The Upper Book補閑集 卷上

Son Byeon (孫抃), the jichu (知樞), showed me a writing from the sage hand (聖製) of Taejo and said to me, "This ought to go into the Bohanjip." I answered, "This book is to gather small sayings and pass an idle hour. It is not the making of a grand code." The jichu said, "Is it right that a scholar in office should decline to write down the teaching of a sage?" When I heard this I rose at once, and I set it at the head of the book.

When Taejo was first opening the kingdom in the midst of spear and shield, he gave his mind to yin and yang and to the way of the Buddha (浮屠). His counselor Choe Eung (崔凝) remonstrated, saying, "The Commentary (傳) says, 'In a time of disorder cultivate letters, and so win the hearts of men.' Though a king meet a season of arms, he must cultivate the virtue of letters. I have not heard of one who leaned on the way of the Buddha and on yin and yang and by that won all under heaven."

Taejo said, "How should I not know these words? But the mountains and waters of our country are numinous and strange, and the land lies wedged in a wild and out-of-the-way corner, and the nature of it loves the Buddha and the spirits. So I would ask of them blessing and benefit. Now the fighting is not yet at rest and safety and danger are not yet decided, and morning and evening I am hurried and do not know what to do. I think only that the hidden help of the Buddha and the spirits and the numinous answer of the mountains and waters may be of some use for a little while. How should I make this the great cord for ruling the country and winning the people? Wait until the disorder is settled and men dwell at ease, and then it will be right to move the customs and make the teaching beautiful."

In the fifth year of Changxing, the year gabo, he attacked Baekje and won a great victory, taking more than thirty districts of Hanae (河內), and the people of the kingdom of Balhae all came over and submitted. Then he ordered the offices concerned to found Gaetaesa as a Hwaeom sanctuary, and he made the prayer text (願文) himself and wrote it with his own hand. In outline it runs:

"In my life I have met a hundred sorrows, and I could not bear the many troubles. War wound about Togun (兎郡) and calamity threw Jinhan into disorder. Men had no way to live, and no house had a whole wall. …… I called heaven to witness my oath, cut down and put an end to the great evil, drew the people out of mire and coals, and let them work field and mulberry as they pleased in their villages. Above I leaned on the power of the Buddha, and next I relied on the hidden majesty. For twenty-four years I struck by water and attacked by fire, and my own body met arrow and stone. A thousand li I campaigned south and chastised east, and I slept with my head on shield and spear. In the ninth month of autumn in the year byeongsin, by the wall of Sungseonseong, I met the army of Baekje in battle array. At one shout the cruel and the mad broke like roof tiles, and at the second beat of the drum the rebel band melted like ice. The song of triumph floated to heaven and the sound of rejoicing shook the earth. …… Those who robbed among the reeds and rushes and the small cruel bands of the streams and valleys repented and made themselves new, and soon bore a mind to come over and submit. So-and-so's purpose lay in seizing the crafty and removing the wicked, in saving the weak and holding up what leans, and he did not touch a single hair nor harm an inch of grass. …… To answer the upholding of the Buddha and the sages and to repay the help of the mountain spirits, I have especially ordered the bureau concerned to build a lotus palace. So I take Cheonho (天護) for the name of the mountain and Gaetae (開泰) for the name of the temple. …… What I ask is that the majesty of the Buddha shelter and guard us and the strength of heaven hold us up. ……"

In the second year of Qingtai, King Gyeongsun of Silla came to court and sent up a letter. In outline it said, "Calamity and disorder are about to close upon this country, and its allotted span is already spent. I have had the fortune to look upon the light of the Son of Heaven, and I ask to perform the rite of a servant in the courtyard."

In the third year Gyeon Hwon, king of Baekje, came in to court. The king allowed him to dwell in the South Palace and punished the crime of his son Singeom. Afterward Choe Won (崔遠), the bongeo, sent up a memorial of congratulation. In outline it said:

"That Singeom brought destruction upon himself was because his crime was not to be borne by heaven and earth. That the king of Silla came of himself and submitted as a guest came of a great virtue that reached far to the rude frontier. …… The capped and sashed officers of Jibang (智邦) once gathered to the high country as spokes gather to a hub, and the arms of the rebel son have now broken like roof tiles in the south. Yet Your Majesty heard of a neighbor's need and went straight to his rescue, and this is benevolence and courage. The neighboring king came and attached himself, and you dealt with him in full care and made all of them kin, and this is wisdom and good faith. You forgot the small grudge of Gyeon Hwon and received him with kindness and trust, and this is breadth and benevolence. You cut down the several rebel sons and comforted and soothed the people who were left, and this is a clear righteousness and an ample benevolence. You make these the five constants by which a sovereign hands down his line. How then should the sons and grandsons of ten thousand ages not follow their forebear? ……"

In writing and in brushwork Taejo had much of the ability that heaven grants, but these are the leftover business of a royal house and are not where his beauty is to be credited. Look at the Sinseo (信書) and the Hunseo (訓書) and at the memorial of Choe Won, and his great virtue can be known.

Gwangjong honored learning and refinement and chose out men of worth and letters. At that time a black crane came and danced at Hamwonjeon, and the men of letters all made praises and eulogies. The eulogy of the academician Jo Ik (趙翼) says:

That crane, lofty and proud, took its essence from the sun. To have white feathers is what is always yours. Neither white nor yellow, black is its robe. This bird and this color, what omen does it show? Only the virtue of our lord, passing a hundred sovereigns, raising up letters and weighting the Way, hurrying to use the worthy. The immortal plumage is pure in color, and its good omen is truly fitting. Hamwonjeon stands solemn, and it looks to heaven and flies high. Seeing the brightness of the virtue of letters, how is the phoenix of Zhou its equal? Its drinking and its pecking follow measure, its feathers and its bearing carry light. All blessings arrive together, and the four quarters will flourish. Ah, for ten thousand years the great fortune will have no end.

When the academician Ssanggi (雙冀) had charge of the spring examination hall, he too took the black crane showing an omen as the subject for the poem.

