Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 8
Written by Chance the Next Day明日偶題
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 8 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.
詩癖不須嗔。有時霑潤利。物從意表來。吝惜非吾志。均分飢凍人。不啻單醪醉。單醪徒醉恩。其實飮川耳。
There is no need to rebuke the habit of poetry: at times it brings the profit of a soaking and a wetting. Goods come in beyond all expectation, and to hoard them away is not my will. I share them evenly with the hungry and the frozen, and it does not stop at making them drunk with one jar of wine. One jar of wine only makes them drunk with kindness; in truth it is like drinking from a stream.
Interlinear notes 2
一首
One poem.
予常以詩癖自傷
I have always grieved for myself over the habit of poetry.