Matching the Rhymes of Minister Yi, Who Sent a Poem in Reply to the One on the Rhyme-Word "Cage" (籠)次韻李相國和籠字韻詩見寄
1Preface
昨者。奉閱相國垂和予舊著籠字韻詩見寄。謹詳辭語。綺靡琬麗。實宰相富貴中語也。若爾。予亦曾備相位。何詩之癯瘦。令人不喜見之耶。甚嘆甚嘆。此詩予已作十首。才窮。似不能更和。然以見及之意。有不可虛孤者。謹次韻奉呈云。
Yesterday I received and read the poem the Minister sent in reply to the one I wrote long ago on the rhyme-word "cage" (籠). Examining his words with care, I found them lovely and beautiful, truly words that come out of a minister's wealth and honor.
If that is so, then I too once held a minister's post — why are my own poems so gaunt that people do not care to look at them? It is a thing much to be lamented, much to be lamented.
Of this poem I have already written ten, and my talent is spent, so it seems I cannot reply again. Yet I cannot let the kindness of such thoughtfulness go for nothing, and so I humbly match the rhymes and send this up.
Interlinear notes 2
仁植
Insik (仁植)
幷序
With a preface attached
2First Poem
到頭風月喜形容。萬像難逃筆下籠。不獨時花姸李賀。端知美玉麗崔融。平生憤見猖狂虜。出將猶爲矍鑠翁。鎭塞舊幢油尙碧。斬胡遺劒血餘紅。山川盡入驅馳內。鈞軸今歸掌握中。韓鉞謝篇無一缺。官班曷不帶西東。
In the end you delight in giving shape to wind and moon, and all forms can hardly escape the net beneath your brush. The loveliness of flowers in season is not Li He's (李賀) alone; the loveliness of fine jade I know to be Cui Rong's (崔融). All your life you have seen the raging barbarians and burned with anger; when you went out as a general you became instead a hale old man. On the old banners that pressed down the frontier the oiled sheen is still green; on the leftover sword that cut down barbarians the blood is still red. Mountains and rivers all came within the range of your galloping, and now the balance-beam of the state has returned to your hands. The general's axe and the writer's prose — in neither are you lacking; how should your rank at court not gird both east and west?
Interlinear notes 1
韓鉞謝篇 — the axe stands for a general's authority, the prose for a man of letters' writing. Whom it refers to is not named in the source text. — translator
3Second Poem
伊昔朝端濫自容。何殊僥幸獻空籠。拜章曾解名韁束。學定方觀性水融。豈意英明黃閣老。猶思閑淡白雲翁。洒成飛札神虬黝。唾送彫章海蜃紅。鸞省追陪涯分外。馬嵓遊賞夢魂中。懸懸日欲攀淸話。其柰城南隔闕東。
Long ago I presumed to place myself in the foremost seat at court, and how did that differ from offering up an empty cage by sheer luck? I sent up a petition and loosed early the bridle of fame; I study meditation and now watch the waters of my nature open out. How could I have thought that a wise and brilliant minister would still think of a leisured and plain old man of the White Clouds? The swift letters you scatter are black as a spirit dragon; the carved writing you spit forth is red as a mirage at sea. To attend you in the Secretariat is beyond my lot; our roaming at Maam (馬嵓) lies within a dream. Day after day I long to cling to your clear talk, but what can be done, divided as we are, you east of the palace and I south of the wall?
Interlinear notes 4
予近讀楞嚴。公詩及之。故云。
Of late I have been reading the Śūraṃgama Sūtra, and the Lord's poem spoke of it, and so I say this.
予自號白雲居士。
I called myself the Layman of the White Clouds.
予與公同郡。郡有馬嵓。甞遊賞處。
The Lord and I are men of the same district. In that district is Maam, a place where we once roamed and looked about.
黃閣·鸞省 — the Yellow Chamber is the minister's office, the Simurgh Department another name for the Secretariat. — translator