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

The Spring at My House Has Long Run Dry and the Wine Too Has Not Been Kept Up, and So I Composed This (家泉久涸。酒亦未繼。因賦之。)家泉久涸。酒亦未繼。因賦之。

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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 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.

泉因天旱今方涸。酒爲家貧忽自枯。釀斷莫供愁肺仰。汲遙難趁燥脣須。醒非楚客淸然者。渴豈文園病也夫。炮却此身爲底物。如何兩厄一時俱。

The spring, with heaven in drought, has now run dry, and the wine, my house being poor, has suddenly given out of itself. Brewing having stopped, I cannot supply what my sorrowing lungs look up for; the drawing-place being far, it is hard to supply what my parched lips wait for. Though sober, I am not that traveler of Chu who was said to be alone pure, and though thirsty, how should this be the wasting-thirst of Sima Xiangru (司馬相如)? To what use would it put this body, roasting it so, that two afflictions come upon me at once?