Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 2

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.

胡奈冬小雪。至春乃盈尺。麥苗潤校遲。猶愈便無澤。欲驗歲何如。書之爲准的。如看隴上靑。何必臘前白。或譬之絮塩。或况以璐璧。兹惟詞人事。歌詠所自作。我特書國祥。但效春秋則。有人展花牋。請我筆一擲。前人所未導。雖老儻可得。

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