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

By the Pond on the Full-Moon Day of the Sixth Month六月十五日池上

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 · 84 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.

1First Poem

雨惡泥深莫嘯儔。蘭亭古事已難修。未能免俗猶浮髮。任送霜蓬汚鏡流。

The rain is fierce and the mire deep, so I cannot call my friends, and the old affair of the Orchid Pavilion (蘭亭) is already hard to bring about. Not having escaped the ways of the world, I still wash my hair and let it float, and let my frost-like tangled hair foul the mirror-like water.

Interlinear notes 3

三首

Three poems.

我國以此日爲喫飮。

In our country this day is kept as a day for eating and drinking.

俗以此日爲流頭日。

Among the people this day is kept as Yudu Day (流頭日).

2Second Poem

泉豈人人得有哉。殷勤求索始流盃。吾家坐致盈盈沼。反渴常來友不來。

How can every man have a spring of his own? Only by earnest seeking and searching does one get to float a cup. My house sits with a brimming pond at hand, yet I thirst instead, for the friends who always came do not come.

3Third Poem

我家有酒堪招客。何處無泉可泛觴。都是雨師防樂事。天敎孤負此辰良。

There is wine at my house, enough to call guests, and where is there no spring to float a cup? It is all because the rain god blocked our pleasure, and Heaven has made us waste this fine day.

Interlinear notes 1

因雨未出。又無客。

Because of the rain I could not go out, and there were no guests either.