Following the rhymes of the quatrains sent earlier, given to Ouyang the Twenty-ninth, Baekho次前所寄絶句韻。贈歐陽二十九伯虎。
1Preface
予昔登第之年。甞與同年遊通濟寺。予及四五人。佯落後徐行。聯鞍唱和。以首唱者韻。各賦四韻詩。此旣路上口唱。非有所筆。而亦且以爲詩人常語。便不復記之也。其後再聞有人傳云。此詩流入中國。大爲士大夫所賞。其人唯誦一句云。蹇驢影裏碧山晚。斷鴈聲中紅樹秋。此句尤其所愛者。予聞之。亦未之信也。後復有人能記一句云。獨鶴何歸天杳杳。行人不盡路悠悠。其首落句則皆所不知也。予雖未至聦明。亦不甚椎鈍者也。豈其時率爾而作。略不置意而偶忘之耶。昨者足下訪予。有坐客言及此詩。因問之曰。相國此詩。傳播乃國。信乎。君遽對曰。不唯傳播。皆作畫簇看之。客稍疑之。君曰。若爾。予明年還國。可賚其畫及此詩全本來。以示也。噫。果若子之言。則此實非分之言。非所敢當也。雖然。義不可虛受。且欲備東還時儻記吾詩。不忘向之二段事。以是次前所寄絶句最後一編韻寄之。其必以此者。此詩本起於因君之求。予詩所作也。今之所贈。亦頗相類然爾。惶恐云云。
In the year I passed the examination long ago, I once went out with my fellow graduates to Tongjesa. Four or five of us deliberately fell behind and went slowly, drawing our saddles abreast and chanting back and forth to one another; following the rhymes of the one who chanted first, each of us made a poem in four rhymes. As these were chanted aloud on the road, nothing was written down, and thinking them the ordinary talk of poets, I did not keep them in memory either.
Afterward I heard again from someone who passed on the report that this poem had made its way into China and that the gentry there praised it greatly. That man had memorized only one couplet, saying, "In the shadow of the lame donkey the green mountains darken; amid the broken cries of the geese the red trees are autumn," and he said he cherished this couplet most of all. Hearing him, I did not believe it. Later still another man remembered a couplet, saying, "Where does the solitary crane return? The sky is far; the travelers are without end and the road is far and far." Both the first couplet and the last were things I did not know. Dull as I am, I am not a man of very slow wit either. How is it that I made them at random then, kept them not at all in mind, and so happened to forget them?
Yesterday, when you came to call on me, there was one among the seated guests who spoke of this poem and asked, "They say this poem of Your Excellency's has spread through your country — is it true?" and you answered at once, "Not only has it spread; they have all made it into painted scrolls and look at it." The guest doubted a little, and you said, "If so, then next year I shall go back to my country and bring the painting and the whole text of this poem to show you."
Ah, if it is indeed as you say, this is truly more than my lot deserves, and not a thing I dare to take upon myself. Yet in right I cannot receive it for nothing, and I wish also that when you return eastward you may perhaps remember my poem and not forget these two matters. So I follow the rhymes of the very last of the quatrains sent earlier and send this. The reason I must use this one is that the poem was made in the first place at your asking; and what I give now is also much of a kind with it. I am only abashed.
Interlinear notes 1
幷序
The preface is appended together with the poems.
2The first poem
慙愧區區一首詩。一觀猶足又圖爲。雖知中國曾無外。過自爲辭恐或欺。
How shameful, that one trifling poem — a single look at it were ample, and they have made a painting of it besides. I know that China has never held others to be outsiders, yet I fear that to dress up my own words too much would be to deceive.
3The second poem
此邦猶少愛予詩。中國何人肯許爲。更作畫圖雖似誕。觀君惇信不應欺。
Even in this country few cherish my poems; who in China would gladly say they do? That they have made a painting of it besides seems far-fetched, yet seeing your solid good faith, you are not a man to deceive.