Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Latter Collection, Book 9

Thirsting for Rain — The Eleventh Day of the Fourth Month渴雨。四月十一日。

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 · 1 passages · 50 Chinese characters · reading time 0.5 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.

渴水猶或得。渴酒儻能覓。渴雨於斯劇。致之難以力。望天費目役。雲斷天更碧。何問大農殖。先觀畦菜色。天不棄我民。庶賜膏一滴。

Thirst for water may yet somehow be met And thirst for wine may perhaps be sought out But thirst for rain is worse than these And hard to bring about by any strength I wear out my eyes with gazing at the sky But the clouds break off and the sky is bluer still Why ask whether the great crops are growing I look first at the color of the greens on the field-banks If heaven does not cast off our people Let it send down even one rich drop

Interlinear notes 1

雙韻

This is in double rhyme (雙韻).