Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 6
The Chief Minister (相國) Sent an Answering Poem, So I Matched the Rhymes Again相國見和。復次韻。
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.
間闊難來爲脚羸。城中咫尺卽天涯。梓鄕曾接葭莩幸。藥省還追驥尾馳。鬢似雪霜雖各老。心如金石不曾移。要除末禮須勤飮。醉後形骸尙欲遺。
That I was long shut in and could not come was the leanness of my legs; a few steps within the city walls were the very edge of the sky. In my home district I once had the good fortune to tie a distant bond, and at Yakseong (藥省) I ran again, following the tail of a fine steed. Our temple-locks are like snow and frost—each of us has grown old, yet our hearts are like iron and stone, never once changed. To do away with petty ceremony one must drink hard, and after the wine I would forget even this body of mine.