Matching the Rhymes of Bai Letian's Fifteen Poems Written in Illness — Five Quatrains Written in Illness (次韻和白樂天病中十五首 病中五絶)次韻和白樂天病中十五首 病中五絶
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 · 140 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 2 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.
In those years my step was so quick that few could keep up,
and that my speech and my verse were the same, all the world knew.
In ordinary days I boasted idly of having three quicknesses,
yet from this deep sickness alone I am slow to recover.
The breath left in me is thin as a thread about to snap,
but long life and early death rest with Heaven.
The people of the world hold only to the wish to cling to life,
yet to die old is one and the same as to die young.
Interlinear notes 2
順和
Answered in order.
昔朋伴間目予爲三捷。步捷語捷詩捷也。
My friends used to call me the Three Quicknesses (三捷) — quick of step, quick of speech, and quick at verse.
酒澆焦涸吻長濡。詩引風流思不枯。唯是癯身肥不得。患緣身有不如無。
Pouring wine, I keep my parched lips always wet,
and drawing out elegance with verse, my thoughts do not run dry.
Only this gaunt body cannot be made to fatten;
trouble arises because there is a body, so a body is worse than none.
算量千事暫妨眠。不是觀空衲子禪。唯喜得添閑氣味。簿書那到退翁前。
Reckoning over a thousand matters, I lose a little sleep,
and this is no monk's meditation on emptiness.
I am glad only that the savor of leisure has been added:
how should heaps of documents reach an old man who has retired?
豈爲微痾特地憂。步欹唯礙出門遊。出門未必心開豁。猶望滄溟去去舟。
Why should I worry so particularly over a small ailment?
It is only that my steps totter and bar me from going out of doors.
Even going out, my heart would not surely open;
still I gaze at the boats going away toward the blue sea.