Receiving a silver sheng ornament (銀勝) on Human Day (人日), the seventh of the first month人日受銀勝
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 0.9 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.
老眼驚看縷勝新。拜承天賜別生春。揷來何事頭偏重。只爲皇恩不爲銀。
My old eyes start to see the ornament woven of thread, so new
I bow and receive the king's gift, and a spring of its own comes into being
Once it is pinned on, why is my head so uncommonly heavy
It is only for the king's grace, not for the silver
Interlinear notes 2
三首
Three poems
人日·勝 — Human Day (人日) is the seventh of the first month, and the sheng (勝) is the ornament pinned in the hair on that day. The original plays on the three characters day (日), human (人), and sheng (勝). — translator
日爲人日勝爲人。銀色還能鬪鬢銀。今歲無心隨例受。聖恩猶及退閑身。
The day becomes the day of humans, the ornament takes a human shape
And its silver sheen vies instead with my white temple hair
This year I received it heedlessly, as precedent has it
Yet the king's grace reached even a body retired and idle
王母遺儀今尙在。剪成花勝好相投。老夫不必遵風俗。爲是天恩暫揷頭。
The usage left by the Queen Mother of the West (西王母) survives even now
And people love to cut flower-shaped ornaments and give them to one another
An old man need not keep to the custom
But since it is the king's grace I pin it in my hair a while