Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 4
Climbing the Garden Hill at Home, I Heard Music Far Off and Straightway Composed to the Tune "Eogao" (漁家傲)登家園遙聽樂聲卽作詞漁家傲
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.
鱗錯萬家遙可按。玉樓高處褰羅幔。應是筵開紅錦爛。方望斷。唯聞風送金絲慢。緬想倡兒揎露腕。嬌顔捧酒流微盼。日脚垂欹人不散。遮老漢。灰心煽起那堪亂。
Ten thousand houses ranged like fish scales can be picked out even from afar, and high up in a jade tower the silk curtains are drawn back. No doubt the mats are spread and the red silks are resplendent. My gaze goes out and is cut off, and I hear only the slow sound of strings that the wind carries over. Far off I picture a young entertainer rolling back her sleeve to bare her arm, offering wine with a lovely face and letting her glance slip aside. Though the sun's rays slant down, the company does not break up. As for this old man — his cooled heart is fanned and rises; how shall he bear the flutter of it?