A monk of the samjung rank (三重子) of Wangnyunsa brought a worm-eaten volume in his sleeve and showed it to me. It was the draft of miscellaneous writings and poems made in the palace by the sijung Choe Seungno (崔承老), Duke Munjeong (文貞), in the time of Gwangjong. I thought it a pity that letters from the beginning of the dynasty had by good fortune not been buried and had come down to this day, and so I choose four quatrains in four rhymes from it and set them here.

On "The Hundred-Petal Azalea behind Jangsaengjeon," made at the king's command:

Last year too it filled the red railing, and today its fair form is the same again. I ask only that this flower open ten thousand times and that a small servant long attend the joy of the sage.

On "The New Bamboo of the East Pond":

The brocade sheath has just opened and the white joints are bright. It bends low over the royal carriage road and makes a green shade. Why need the king's outing bring the music of heaven, when of itself the golden wind shakes a sound of jade?

On "In Praise of the White Magpie Presented by Baekje":

White as snow, it flies and cries in beauty. From the land south of the river the road it came was barely ten stages. Seeing your feathers so uncommonly clean and bright, it can only be that you came to tell that my age is clear.

On "Thanks for the Praise Bestowed on the Writing Made for Tang, and for the Wine and Fruit Given from the Inner Storehouse":

Great is my fortune, to meet a most honored lord in a thousand years. Without talent I took office unworthily in Seowon (西垣). In writing, how should I hope to stand with the many worthy men? But such thick favor is worth boasting of to those who come after. The feeling is graven deep and I have only tears, and where the joy is deepest there are no words. Think as I may of how to repay it, in the end I cannot find the way. I only swear by the Southern Mountain and bow to the king's kindness.

There is also a poem written at a running brush praising the beauty of what the king composed at the Double Ninth feast. From this it can be known that Gwangjong plied his brush swiftly and shone with letters.

In that time metal and tiger were not laid down and there was no leisure to turn toward learning, and yet the royal writings were like this. How much more, then, when great peace had long lasted and the kings of one age after another, in hours of quiet ease, made songs like the Yellow Bamboo (黃竹) and the White Cloud (白雲), which cannot be few. But what the Bohanjip sets down is all made by ministers and great officers, by high monks and retired scholars. How should it be right to set them in one rank with the writing of heaven and judge them together? They ought to be gathered into a section of their own and set high, to be looked up to as men look up to the Milky Way.

In the eighth month of the fifteenth year of Seongjong the royal carriage went to Donggyeong. A pardon was proclaimed, and wherever there was a man of rare talent or uncommon ability hidden away among hills and gardens, the offices concerned were commanded to search him out and leave none behind. They also entered on the register the righteous husbands and faithful wives, the filial sons and dutiful grandsons of the capital and the provinces, set up tablets at their gates and villages, and gave them goods in due degree.

At that time there was a man who had not come on the day King Gyeongsun entered court. His back was already bent with age, and still in white cloth he made a poem and presented it to Wang Yung (王融), the naesang. It said:

The light of the ninth heaven moves and the stars turn. The sun banner and the dragon flag go round the sea together. Yellow-leaved Gyerim was desolate once 〔When Taejo arose, Choe Chiwon of Silla knew that he would surely receive the mandate and sent up a letter, and in it were the words "Gyerim is a yellow leaf, Gongnyeong is a green pine." When the king of Silla heard it he hated it, and Choe Chiwon at once took his household and lived hidden at Haeinsa on Gayasan, and there he ended. The clearness of his discernment showed in the letter he sent up, and the people of Silla submitted to it deeply, so they named the place where he had lived of old the Sangseojang. Afterward the high scholars Yi Neungbong, O Sejae and An Sunji came one after another and lodged there.〕 and now mist and flowers climb again in the spring garden.

And again:

In street and lane there is light, and loyalty and filial duty are marked with tablets. Hill and valley are loud with it, and the hidden are sought out. Though in old days I could not follow the old man of Zhou, happily now I see with my own eyes the new rites of Han.

On the way back from Donggyeong the king passed Heungnyebu and went up to Daehwaru, and he feasted with his many officials, and the verses they sang and answered there have been handed down in the world.

Gang Gam-chan (姜邯贊), Duke Inheon, was chosen first in the first class in the seventh year of Taiping, the year imo, and in the twenty-seventh year of Tonghe under Hyeonjong, the year giyu, he became a Hallim academician. In the eleventh month of that year Emperor Shengzong of the Khitan came leading his army in person, and the king went to Geumseong. Ha Gongjin (河拱辰) asked to surrender, and the Khitan emperor turned his army back.

Every plan had come from Gang Gam-chan, and so the king comforted and praised him with a poem:

In the year gyeongsul there was the dust of the barbarian, and spear and shield came deep to the bank of the Han River. Had the plan of Lord Gang not been used at that time, the whole country would have become people who fold the collar to the left.

It is now told among the people: "A certain envoy came by night into Siheung-gun and saw a great star fall on a house. He sent a clerk to look into it, and the wife of that house had just borne a boy. The envoy thought it strange, and so he asked for the child and raised him, and this was Duke Gang. When the duke had become chief minister, one of the Song envoys who could read men came and looked at him and said, 'The Wenqu star has not appeared for a long time, and no one knew where it was. Now the duke is that very star.' Then he came down the steps and did him reverence." 〔This story is very wild. But the officials of old and of today hand it down, and there is a record of it in the house of Minister Im, and so it is set here.〕

Choe Chung, Duke Munheon, had two sons, and he always warned them, saying, "When a scholar advances by power, few are able to make a good end. Only when he arrives by letters and conduct is there blessing for him. I have had the fortune to become known by letters and conduct, and I swear to end my days in the world clean and careful." So he made the Hunjasonmun (訓子孫文) and handed it down.

In the middle generations they were not careful and lost the original, and only two poems remain. One of them says:

This house has never had goods to spare, only the keeping of the utmost treasure is handed on. Writing is its brocade, and virtuous conduct is its jade tablet. Today I give it over to you. In after years do not scatter it and forget. Bear well the service of the halls of state (廊廟), and generation by generation grow the more in strength and plenty.

