Heavy snow on the fifteenth day of the first month of the musul year戊戌正月十五日大雪
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 · 90 Chinese characters · reading time 1 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.
How was it that in winter the snow was scant
And only when spring came it piled a foot deep
For wetting the barley shoots it is a little late
Yet still it is better than no wetting at all
To learn how the year will turn out
I write this down and take it for a measure
To see the green above the furrows
Why must it be white snow from before the twelfth month
Some liken it to willow floss and to salt
Some compare it to lovely jade
This is merely the business of men of letters
Made up of itself in the course of singing and chanting
I only record an auspicious sign for the state
And merely follow the method of the Spring and Autumn Annals (春秋)
Someone spreads out flower-patterned paper
And asks me to throw down my brush once for him
What those before me could not lead out
Perhaps, old as I am, I may yet get hold of