are too lazy to open Nor am I a guest who climbs at leisure the terrace for viewing spring At your house of late a beauty without a second has appeared So do not say that because my heart is ashes I will not come to caress it

4Fourth poem

數朶仙花意外開。緣君名字在丹臺。新詩不啻千金擲。故作嫣然一笑來。

A few blossoms of the immortals' flower have opened unlooked for And it is because your name is on the Cinnabar Terrace (丹臺) The new poem does not stop at throwing down a thousand gold And of set purpose she shows one parting smile

5Fifth poem

人種春紅苦待開。似邀仙女隔瑤臺。此花妖艶無時節。把酒何妨日日來。

People plant the red flowers of spring and wait in anguish for them to open As though they were meeting a fairy from beyond the Jade Terrace (瑤臺) But this flower is bewitching and keeps no season So what harm in taking wine and coming day after day

‹ Answering Reminder Bak, two poemsContentsDrifting motes ›Listen to this piece