Sa-chu (思諏), the jungseoryeong and grandson of Duke Munheon, made the Hungeommun (訓儉文) and left it to his son Jin (溱), the state councillor, and Jin's grandson brought it and showed it to me. More than thirty years have passed since then, and I remember only the eight characters, "My grandfather the yeonggong always used wooden vessels." The rest I have forgotten. I do not know who holds that scroll now.

Duke Munheon was chosen in the examination of the Board of Rites (春官) in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Seongjong, the year eulsa, and was first in the first class, and his office reached to Naesaryeong. His son Yuseon (惟善), Duke Munhwa, was the sole head of the second class at the royal examination in the twenty-second year of Hyeonjong, the year gyeongo. In the seventh year of Munjong, the year sinchuk, the Naesa was changed and called the Jungseo, and so father and son were both appointed Jungseoryeong.

The second son, Yugil (惟吉), moved up by hereditary privilege through several posts to be Susagong Jwabogya, and he held the office of Sangseoryeong as well. When the twenty-second year came, the year jeongmi, the king gave a feast to the elders of the country, and Duke Munhwa and his brother came in supporting Duke Munheon between them, and the men of that time counted it a splendid thing.

Kim Haenggyeong (金行瓊), a Hallim academician, made a poem of congratulation:

Sons and grandsons with purple cords and golden seals together attend the dove staff and are drunk with the king's kindness.〔The source text has 枕, but it is taken as a mistake for 杖.〕 The Sangseoryeong waits upon the Jungseoryeong, and the head of the second class supports the head of the first. In long ages I have heard of only four men who reached it, and in one house today two such lords are living. For a family to hand down the chief ministership is rare enough, but to take the highest degree age after age is the most to be honored. For how many days have the officials been talking of it, and this morning the streets are noisier still. Their deeds follow one on another and will run in the clear histories, and though a thousand brush tips wore away it could not all be told.

The miscellany of Jeong Seo (鄭敍), the jungseung, sets down a poem called "Chamber Feelings" by Choe Yuseon, the sijung:

The oriole cries at dawn, rain within the sorrow. The green willow sways in clear weather, spring in the middle of the gaze.

And in his poem on a comb:

Used, it should be put to the head. How should it ever have stayed in its box?

Not only was his talent full and ample, but from this, it is said, one may know that his office would reach the highest a subject can hold. Yet now, looking through the collected works of the sijung, lines like "put to the head" are quite many. Why did Jeong Seo take this one couplet and say that by it he knew the office would reach the highest?

At the first, when the duke went to the examination before the screen in the twenty-second year of Hyeonjong, the tenth year of Taiping, the king said to the officials in attendance, "In writing that brings glory to a country, flowers and the moon have their place at the end as well. I would test both together and see how quick he is." First he set out the rhapsody title, "The Lord Is Like a Boat," and when the rhapsody was done and the duke was just about to make a fair copy, he hung up the poem title, "Planting the Immortal Peach in the Royal Garden."

The duke answered the title at once and wrote straight onto the paper that bore his name:

The peach is newly planted in the royal garden, brought over from an immortal of Langyuan. It has set its root on the red ground and divides its shadow before the purple court. Its fine leaves look like a painting, its many blossoms seem to burn as one gazes. Its rank is higher than the trees of the Secretariat (鷄省), its scent touches the smoke of the beast-shaped censer. Heaven being near, it thrives before the spring, and the dawn being clear, it wears the dew and is fair. This must be what the Queen Mother of the West offered. The years of the sage will grow by a thousand more.

Both the poem and the rhapsody met the king's mind. With his own hand he marked him head of the list, and by edict brought him into the Hallim and gave him the seventh rank at once. The next year, the year gyeongjin, he became Yebu Wonoerang and held the janggo (掌誥) as well, and after several moves he reached Jungseoryeong and died, and he was given a place in the shrine of the royal ancestors. So the sign that his office would reach the highest a subject can hold is clear in this poem alone.

The Yi family of Gyeongwon held high office age after age from the beginning of the dynasty. When it came to Ja-yeon (子淵), Duke Changhwa, he had a son called Ho (顥), who became Earl of Gyeongwon, and three sons, Jeong (頲), Ui (顗) and An (顔), all of whom became chief ministers. One daughter was Queen Inye, and two daughters both became palace consorts. His younger brother Ja-sang (子祥), the bogya, had two sons called Ye (預) and Ja (䫨), who became chief ministers, and all their grandsons married into the royal house. For the flourishing of a house of royal kin, old times and today have few to set beside it.

At the first, when Ui was in the Ganwon, the men of yin and yang each held up their prophetic charts and spoke to one another of mending the land (裨補). The king asked about it, and Ui answered, "Yin and yang have their root in the Book of Changes (大易), and the Changes does not speak of mending the land. Deceiving and empty men of a later age argued it crookedly until it grew into writings and led the multitude astray. Still more, the prophetic charts are wild and empty and strange and false, and there is not one thing in them to be taken." The king thought in his heart that this was so.

The sons and grandsons of Jeong and Ui and Ja are the more eminent now. Duke Changhwa entered the chancellery (黃扉) as head of the list, and he took charge of the examination and gained men. Choe Seok (奭), the state councillor, and Kim Yang-gam (良鑑), the state councillor, and Choe Sahun and Bak Illyang, the chamjeong, and Choe Taek and Wi Jeman, the academicians, were all his disciples. Someone made a poem which says:

Below the courtyard, three chief ministers like iris and orchid. Before the gate, ten high officers like peach and plum.

Of the fourteen men chosen when Duke Munheon had charge of the examination, the three of the second class, Kim Muche, Yi Jonghyeon and Hong Deokseong, were appointed sangseo together. Yi Sangjeong, Choe Sang and Choe Yubu became chamjeong one after another, and Kim Sukchang, Kim Jeong, Kim Yangji and O Hangnin all became academicians, and so the world called it the Sangseo List (尙書牓).

