Matching the Rhymes of Jeong, Librarian-Director, Who Replied to the Poem I Sent Earlier and Came in Person to Give Me Ink Bamboo and a Portrait — Thanking Him for the Portrait次韻丁秘監和前所寄詩。以墨竹影子親訪見贈 謝寫眞
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 · 130 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 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.
Heaven and earth gave birth to this body of mine,
and what moved it onto the silk was your hand.
I am old and have few to keep me company,
and gladly take this painting for my mate.
Truly my form is like a withered tree,
yet you caught me leaning on an armrest.
Looked at, it resembles my true likeness,
though you did not carry over all my ugliness.
Why should you shrink from my ugliness?
In taking the measure of a man, looks may be put last.
Even a tall and handsome gentleman
may have the heart of a beast in a cap,
and even one small and shabby and laughable
may have a talent that surpasses others'.
How glad I am that my head wears no official cap:
I have long since wearied of racing the road of fame.
The brows and eyes are quite clear and open —
not as my soiled face is now;
the beard and hair are not all white —
not as my years are now.
By nature I have always loved wine;
why then is there no wine cup in my hand?
You have set me down within the bounds of propriety
and not allowed me to be a mad old man.
Still more, you have tossed me a poem like a jewel as well:
these two excellences — do people know of them or not?
Interlinear notes 1
影 — since the 影子 of this piece is a portrait, this place too is read as the painted portrait. — translator