Matching the rhymes of Vice Minister Yi, who answered the gayageum poem and sent it to me次韻李侍郞和加耶琴詩來贈
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 1.4 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.
This old man's heart, in cherishing a guest,
is not exactly to thank Master Yi for coming.
My gate being idle, guests are naturally few,
and when there is wine, when have I ever grudged it?
Sitting alone with no one to talk with,
the traces of care show in the color of my face.
Sometimes I am bound up in the world's business too,
and dust and earth fill my breast day by day.
There was one who sent me a gayageum
and repaid what I had sought for years.
The airs I used to play I have forgotten,
yet I look to make up both bands of music complete.
Happily you threw me a poem pitched to its sound,
and its measures fit the crooked and the straight.
The air is high and truly lovable,
but my playing is rough and cannot pierce with grief.
This too is a habit and an ailment,
and not a thing to be treated with needle or stone lancet.
Fond of it as I am, I am not practiced myself,
and only hope to get a hand of renown.
What is hard about providing singing girls and music?
Poor as I am, I eat by leaning on my stipend.
In short, I shall call for crimson skirts again,
and sitting there unfold my deep feelings.