Matching the Rhymes When Director Ha Replied and Sent More — The Last Two Stanzas Speak of His Sending Them Again次韻河郞中見和復惠之。末二章。言再惠之意。
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 · 6 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.
早知偏補氣。不但止沾唇。始以渾全喜。臨飱任潰津。
I had long known that they aid one's vigor,
so it is not that they merely wet the lips and no more.
At first I was glad they were whole and entire,
but when the time to eat came, I leave them until the juice bursts.
賴是全甘液。宜於病客唇。若如梨橘味。何甚嗜酸津。
There is nothing but sweet juice,
fit for a sick traveler's lips.
Had the flavor been like pear or tangerine,
how should I have taken pleasure in so sour a juice?
朋友之投餉。義同相吐呑。非如偏僻子。鑽貴樹私恩。
What a friend sends
is like the duty of sparing from one's own mouth to share.
It is not like a partial man
who burrows in to the great and plants a private favor.
枉成閑老有。大減貴人呑。本自心中貺。何言掬上恩。
In vain they became the portion of an idle old man,
greatly reducing the share the great would have eaten.
They are a gift welling up from the heart to begin with,
so how should one call it a favor doled out by the handful?
以我饞貪最。虧君貯蓄全。再投應必念。剖盡不重圓。
Because I coveted them most,
I have wholly drained what you had stored away.
In sending them again you must surely have thought
that once all split open they could never be round again.
Interlinear notes 1
君詩言罄舊蓄之餘
In his poem he said that he had emptied all that remained of what he had stored away before.
靑葉重重裹。嫌他直露全。是應新得品。何謂舊儲圓。
Wrapped layer on layer in green leaves,
for he shrank from their being wholly exposed.
These must surely be newly got;
how should one call them what was stacked away before?
Interlinear notes 1
觀品樣非舊蓄
Looking at their appearance, they are not what was stored away before.