Royal Secretary (承宣) Yu Gyeonghyeon (敬玄) answered in verse, so I replied again庾承宣敬玄見和。復答之。
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 · 4 passages · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 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
斷絃何苦鳳膠連。端遇知音亦是天。更荷一篇提奬重。家傳不趐萬金傳。
Why labor to join a broken string with phoenix glue
That I have truly met one who knows my music is also Heaven's will
And now I have received besides one piece of heavy praise
I shall have it handed down in my house as more than ten thousand gold
2Second poem
二絶名途去轉遲。遷延正似遇坑池。偶登巍秩先夫子。駑蹇時來亦絶馳。
Even with two excellences your going on the road of fame was the slower
And your hanging back was as though you had met with pits and ponds
By chance I came to high rank before you, my master (夫子)
But a dull nag too, when it meets its time, runs out surpassingly
3Third poem
相逢拘迫未忘形。都爲中樞各繫名。不及昔年陪劇飮。水精杯入手中行。
That we meet and yet, constrained, cannot forget outward form
Is all because at the Privy Council (中樞) each of us has a name attached
It is not as it was when I attended you of old and we drank our fill
And the crystal cup came into our hands and went round and round
Interlinear notes 1
予曾賦公家水精杯。
I once wrote a poem on the crystal cup of the Duke's house.
4Fourth poem
揚歷淸華未必榮。榮君到處許同行。更期鳳閣雙飛後。兜率天宮亦共生。
To have passed through all the clear and splendid offices is not necessarily honor
But to my glory you have let me go with you wherever you go
And I pledge again that after we are born side by side in the Phoenix Pavilion (鳳閣)
We shall be born together in the Tusita heaven as well
Interlinear notes 1
予尤省同爲諫議。又於此同寮故云。
The Duke and I became Remonstrators (諫議) together at the Secretariat (省), and here too we became colleagues, and so I said this.