Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 4
Eating Red Plums for the First Time初食朱李
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.
月六日十二。我始食朱李。新邑無此物。知自舊京至。凡物仰舊京。舊京難遽棄。經宿遽至茲。半已訛色味。此亦空能得。所以價翔耳。數箇足自飧。再喫安可冀。留核種亦宜。吾生能有幾。
On the twelfth day of the sixth month I ate red plums for the first time. In the new town there is no such thing, so I know they came from the old capital. For everything we lean on the old capital; it is hard to cast off the old capital all at once. Only after lying by for a night do they barely reach here, and half their colour and taste has already turned. Even these cannot be had for nothing, and so the price only soars. Two or three are enough to stay my hunger, so how should I hope to eat them again? It would be well to keep the stones and plant them, but how much of my life is left?