Matching the Rhymes of the Two Poems the Magistrate of Chunju Sent in Reply to the Foregoing Poem次韻春州守和前詩二首見寄
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 · 120 Chinese characters · reading time 1.3 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.
They say there is no straitened Chancellor in the world,
yet I have become the first in that straitness.
This comes of my clumsiness in contriving,
and about the cold too there is nothing to be done.
Whether my whole household freezes or not
hangs on your warm kindness.
If you do not lend me warmth,
my hands and feet will shrivel and hardly straighten.
All at once I receive a weighty promise,
and before receiving it my gladness is already doubled.
I only pray you be relieved soon and come back,
while what is left of my body is still alive.
Interlinear notes 1
君詩自注云。願速見代造門。
In the note he appended himself to his poem, he said, "I hope to be relieved soon and to call at your gate."
In days past you stood first on the examination roll (榜),
and now you are first in governing a district.
I trouble you and set you to labor in vain;
what is to be done about the way of heaven?
Before long you will be summoned
and take up the brush at the Secretariat.
When the king's writ is just unrolled in your hand,
you will loose at last the district's tally (符信) at your waist.
Even a worthless man like me
will clap and dance twice as much as others.
If my words are made up,
the sun of heaven is above us.