Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 5
Thanking One Who Sent Pears謝人惠梨
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.
近因口爽嗜寒羞。每索酸梨尙未周。得爾摘從園上寄。欣予免向市中求。截成片月才離手。含作融氷已入喉。時潤衰翁唯此物。猶勝直豁萬金投。
Of late my palate is rough and I delight in cold food I kept looking for sour pears but had not yet got them in plenty Now I have what you picked in your garden and sent and am glad to be spared going to market to seek them Cut, they become slivers of moon just leaving the hand held in the mouth, they become melting ice already going down the throat This alone is what now and then moistens a worn old man better still than buying with ten thousand gold flung down at once