Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 4
Given to Director of the Palace Library Jeong (秘監), Asking for a Bamboo Painted in Ink贈丁秘監求墨君
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.
1First Poem
大手何曾擇重輕。塵牋未害寫琅莖。此君眞性君偏識。豈爲卑低地不生。
When has great skill ever chosen between a noble ground and a base one? There is no harm in painting jade-like stalks even on dust-laden paper. You above all know the true nature of this bamboo: how should it refuse to grow because the ground is low and mean?
Interlinear notes 2
而安
This is Ian (而安).
二首○六月十二日
Two poems. The twelfth day of the sixth month.
2Second Poem
幾人豁捨雪紈輕。乞得吾公竹一莖。我恃親情將硬紙。唯思此足度餘生。
How many have readily brought out silk white as snow and got from our lord a single stalk of bamboo? Trusting in our friendship, I hold out stiff paper, thinking that this alone will be enough to see out the rest of my life.