Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 7
On a Day of the Tenth Month, Seeing the Yellow Chrysanthemums in Full Bloom十月日。見黃菊盛開。
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.
已孤重九辰。又負十日泛。胡爲小雪天。熠熠綻嬌艶。徒爾媚姸香。予病飮豈敢。嗟嗟嗜酒漢。漸老歡漸減。汝旣業已開。亦勿爲我慘。趁爾未落時。儻可一憑檻。
I have already failed the Double Ninth, and failed too the floating of chrysanthemums in the cup on the day after. Why then, under the sky about Minor Snow, have you burst into glittering, lovely flower? Though you are lovely and fragrant in vain, how should I, being ill, dare to drink? Alas, a man who loved his wine grows old by degrees, and his pleasures by degrees grow fewer. You have already bloomed, so do not grieve on my account. Before you fall, I may perhaps lean on the railing once and look at you.
Interlinear notes 1
已入小雪節。
The season of Minor Snow had already come.