On the Fourteenth of the Third Month a Great Hail Fell三月十四日。大雨雹。
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 · 56 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 9 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.
1First Poem
雹者由來陰脅陽。人云亦自徵動羽。幸無飛鳥中輒殭。免似河平大於斧。
Hail, from of old, is the yin menacing the yang
Men say too that it comes of the note chi (徵) stirring the note u (羽)
Happily no flying bird was struck down dead by it
It is not like the hail of Hapyeong (河平) that was bigger than an axe
Interlinear notes 3
二首○雙韻
Two poems○This is in double rhyme (雙韻).
徵 and 羽 are the fourth and the fifth of the five notes — gung, sang, gak, chi, u. 徵 is matched with fire (summer) and 羽 with water (winter), so the breath of winter stirring the breath of summer was taken to make hail. — Translator
河平 — This was a reign title of Emperor Cheng of the Han. The treatise on the five phases in the Book of Han records that in the second year of Hapyeong the hail was as big as an axe. — Translator
2Second Poem
大如馬首如鷄子。上有聖人不爲異。況此僅同梅子耳。團團但作兒童戲。
Though they be as big as a horse's head, as big as a hen's egg
While there is a sage above, it does not become a thing of ill omen
How much more when these are no bigger than plums
Round and round, they only make a plaything for the children
Interlinear notes 1
左傳云。聖人在上。雖有雹。不爲災也。
The Zuozhuan says that when a sage is above, hail may fall and it does not become a calamity.