Vice Minister Yi Sent Taro along with Two Poems, and I Answer with Three次韻李侍郞以詩二首送土卵。予以三首答之。
處處艱於長一莖。君家有底好滋生。市人擡價顔胡𧹞。客壤培根力靡輕。靑鳥雛多來已壓。黃雞卵在駮難成。想公偶送金盤菜。踵我行調玉鉉羹。十四名般斯第幾。二三分別尙難精。殘翁博物眞無用。勉食唯敎脹氣平。
Anywhere it is hard to raise even a single stalk, so what is it your house has, that they grow so well there? The market folk raise the price and do not so much as blush, and the labour of banking up roots in another's ground is no light thing. The cheongjo (靑鳥) has many young and is already pressed full, while the yellow hen's eggs are mottled and ripen hard. I take it you have suddenly sent greens on a golden platter, following after me as I set the pot to rights to season my soup. Among the fourteen names, which one is this? Even to pick out two or three of them is hard to do precisely. For an old man to know things widely is of truly no use; set to eating, you say, and settle the swollen humours.
Interlinear notes 4
芋凡有四等。曰車聲，鉅子，旁巨，靑鳥等多子。
Taro has four grades in all: chaseong (車聲), geoja (鉅子), banggeo (旁巨) and cheongjo (靑鳥); the cheongjo and its like have many young.
又有十四等名
There are also fourteen names for it.
予時腹疾。故君詩云云。因自注。此物能上下。
I was suffering from a stomach ailment at the time. That is why his poem spoke as it did, and in the note he attached himself he said, “This makes the humours rise and fall.”
靑鳥等多子 — This is also read as attaching to all four grades, “these are their names, and they have many young.” Since the text itself singles out the cheongjo as having many young, the phrase has been broken so as to attach to the cheongjo. — translator
撥開泥底洗根莖。惠及閑門老友生。盤上飣來團雪積。筯頭跳脫走丸輕。初憑地媼膏恩化。終被畦丁手力成。但覓柏香和作菜。不須葵葉雜爲羹。露珠初漾疑蓮樣。土卵方呈訝鳥精。岷蜀充資濟陽九。我今佐食意難平。
Digging through the muddy bottom, you washed root and stalk, and the kindness reached even an old friend at an idle gate. Piled up on the platter they look like round snow heaped together, and springing away from the chopstick tips they are light as rolling eggs. At first they came to be by the rich kindness of the Earth Dame, and in the end they were made by the strength of the field-keeper's hands. I shall only seek out pine-nut fragrance to mix in and make a dish of greens; there is no need to mix in mallow leaves and boil a soup. When the dew-pearls first stir I take them for a lotus leaf, and when the taro is just brought out I half suspect bird's eggs. In the land of Minshu (岷蜀), they say, it served as a stock and saved men from famine years, while I now only set it beside my rice, and my mind is not at ease.
Interlinear notes 2
王述刺卵事
The story of Wang Shu stabbing at an egg with his chopsticks.
來詩有云
There are such words in the poem he sent.
哿矣膏田挺紫莖。土無能伏卵何生。自天全與瓊腴美。在地誰團粉麪輕。草實例多隈葉結。芋魁唯自屬根成。室人方報營朝膳。竈婦那憂辦夕羹。煨糞禪師心豈傲。誤羊丞相學非精。已陳前迹休評駮。飽喫閑眠是大平。
Good! In the rich field red stalks have shot up. If the soil did not know how to brood an egg, how would they have come? Heaven gave them whole a rich taste like jade, so who on earth rolled out a light dough of flour? The fruits of plants commonly set in the axils of the leaves, but the taro lumps alone ripen clinging to the root. My wife announces that she is just setting out the morning table, so why should the kitchen woman worry over making the evening soup? How was the mind of the Seon master who roasted them in the embers proud? The chancellor who mistook it for a sheep had not learned precisely. Let us not pick over the old traces already laid out: to eat one's fill and sleep at leisure is peace itself.