Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 3
Chanting the Millet-Rice Flower詠黍飯花
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 3 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.
花却纖圓色未黃。較他黍粒莫相當。此名休爲饞兒說。貪向林中覓飯香。
The flowers are fine and round, yet their color is not yellow, and set beside those grains of millet they do not match. Do not tell this name to a greedy child, for in his craving he would go into the grove to look for the smell of rice.
Interlinear notes 1
俗名黍飯花。細如黍米。然色白未黃。未類黍米。
In common speech it is called the 「millet-rice flower」. It is fine like millet grain, but its color is white and not yellow, so it is not the same as millet grain.