Written on the Household Spring, on the Twenty-Third Day of the Fifth Month五月二十三日。題家泉。
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 · 3 passages · 92 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 4 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.
There is a cold spring at my house. In the fourth or fifth month it wells up and fills the pond only after it has passed through one heavy rain. After that it does not dry up unless there is a great drought, and it ceases only when the ninth month comes. It is neither water pooled by the rainy season nor a welling spring, so I cannot know the reason for it.
Interlinear notes 1
二首○幷序
Two poems. ○ A preface is attached as well.
初因雨出晴恒湧。認有源渟秋必焦。我導此泉非地有。天應賜我禦炎歊。
At first it comes out with the rain, yet once the sky clears it keeps welling up,
so I take its source to be standing water — but in autumn it dries without fail.
I say that this spring does not lie in the earth:
surely Heaven gave it to me to keep off the heat.
大熱要寒水。泉流必此時。此時吾富貴。盈井又盈池。
In the great heat one must have cold water,
and it is just at this season that the spring flows.
At this season alone am I well off and held precious,
for the well is full and the pond is full.