Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 6

On the Seventh Day of the Ninth Month I Called on Privy Councillor Lord Bak and Saw His Newly Built House, Which Had Both Abundance and Cleanness Together, All of It Beyond Expectation and Truly Not to Be Passed Over Lightly; So, When the Wine Had Warmed Me, I Ran My Brush, Set Down What I Saw, and Offered It Up九月初七日。訪樞府朴公觀所構新宅。富貴蕭洒兼備。皆出意表。誠不可虛賞。及酒酣走筆。記所見奉呈云。

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 · 120 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 min

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.

我有一區廬。風雨猶不庇。賦分元自窮。徒忝丞相位。觀公此臺榭。幻出神仙地。他人費鉅萬。爭肯略侔似。由公眼匠妙。所作出非意。如此迺相門。而我安敢企。有竹立脩脩。不與江南異。奇花與美卉。雜錯紛錦綺。黃菊冒霜開。已可泛金蕊。何必待重九。不妨先日二。主人聞此言。拍手卽大喜。呼出玉樽來。今日能事已。

I have a one-room hut, and it does not even keep out the wind and rain. The portion I was born to was straitened from the first, and I have only brought disgrace on a chief minister's seat. Looking at this terraced pavilion of yours, my lord, it is as though the land of the immortals had been conjured up in a moment. Though others spend vast sums of money, how could they match it even a little? It comes of the fineness of your eye, my lord: what you have built has come out beyond all expectation. Only thus is it a chief minister's house — how should I dare hope for the like? Bamboo stands there tall and slender, no different from the bamboo of Jiangnan (江南). Rare flowers and lovely plants mingle in a brocade-like confusion. Yellow chrysanthemums have braved the frost and opened, their golden stamens already fit to float in wine. Why must one wait for the Double Ninth? There is no harm in bringing it two days forward. The master of the house heard these words, clapped his hands and at once rejoiced greatly, and called out a jade wine jar — so today's business is all done.

Interlinear notes 2

椐。

This is geo (椐).

予常言宰相之窮。無有如我者。

I have always said, 「among chief ministers there is none so straitened as I am.」

‹ On the Double Ninth, Privy Councillor Lord Bak Invited Me to Drink Again, and on the Spot I Ran My Brush, Made a Poem, and Presented ItContentsOn the Twenty-Ninth Day of the Eighth Month, Running My Brush to Thank Academician Yi for the Gift of Fresh Fish ›Listen to this piece