Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 6
Given in Jest to a Gisaeng戲贈妓
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 6 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.
書生於色眞膏盲。每一見之目頻役。今因身老佯不看。非是風情減平昔。一杯醺醉情復生。無復慙羞呼促席。汝應憎我老醜顔。我亦知渠匪金石。
A man of letters is truly stricken with an old malady for women's beauty: each time I caught sight of one, my eyes were busy again and again. Now, pleading that my body is old, I make a show of not looking, but it is not that my ardor has lessened since former days. Let one cup of wine make me merry and the feeling rises again, and without even shame I call you to come close to my seat. You must surely loathe this old and ugly face of mine, yet I too know that you are neither iron nor stone.