Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 4

Replying Again又和

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 · 48 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 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.

縱有淸流氷雪冷。尙懲炎日石金焦。一看瓊樹方知爽。不是泉防暑氣歊。

Though the clear running water is cold as ice and snow, I still dread how stone and iron burn in the blazing sun. Only on seeing the jewel-like trees do I know what coolness is; it is not that the spring has kept off the hot vapour.

哿矣李夫子。浴蘭專一時。龍頭今始見。應兆躍鱗池。

How fine you are, Master Yi! Your bathing in orchid water has had its season all to itself. Only now have I seen the Prime Graduate, a sign that scales will leap up out of the pond.

Interlinear notes 1

壯元官微。故云。

I said this because the Prime Graduate's office was low.