On the list of the same kind in the ninth year of Dakang, the year gyehae, there was no man who rose to high office, and Yi Jahyeon and Gwak Yeo both threw away office and became cheosa, men living retired, and so at that time it was called the Cheosa List (處士牓). A monk given to jesting teased those who were going up for the examination:

Be sure to take a place on the Sangseo List. Do not climb onto the Cheosa roll.

In the school of Im Yu (任濡), Duke Yangsuk, there were four examination lists. Duke Jo Munjeong (文正), Duke Yu Munan, Duke Yi Munsun, the two chumil Han and Jin, Yu Chunggi the director of studies, and Yun Uil the agyeong were all chosen in the same year. There were also Kim Chang (敞), the state councillor, Yi Jungmin (中敏), the chumil, the brothers Choe the bogya and Choe the seungseon, and the three lords Wang I (王儞), Kim Gyu (金珪) and Gal Namseong (葛南成), and among them were many men of refinement.

Now Choe Rin (崔璘), the chamjijeongsa, Hong Gyun (洪鈞), the jimunhaseongsa, Son Byeon (孫抃), the Susagong Jwabogya, Jo Su (趙脩), the chumirwonsa, Yi Sunmok (李淳牧), the Ubogya and Hallim academician, Yun Yugong (尹有功), the Useungseon and Hallim academician, Song Gukcheom (宋國瞻), the Minister of Punishments and academician, Kim Hyoin (金孝印), the Minister of War and academician, Ha Cheondan (河千旦), the Jwaganui Daebu and Wiwigyeong, and I myself are all disciples of Duke Yeongnyeol, and the talk of that time praised it as splendid.

Toward the master who passed him (宗伯), a disciple observes the rite of a son toward a father. Pei Hao (裵皡) of Tang had charge of the examinations three times, and after his disciple Ma Yinsun (馬胤孫) took charge of an examination, Ma led the disciples of the new list and went to pay his respects. Pei Hao made a quatrain:

Three times master of the Yewi (禮闈), and at eighty years I see a disciple in the school of my disciple.

In this dynasty, when the academician Han Eon-guk (韓彦國) led his disciples to pay respects to Choe Yucheong (惟淸), Duke Munsuk (文淑), the duke made a poem:

They come in a row to call on me, and what glory is this? I gladly see one born in the school of my disciple.

Duke Yangsuk was uncle on the mother's side to three generations of kings 〔the three reigns of Uijong, Myeongjong and Sinjong.〕 and his place was that of chief minister. Duke Jo Munjeong of his school took charge of the examination as director of studies and led his disciples to pay their respects at the Edict Office (誥院), and Yi Illo made a poem of congratulation:

Ten years in the chancellery you helped the rising peace, and four times you opened the spring hall and held the mastery alone. A gentleman of the country has ever repaid a gentleman of the country. Now a disciple has gained a disciple of his own.

Gyeong-suk (景肅), the state councillor and eldest son of Duke Yangsuk, held the power of letters (文柄) four times, and in not many years there were more than ten men of his school who wore the rhinoceros belt. Among them were three generals and one nangjang, a thing not heard of in former times.

Yu Gyeong (柳璥), academician of the Ungak, took charge of the samasi examination sixteen years after passing his own, and posted the list, and the next day he went to pay his respects. At that time the state councillor had hung up his carriage as daesa (大師) and withdrawn. He had two nephews among the jaesin and two among the chusin, and his cousins and nephews and his sister's sons were all ministers and great officers, so with the disciples of the four lists they stood divided before the steps. Yu Gyeong led his disciples in and bowed below the courtyard, and the state councillor sat above in the hall, and the court musicians played. Not one of those who watched failed to rejoice and sigh, and some wept. Im Gyeil (林桂一) of the Hallim offered a poem of congratulation:

The great ministers (鈞台) of the two councils (兩府) bow below the courtyard, and the finest men of the age are gathered before the gate. Sitting, he watches the grandchild branches of peach and plum grow fair. Rarely is it heard that so splendid a thing is handed on from age to age.

The forebear of Choe Seok (奭), Duke Yesuk, had merit in helping Taejo. The duke was chosen head of the list and became state councillor. When his son Yucheong (惟淸), Duke Munsuk, was governor of the southern capital, his two sons were in the capital, and the duke taught them with a poem:

What this house hands down is an unstained name, and no goods are left, only ten thousand volumes of the classics remain. Divide them as you please and read them diligently. Set up your persons and walk in the Way, and make the king honored.

Then he added a note of his own, saying, "When the king is honored the country is well ruled. When the country is well ruled the house is at peace. When the house is at peace the person is at peace. When the person is at peace there is nothing more to seek."

The two sons did indeed rise to be chief ministers by learning and refinement. The elder was Dang (讜), Duke Jeongan, and Rin (璘), now the panchu, is his grandson. The younger was Seon (詵), Duke Munui, and Jongjun (宗峻), now the sijung, and Jongjae (宗梓), the bogya, and Jongbeon (宗蕃), the seungseon, are all his sons. In a poem the bogya answered the sijung:

After three generations of state councillors, only my elder brother bows as sijung.

There were three sons-in-law as well, and all became chief ministers. One was head of the list, and two received the axe together and became commander in chief and second commander. Age after age they heaped up goodness, and the blessing flowed down to their sons and grandsons, and green and purple cords filled the court. It was a splendid thing.

The collected works of Duke Choe Munsuk go about in the world, and so only the one piece teaching his sons is set here.

In the eleventh year that Munjong was on the throne, the second year of Qingning, the year byeongsin, he first founded Heungwangsa, and he wished it to be very great and grand. At that time Duke Munhwa was jijusa, and he remonstrated:

"Long ago Taizong of Tang was godlike and sage and heroic in arms, and in some thousands of years there have been few to match him. He did not allow men to be ordained as monks, and he did not allow temples and Daoist halls to be raised. He followed the will of Gaozu and made the royal work the firmer, and the histories praise him for it. Now Your Majesty has inherited the work heaped up by your ancestors and all under heaven is coming to its fullness, and so it is right indeed to spare expense and love the people, to hold what is full and keep what has been made, and to hand it on to a sage heir. How should you spend out the wealth of the people and dry up the strength of the people for a cost that is not urgent, and so wish to endanger the root of the country? I am secretly perplexed by it."

