Matching Again the Rhymes of the Academician's Reply to the Poem Asking Vice Minister Pak for a Clump of Chrysanthemums又次學士和侍郞朴絪乞菊栽詩韻
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 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.
Bearing the cold, how does it alone know how to bloom?
Sooner will it cling withered to the stem than fall to the sand.
All of this is to be floated in the cup on the Double Ninth;
were it not so, it would have been a spring flower in the third month.
When the wind comes it sways, and its scent is such that one could grasp it;
when the frost lies heavy it is lovely beyond lovely, its colour doubled.
Share one clump with a house of your own surname,
though even so it will surely long for your house still.
A few clumps newly planted, and green shoots come up;
day after day I bank up rich soil to fatten the barren sand.
Already it borrowed the breath of spring to draw up its leaves;
why must it borrow autumn's power before it blooms at last?
The kindness of tending it runs deep, and its roots harden by degrees;
the poem chanting its form is fine, and its worth rises all the more.
On the Double Ninth, where shall I climb high and drink?
I count on nothing but the house of the elegant Academician.