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

A Gisaeng Arrived, and I Replied Again in Verse妓至又和

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 · 28 Chinese characters · reading time 0.3 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.

書生舊習眼猶寒。未慣繁華爛熳間。鮮語花來方始笑。不須黃菊鬪名般。

It is the old habit of a man of letters: my eye is still cold, unaccustomed to lavish splendor all about me. But when the flower that understands speech arrives, a smile comes at last; there is no need for her to contend with the yellow chrysanthemums for fame.

Interlinear notes 1

鮮語花 — the base text has 鮮, but we take it as an error for 解. This book has rendered 解語花 as 「the flower that understands speech」. — Translator