The king answered with a gracious edict, "What you say is truly loyal. But my long-held wish is already fulfilled, and it cannot be turned back."

On another day, when the duke was attending him in a quiet hour and they were discussing the government of the time, the king comforted and praised him gently, saying, "To remonstrate is loyalty. To follow what pleases is flattery." The duke answered at once, "To found and hand down is still easy. To keep what has been made is hard." Even the answering songs of Yu (虞) and Xia (夏), how should they go beyond this?

Yi Yeong-gan (靈幹), the chamjeong, inscribed these lines at Beomnyunsa in Naju:

The cool of autumn and the late light suit it best. I sleep a night in the lotus chamber and smooth my brows once. The stars are deep in the night and their light is glittering. The moon moves over the tower and the shadows fall uneven. Through the six hours it shines on, and the lamp of mercy is bright. Through all ages it stays, and the traces of the sage are strange. What thing is this, to have tied so good a bond (也)? I burn the incense of the heart and offer it to the Buddha and take him for master.

Some say that the closing lines of this poem are not worked smooth, and that the particle ya (也) at the line's end is the more loose and rough. It is not so. When the duke was out with the king at Bagyeon, wind and rain rose all at once and shook the stone where they sat, and the king's heart was moved. Then the duke wrote out an edict and threw it into the pool, counting the crimes of the dragon and meaning to punish him, and the dragon at once felt it and understood, and put out its back and took the beating. So the duke's making of writing was godlike and not to be measured. How should one weigh the duke by whether a single character in a trifling poem is well or ill made?

In the seventh year of Dakang under Munjong, the year sinyu, Choe Saje (思齊), Duke Yangpyeong, went as envoy into Song, and on the ship he wrote:

What border is there in heaven and earth? Mountains and rivers of themselves are like and unlike. Do not say, sir, that Song is far. Turn your head, and it is one sail of wind.

Jin Hwa (陳澕), the rectifier of omissions, went into the Jurchen Jin (大金) as a seojanggwan and wrote:

Xihua (西華) is already desolate and the northern camp is still dark and dim. I sit and wait for the morning of light and letters. In the east of heaven the sun is about to redden.

In the spring of the year gyesa the court heard that the emperor of the Jurchen Jin had moved to Henan, and it sent Choe Rin the gigeoju, Gwon Sul the naesi, and me to go to the temporary residence and pay respects. At that time the road was blocked by the Tatars, so we went by water past Cheolsanpo and came to the ford of Haizhou in the land of Liaodong. Gwon Sul made a poem:

The nine heavens have moved to the four seas. Sad is this road, riding a raft away. Of whom shall I ask about the ten thousand li? In mist and wave I have lost where to go.

Last year I myself went as envoy to the Mongols as assistant councillor (副樞). I stopped for the night at Xingzhongfu and saw a quatrain written on the wall of a temple:

The four fields have all become dens of fox and hare, and ten thousand lands still look up to a heaven of dog and sheep. Where is the happy country of men? Deeply I sigh that my life came neither before nor after.

Choe Saje has in him the sense that a thousand li is not far for an audience at court (朝覲). Jin Hwa went in to court as an aide of the staff and yet called the northern camp dark and dim, and that is not proper. The words of Gwon Sul's poem are lost and troubled, but its meaning lies in hurrying to pay respects. The quatrain at Xingzhongfu was inscribed by a traveler, and what crime is it if his words were high?

When Yejong ruled the world he esteemed verse and phrase and loved outings and feasts. At that time my great-grandfather (曾王父) Choe Yeong (崔㵸), the sangseo, was in the Yungak (綸閣), and he sent up a letter. In outline it runs:

"Long ago, when Wenzong of Tang wished to set up academicians of poetry, his chief minister said to him, 'Poets are mostly frivolous and are dull in knowing principle. If they should receive your questions, I fear they would disturb the clear hearing of Your Majesty.' So Wenzong gave it up. A sovereign ought to love the study of the classics, and to spend his days with men of learning discussing the classics and the histories, and to have no leisure even for asking about the principles of government and about teaching the people and making good customs. How should he take up the insect carving of little boys, and often with light and unsteady court poets (詞臣) chant of the wind and whistle at the moon, and so lose the pure uprightness that heaven gave him?"

The king received it generously. One of the court poets took his chance and said, "These men of learning he speaks of, who else are they? Choe Yeong is short in wind and moon and takes no pleasure in singing and answering with others, and that is why he said this." The king was angry and sent him down to be vice-governor of Chunju. Just as he took the road he answered a friend in parting:

My house has for ages received the kindness of a flourishing court, and I meant to carry on its loyalty and cleanness and not let the gate fall. I only took a firefly's glow to add to the sun of the king. How should I dare measure with a gourd and argue the source of words (詞源)? I am ashamed that in wind and moon I have no work to show. I turn and look at the cloudy sky, and it is already a place my soul reaches only in dreams. The sweat of my fright is not yet dry and already the tears of gratitude come. Sent away, I still get to ride in a red-shafted carriage.

Whenever a great army went out, the one named commander in chief was always a scholar-general (儒將). When Seodo rebelled, Duke Munyeol became commander in chief. At that time the great peace had lasted long, and the several military men did not know the old ways of a field camp. In his tent the duke softly chanted a poem of an old writer:

A million soldiers at the head of Bailupo, and under the green oil canopy one scholar. Now for the first time I believe it a precious thing to be a scholar: I lie and listen to the general call the fifth watch.

The men of the army passed it about and recited it, and from then on the generals of the inner camp called the watches.

Bak Illyang (朴寅亮), the chamjeong, took up the charge of an embassy and went into the court of China, and wherever he came he left a poem. On Jinshansi he wrote:

Sheer crags and strange stones are heaped into a mountain, and above is a lotus chamber with water ringed all about it. The pagoda's shadow topples into the river and coils below the waves, and the chime shakes the moon and falls among the clouds. Before the gate the traveler's oars are quick in the great waves, and under the bamboo the monks' game of go is idle in broad day. Once I have taken up the royal errand (皇華) the parting is hard to bear, and so I leave a verse and make a promise to come again.

