Eating the pear that people call the emperor's pear食俗所號天子梨
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 · 110 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 5 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.
Jackals and tigers fill the old capital;
how has this famous pear come here?
If it is a thing of the new capital,
since when has it been planted and raised?
This district was a village by the river long ago,
and the plowing and breaking of its fields is still not ample.
What leisure was there to take up the planting of fruit,
that it should have become a living for men by now?
And where does the trader get them,
that he brings them out to sell always in season?
I am just about to split one with a sharp knife,
and before eating the water runs in my mouth.
Only, since it bears the name of emperor,
it is not fitting for a subject to eat.
If it was bought and got in the market,
then it is my stipend passed over into it.
And my stipend is what my lord bestowed,
so what further doubt is there in eating it?
I eat three or four,
and ice and snow cool my liver and spleen.
I only bow twice and thank Heaven;
whom else should I thank?
Interlinear notes 1
時虜兵止舊京。
At that time the barbarian troops were stationed in the old capital.