Matching the rhymes to answer Pak, Director of the Secretariat, again次韻復和朴中舍
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 · 1 passages · 120 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.
When I think back on the days when I was young and vigorous,
my delight in what I liked went as I wished.
Now my zest has withered,
and there is not one thing I would grudge.
My flowering heart turned to ash long ago,
and I look on a homely face as a beauty of the realm.
When I look at a book, drowsiness comes at once,
and I lie down with the book left on my breast.
Sometimes I would play a game of baduk,
but where am I suddenly to find a match?
When cares come I long for the wine cup,
and ask my mountain wife for it myself.
All at once I thought of this gayageum,
and there was a seller, and we agreed on a price.
I am indebted to you, who kept it and sent it to me,
and my grateful feeling pierces me deeply.
I have little romantic sentiment from the first,
and my heart is like wood and stone.
And besides, I play as I please,
having never learned it from a master.
Who would urge me to give it up?
I would sooner eat my fill to no purpose.
I am glad only of your poem,
which seems to unfold the gayageum's heart in its stead.