As he passed Yuezhou he heard a new tune played among the music, and a man beside him said, "This is the duke's poem."

When he came to Zhejiang, wind and waves rose greatly. He saw the shrine of Wu Zixu (伍子胥) standing by the river, and he made a poem in mourning for him:

He hung his eyes on the east gate, and his anger is not yet spent. In the blue river for a thousand ages he raises the waves. Men today do not know the will of the worthy man before them. They ask only how many feet high the head of the tide is.

In a little while the wind cleared and the ship crossed smoothly, and so did he move both the hidden and the seen. Men of Song gathered his poems into a book, and it is handed down in the world today.

Gwon Jeok (權適), the academician, took up the memorial of the country and went to study in Song. On the road he sent this to Duke Munyeol and to several friends:

Parting is truly a small thing, but the meaning of this parting is hard to exhaust. The traveler's road is beyond the waves, and my home village is in my dreams. When I went out the gate it was barely the warm rain, and leaning on the oar it is already the autumn wind. On some later day, when the mood of river and lake comes, in a little boat I shall go east again.

When his ship put in at Dinghai county in Mingzhou, the emperor sent an envoy to comfort and question him on the road, and chose an outstanding scholar of the prefecture to go along with him. He entered and had audience below the palace, and the favor and the gifts were beyond the common, and by edict he entered the Biyong (辟廱) to carry on his learning. He was seven years in the school, and several times he stood first in the examination of the arts, and when the emperor came to the railing and tested him with questions of policy, he was chosen first of the first class.

When he returned to this dynasty, Yejong heard of it and thought it fine, and ordered the offices concerned to prepare the music bureau and the colored mountain (綵山) and to meet him at Yeseonggang. The king came out to Daegwanjeon and received him, and then feasted his many officials for three days in celebration. He appointed him Gukja Baksa at once and ordered him to compose and settle the rites and rules and the registers of the national school. In not many years he had passed through all the clean and vital posts.

The pieces he inscribed while going as envoy to the four quarters are quite many. Once at the north temple of Nagan he chanted on bamboo:

Great snow fills the sky and ten thousand trees break, and the green jade of the bamboo (琅玕) shines against a single branch of plum. How should this match the sixth month, when the steaming heat is cruel and it calls the clear wind and brings it from beyond?

On "Sending the Seon Elder An to Punggak":

At Gangneung the days are warm and the flowers first open. At Punggak the sky is cold and the snow is not yet gone. I laugh instead at you, master, and at your craving for hills and streams: you cannot make yourself at ease wherever you are.

On "Jeongjibang":

Half a year buried in dust, I had failed the green mountain, and at a lonely temple I stole one day of idleness. First I see the yellow chrysanthemum and know the good season, then I start to find red leaves lighting an aging face. Heaven rings the great plain far off in the haze, and the boat lies in the silence of the clear river. There is a chance of buying wine from the upper room, so in thin mist and slanting sun I cannot go back.

Altogether the pieces he inscribed and the poems he gave in answer came to some tens of volumes, but all were scattered and lost. Now barely twenty-odd poems have been got, and nearly all are long pieces, so only two quatrains and two poems in four rhymes are chosen from among them and set down.

The duke did not as a rule make a business of verse and phrase, and when he had a piece in answer to another he brought out his words offhand and did not care to startle men. He was better still in prose, and within a rich and lovely style there was a clean and swift frame to it. After several moves he became libationer of the national academy (祭酒) and Hallim academician, and Bomungak academician and Jijego as well.

He took charge of the examination of the Namseong (南省) and got his men very well. Im Jongbi (林宗庇), an outstanding scholar of his school, presented a poem with a preface to it. In outline the preface says, "He took ship and went back to the high country, and the learners of the north could not go before him. He came home in brocade to his old village, and the master of the eastern capital sighed in wonder." The poem says:

A twofold academician is rarely heard of in the eastern country. In the western court he walked alone with the name of the first class.

The duke read it and thought the preface fine, and said, "To take up the words of former men and set out a thing of today is very exact, and the matching of the couplets is very good. Only Song is to the west, and he said the north. This is to be bound by the letter and lose the fact, one spot on the white jade."

Jeong Jisang (鄭知常), the secretariat drafter (舍人), was famed for poetry in the time of Injong. Once, attending the king with Master Gwak and lodging at Jangwonjeong, he wrote:

The jade water clock drips and the moon hangs in the air. Heaven has given a whole spring together with the peony wind. In the small hall the blind is rolled up and the misty waves are green, and a man stands in the far dimness of Penglai.

On "Chanting on Bamboo":

Tall bamboo east of the small hall, some tens of clumps standing lonely. The green roots are dragons running in the ground, the cold leaves are jade crying in the wind. Their fine color rises above the common grasses, their clear shade brushes the middle air. Their deep strangeness cannot be shaped in words, there in a frosty night under the bright moon.

On "Left Inscribed at Danworyeok":

The drinking is over, I lean on the pillow, the painted screen is low. I wake from the dream at the first cock of the village ahead. Of a sudden I remember how deep in the night the cloud and rain scattered, and in the blue sky a lone moon stood west of the small tower.

On "Written at Jangwonjeong":

Two lofty palaces pillow the bank of the river, and in the clear night there is not a speck of dust. The wind sends the traveler's sail and the clouds are flake on flake. The dew gathers on the palace tiles and the jade is scale on scale. In the green willows, eight or nine houses with shut doors. In the bright moon, three or four people with rolled-up blinds. Where is far-off Penglai? The dream ends, and an oriole tells of the green spring.

On "Wolyeongdae":

The blue waves are wide and far and the rock stands high, and in the midst of it is the terrace of the Penglai academician. By the altar the pines are old and the grey moss has closed over, and at the sky's end where the cloud is low a flake of sail comes on. A hundred years of poetry and grace (風雅) are a new verse, and ten thousand li of river and hill are one cup of wine. I turn my head, and the man of Gyerim is not to be seen. The moonlight shines for nothing and turns at the gate of the sea.

