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 · 1 passages · 104 Chinese characters · reading time 1 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 19 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.
From a gourd you became a flask,
and are used for holding wine.
Your neck is long and your belly hollow;
you neither choke nor sing.
And so I have held you a treasure,
and had you lacquered to a shine.
Those things that are called wine jars and wine casks,
crocks and pots —
while they are close at hand
they do only as I bid them,
but when I go off to distant places
they are too stiff to follow after.
How lovable you are, my flask,
who never dare to leave me.
When I went ten thousand li to the south,
the road was rough and steep;
ahead there was no cold spring,
behind, even the clear ponds had given out.
It was only with what you held
that I wetted my lips.
Loaded onto the cart that came behind —
why must it have been a chii (鴟夷)?
How I ought to repay your merit
I do not know what would be fitting.
I shall enfeoff you as Duke of the Flask (壺公)
and give you the office that has charge of wine.