Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 18
Reading the Shangu Collection (山谷集) by Chance, Matching the Rhymes of 「Threads of Rain」偶讀山谷集。次韻雨絲。
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.
斜風掣斷乍如稀。亂下翻欺繭緖微。未補碧羅天忽遠。欲成纖縠霧交飛。漁翁誤喜縫疏網。貧婦虛驚緯廢機。收得一番歸紡績。四方何處嘆無衣。
The slanting wind snatches and snaps them, so that of a sudden they seem sparse, and falling in confusion they even look down on the fine thread of the cocoon. Unable to darn the sky of blue silk, they suddenly draw away, and as though to make a fine gauze they fly mingled with the mist. The fisherman is gladdened amiss, wondering if he may mend his worn net, and the poor wife is startled in vain, wondering if a weft has come to her abandoned loom. If this one fall were gathered up and turned to spinning and weaving, in what quarter of the world would anyone sigh for want of clothes?
Interlinear notes 1
一作織婦
In some texts this reads 「jikbu (織婦)」.