On "Inscribed at Soraesa on Byeonsan":

The old path is desolate and tangled in the roots of pines. Heaven is near, and the Dipper and the Herdboy could be touched. With drifting cloud and running water a traveler comes to the temple. Among red leaves and grey moss a monk shuts the gate. The autumn wind blows faintly on the setting sun, and as the mountain moon whitens a clear gibbon cries. Strange is this old man in patched robes with whitened brows: through long years he has not dreamed of the noise of men.

On "Seodo":

On the southern path the wind is faint and a fine rain has passed. Not even light dust rises, and the willow shade slants. At green windows and red doors the pipes and the songs sob, and all of them are houses of the disciples of the Liyuan (梨園).

His words and rhymes are clear and splendid, and his lines and forms are bold and free, so that reading them wakes a troubled breast and a dim eye and makes them clear. Only the deep and mighty great piece is wanting.

When Go Dangyu (高唐愈), the academician, was still of low estate, he wrote:

How shall I cross above the River of Heaven and roam high as an immortal of the upper world? I would take a thousand bushels of water straight up and lift my hand and wash the cloudy sky.

On "Written at Unam":

The wind comes into lake and hill and ten thousand hollows cry out. The sleeping clouds have all gone home and the frontier sky is high. A grey hawk climbs straight a hundred thousand feet. What fine speck of dust could touch its feathers?

Looking at his poems, the words and the meaning are bold and strong. And indeed he became a chief minister famed for his will and his integrity, and he served through three reigns.

In the seventh year of Qiantong under Yejong, the year jeonghae, he wished to strike the eastern frontier tribes, and he made Yun Gwan (尹瓘) commander in chief and O Yeonchong (吳延寵) second commander. The king went to Seodo, came out at Yongeongwol, and gave them the axe and sent them off.

The army went forward into Daesugwan, cut down more than eighty settlements, and built four fortresses, Yeonggil among them. By edict Yun Gwan was made sijung and O Yeonchong chamjeong, and both were named merit subjects. They also built the fortresses of Hamju and Sungnyeongjin and others.

The next year the barbarians surrounded Sinseong, and O Yeonchong led a force to its relief. The chieftain Silhyeon (實現) and others offered gold and good horses, and came to the palace and declared their sincerity. Then the many officials were gathered and it was discussed at court, and Kim Yeon (金緣), the ganui daebu, said:

"When a ruler cherishes land it is to nourish his people. How should it be right to contend for ground and make a people who are like small children smear their livers and brains on the earth? I ask that Your Majesty grant them the land and keep them as one keeps beasts. When they submit, soothe them. When they do not, let them be. Then our people can have their rest."

The king thought in his heart that this was so. In the sixth month Silhyeon and the others lay down outside the gate of Seonjeongjeon and knocked their heads on the ground and said, "The barbarians too are only men. Now you have overturned our nest, and where shall we lean? We ask that you give back our land and let us cling to the ground again, and we swear that we will not trouble the border." The king laughed and granted it.

In the seventh month the garrison troops of Gilju and Yeongju were disbanded, and the office concerned impeached the two commanders, saying that they had given up the sealed warrant (封傳) and ridden home on private horses. The remonstrators also said, "Yun Gwan and O Yeonchong and Im Eon and the rest lured Gora (古羅) and the others and killed them, and so lost righteousness before the barbarians, and many soldiers were lost. They spent out the strength of the people and wasted the substance of the country to build nine fortresses, and when the position grew dangerous they abandoned them in the end. Their crime cannot be pardoned." The king unwillingly allowed them all to be stripped of office.

After a year had passed the Taeseong (臺省) sent up a memorial arguing to the end the crimes of Yun Gwan and O Yeonchong and Im Eon, but in the end it was not accepted. The several nanggwan of the Daegak all threw up their posts and would not attend to business. At that time, because of the receiving of the Song envoy, an edict ordered them to take up their offices, and only Kim Yeon, the ganui, did not come out at once. So he was specially made acting Chumirwon Busa and urged to take up the chamui, and afterward he was appointed Yebingyeong. By edict the offices of the two commanders and of Im Eon and the rest were restored.

At that time the academician Yi Ja (李䫨) answered a poem of Kim Buil:

He came to the railing, gave the axe, and ordered the campaign east, and at one lifting the rank smell was all swept clean. The frontier of Han was empty already and no old barbarian was there. What pain drove the men of Qin to build these new forts? The remonstrance that filled the court was urgent, and truly it was a good plan. The merit of widening the land was high, and that is a great name. Of following remonstrance and of raising up merit, which is the more urgent? Our king's sage judgment is even and clear in both.

In the first year of Tianqing, Kim Yeon and Im Yumun and others went into Song as envoys of thanks, and the emperor received and treated them a degree above the usual. When Kim Yeon and Im Yumun came back, the king asked after the emperor's health. Kim Yeon said, "The emperor dealt generously with our country, and the rites of his welcome were beyond the common. But in all things he goes to excess in luxury and strangeness, and it is enough to chill the heart."

Three years later, in the year gyesa, Yi Jaryang (李資諒) and Yi Yeong (李永) and others were sent to court. The emperor came out to Ruimoudian and gave them a feast, and he made a poem and showed it to them and ordered them to answer it and present it. Yi Jaryang took up the rhyme and wrote:

At the fair feast of Luming (鹿鳴) the worthy and the good are gathered, and the immortal music comes pouring from the inner chamber. The flower given down from heaven is lovely on the head, the tangerine bestowed from the tray is fragrant in the sleeve. The Yellow River tells again an omen of a thousand years, and the green wine floats lightly on the cup of ten thousand years of life. Today a vassal's servant (陪臣) takes part in this splendid hour, and asks to sing the Tianbao (天保) and never forget it.

The words of this poem run to the shallow and the easy, but the emperor praised and commended it greatly, because it went straight to the matter and was exact and fitting. The next day it passed about among the shops, and men wrote it out and made scrolls of it and hung them on their walls.

When Yi Jaryang and the others took their leave, the emperor told him quietly, "I hear that the Jurchen border on your land. When you come to court another day, you should bring a few of them along with you." Yi Jaryang said, "The barbarians are greedy, and they must not be let through to the high country."

