Thanking Vice Minister Yi for Sending Sour Pears and Green Peaches謝李侍郞送酸梨碧桃
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 · 2 passages · 80 Chinese characters · reading time 0.9 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 7 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.
梨似黃金滑。桃如碧玉團。在園端有實。飣坐正宜飡。病口方嫌爽。煩心獨嗜酸。投來適我意。深祕忌兒看。
The pears are smooth as yellow gold,
the peaches round as green jade.
While in the garden they were merely fruit,
but set out on the mat they are truly fit to eat.
A sick mouth happens to shun what is brisk and fresh,
and a troubled heart takes especial pleasure in what is sour.
What you sent fits my wish exactly,
so I hide them deep, shy of the children's seeing.
朶雲開璨璨。丸菓得團團。坐受何煩盜。含消不力飡。形均無巨小。味節適甘酸。愛客猶難饋。留爲後日看。
I open the letter you sent, and it glitters;
I receive the round fruits, and they are round and round.
Sitting I receive them, so what is there to steal?
Held in the mouth they melt of themselves, so there is no need to chew hard.
In shape they are even, with none large and none small;
in flavor the sweet and the sour are fittingly matched.
These are things hard to send even to a cherished guest,
so I shall keep them and look at them on a later day.