Passing the Woods and Spring of the Late Minister Gi (奇)過故奇相國林泉
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 · 2 passages · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 1 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.
相公曾此日開筵。一擲靑錢僅百千。爲問華堂誰幻出。不如茅榭舊天然。
His Excellency once opened a banquet here on this very day,
and the green coins he threw down at a cast came to a hundred thousand
I ask: who conjured up this splendid house?
It is not what the old thatched pavilion was, natural of itself
Interlinear notes 2
今爲他有。
It now belongs to someone else.
公架茅亭於池上。環坐飮酒可愛。今以華屋換之。
His Excellency raised a thatched pavilion above the pond and they sat round it drinking, which was a lovely thing; now it has been changed into a splendid house.
金釵零落歸何處。珠履參羅記昔年。我亦當時陪飮客。白頭重過淚如泉。
Where have they scattered to, those who wore golden hairpins?
I remember the years gone by, when men in pearl-sewn shoes stood in rows
I too was a guest who attended him at his drinking in those days,
and passing again, white-haired, my tears are like a spring