Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 3

Matching the Rhymes of Vice Minister Im's Reply to the Poems "Planting Vegetables" and "Jidang"次韻林亞卿見和菜種詩及地棠詩

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 · 2 passages · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min

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.

不須梨棗等於侯。老學鋤園也自符。要見畦蔬森綠脛。擬看村稻嚲黃鬚。營生計拙雖堪愧。憚役奴頑亦故愚。地瘠莫加培養力。苗乾方欲引泉濡。

There is no need to set pears and jujubes beside a lord's fief, and learning to weed a field in old age suits me of itself. I would like to see the vegetables of the ridge standing thick on green stems, and I mean to see the village rice let down its yellow whiskers. That I am clumsy in the arts of keeping a household may be called shameful, and the dullness of a servant who shirks his work is a studied foolishness too. Though the ground is barren I cannot add the strength to heap it up, and now that the sprouts are drying I mean to draw spring water and wet them.

Interlinear notes 1

成幹

This is Seonggan (成幹).

狼狽行藏自君侯。中間官况頗難符。窮愁似可深磨骨。慍色猶無暫見鬚。道欲大伸先少屈。子非今智昔曾愚。飛騰路廓行無礙。會把人文却賁濡。

Advancing and withdrawing went awry, and it began with you. All that while the circumstances of your service were quite hard to fit. The cares of destitution were enough to gnaw deep into the bone, yet no look of anger ever showed on your whiskers even for a moment. For a way to be spread out greatly it must first bend a little, so it is not that you are wise now and were foolish before. The road for soaring is opening, and nothing will stand in your way, and in the end you will adorn and steep the age with the writings of man.

Interlinear notes 3

公昔自獜守見流謫。

His Lordship had formerly been magistrate of In (獜) district and was then sent into exile.

右二首○此詩。自李君一菜種一任意。君亦爾。故子順之。

The above are two poems. ○ Of these poems Master Yi (李君) made one on 「planting vegetables」 and one as the mood took him. You did likewise, and so I followed suit.

故子順之 — the source text has the character 「子」 (you), but taking it as an error for 「予」 (I), it was read as corrected. — the translator

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