Gazing at the House of the Late Academician Yi Baeksun, Moved to Feeling望故李學士百順家有感
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 · 3 passages · 84 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 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.
1The First
我來此地亦因君。幸卜芳隣日與親。舊宅依然山下在。草荒苔老闃無人。
That I came to this ground was because of you,
and luckily, choosing a fair neighborhood, we were close day after day.
The old house still stands below the hill,
but the grass is rank and the moss is old, and it is still and empty of people.
Interlinear notes 1
初入此京。公卜地而處。以一與子。猶望相對。
When we first came into this capital the gentleman chose ground and settled there, and gave one plot of it to me, wishing that we might still look upon each other.
2The Second
柀招無日不經過。大醉扶來趁晚鴉。今日定將誰擧爵。出門痛哭望君家。
There was no day when I was not called and did not pass by,
and being very drunk I was held up and came home following the evening crows.
Today, with whom on earth shall I lift a cup?
Going out of the gate I wail aloud and gaze at your house.
3The Third
地下應無一滴春。我今獨吸杯中酒。誰能作筧連泉扃。激此淡觴霑子咮。
In the world below there will surely not be a drop of spring wine;
I now drain the wine in the cup alone.
Who will make a trough and join it to the spring's bar,
and let this thin wine flow down to wet your beak?