Choe An (崔安), Prefect of Jeju, Sent Me Dongting Tangerines, and I Thank Him with a Poem (濟州太守崔安。以洞庭橘見寄。以詩謝之。)濟州太守崔安。以洞庭橘見寄。以詩謝之。
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) 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.
除却耽羅見尙難。遠來何况水程艱。貴人門閥猶稀得。最感年年及老殘。
Apart from Tamna they are hard even to lay eyes on,
and they came from afar — how rough the sea route must have been!
Even in noble households they are rarely come by,
yet year after year they reach even this worn old body, and for that I am most grateful.
Interlinear notes 2
三首
Three poems
此橘。耽羅外無之。
This tangerine is found nowhere but in Tamna.
圓於金彈粲堪珍。猶似霜林始摘新。呼作洞庭尤可喜。飮筵宜伴洞庭春。
Rounder and more lustrous than a golden pellet, it is worth treasuring,
and as fresh as though just plucked in a frosted grove.
That it is called Dongting (洞庭) pleases me the more,
and at the drinking table it is fit to pair with Dongting Spring (洞庭春).
先生見替渡江淮。更有何人餉我來。此果難甞眞細事。祝君尋拜省郞迴。
When the master is replaced and crosses over the Jiang and the Huai (江淮),
who else will there be to send them to me?
That this fruit will be hard to taste is truly a small matter;
I pray that you may soon be appointed a Director of the Secretariat (省郞) and return.