An official of the Song court said, "Rare and strange things come out of the Jurchen land in plenty, and Goryeo always trades for them. Yi Jaryang fears that the profit will be divided with another country, and so he blocks it. Your Majesty loves Goryeo as a small child, and now Yi Jaryang turns his back on that kindness and speaks fair on the outside while in truth he deceives. There is no need to borrow Goryeo for the Jurchen. A single man may be sent to call them."

Afterward they did indeed come and go with each other, and in the end the sacred vessel (神器) passed over to the Jurchen. The many officials of the Song court did not reach the wisdom of the one man Yi Jaryang, and took loyal words for deceit instead. It is a pity.

Every year the fifteenth of the second month is kept as the Deungseok (燈夕). On the day before it the royal carriage goes to Bongeunsa and does reverence before the portrait of Taejo, and this is called the Bongeun Haenghyang.

The nine streets of the old capital were broad and level, with white sand spread flat, and a great stream ran brimming out between the two corridors. When this evening came, all the officials, great and small, each wove a mountain of silk, and the several army offices too wove figures of colored silk and joined them along the streets and lanes, and they spread painted curtains and lettered screens to left and right. They vied in setting out music and dancing, and ten thousand branches of lamplight reached to the sky and made it like broad day.

When the king came back from his going out, the singing women of the two music troupes (兩部) put on rainbow skirts and flower crowns and took up their instruments and met the royal carriage outside Seungpyeongmun, and they played the music of the Return to the Palace (還宮樂). As he entered between Heungnyemun and Ibinmun the palace halls lay deep and pierced high among the stars, and the sound of the music roared as if it were in the middle air.

In the reign of Injong there was a fire at the Wigwol (魏闕), and the playing of the music of the Return to the Palace at the two gates Heungnye and Ibin had long been given up. It was built again and finished in the eighteenth year, and at the Deungseok of that year the old music was brought back and entered by this gate. The king chanted a quatrain:

The joy of ruler and servant in this place has passed eighteen years for nothing. Now by the strength of those who set things right, having drunk, it is as it was before.

This royal composition (御製) is set here for the sake of recording the event, and the others are all of this kind.

Yun Eoni (彦頤), Duke Mungang, in his later years relished the taste of Seon the more, and he withdrew and lived at Geumgangjae in Yeongpyeong-gun and called himself the Geumgang Layman. Whenever he came inside the walls he rode a yellow ox, and everyone knew him by it.

He became a friend of the Seon master Gwanseung (貫乘禪師), a disciple of Hyeso (慧炤), and they found great joy in each other. At that time Gwanseung was staying at Gwangmyeongsa, and he had set up a rush hut just large enough to hold one seat. They made a promise, saying, "Whichever of us goes first shall sit here and pass away."

One day he rode his ox to Gwanseung and ate with him, and afterward he said, "The time of my going is not far off, and I have only come to say farewell." When he had spoken he went straight away, and Gwanseung sent a man after him with the rush hut. The duke saw it and laughed and said, "The master has not broken the promise. My road is settled."

At once he took up a brush and wrote a gatha (偈):

Spring and again autumn. Flowers open and leaves fall. East and again west. Nourish well the true master within (眞君). Today in the middle of the road I turn and look at this body: in the long sky of ten thousand li one flake of idle cloud.

When he had finished writing he sat down in the hut and went.

At that time there was no high man or fine scholar who did not sigh and look up to him, but one called Yi, the jungseung, who was spoken of as upright, alone opposed it and said, "Duke Yun was a chief minister in his person, and his fame was heavy, and all men looked up to him. Even in age and retirement he should have thought of the country and its customs, and whetted and held his integrity the more, and so shown it to those who come after. Instead he took up the practice of the Buddha's way, turned the Way upside down and broke down what is constant, and so harmed the teaching of the sages. I fear that a strange and crooked fashion will begin from this."

I once looked at the Pungsogyeongnon (風騷格論) and found in it the faults called pyeongdu (平頭), sangmi (上尾), bongyo (蜂腰), hakseul (鶴膝), daeun (大韻), soun (小韻), jeongnyu (正紐) and bangnyu (旁紐). These are the idle talk of men who like such business.

Yesterday I heard this from someone: "Long ago an envoy of the Jurchen Jin came and lodged in the guest house, and behind the house the melon flowers were in full bloom. The envoy said, 'The melon flowers have opened by the thousand and ten thousand,' and pressed the escort to match it at once. The escort said, 'The myeong leaves (蓂葉) have opened two or three.' The envoy laughed and would not have it, and would not nod at the next match either. A clerk came forward and said, 'A pair of willow trees hangs down.' The envoy said, 'The two characters yusu (柳樹) are not of the same rhyme, but the sounds are near each other and it will serve for a match.' The escort said at once, 'That is not hard. It will do to make myeong (蓂) into hyeop (莢), for the two characters sound alike.' The envoy was greatly pleased."

This is the fault of soun (小韻) in the Pungso, and the envoy of Jin fell into it. Though the escort could not match it at once, he was not without talent, and in the end he was able to make a good match.

Donggyeong was of old Silla. In former days there were the Four Immortals (四仙), and each led more than a thousand followers, and the art of song flourished. There was also the Okbu Seonin (玉府仙人), who first made several hundred tunes. Min Gageo (閔可擧), the bogya of this dynasty, received and got the fineness of it.

Once, on a day when he sat alone playing the geomungo, two cranes came flying. So he made a byeoljo (別調):

The immortal traces of Wolseong are far, the sound of the Okbu music is faint. Why have the two cranes come so late? I shall go home with you for company.

Uhwamun (雨花門) at Hwangnyongsa was raised by the followers of the immortals of old, and the look of the place was wild and desolate, and no one passed it without grief. The academician Ho Jongdan (胡宗旦) was riding in an envoy's carriage past this gate when he saw what Choe Hongbin (崔鴻賓), the jinsa, had left inscribed there:

The old tree cries in the north wind, small waves toss in the last of the light. I linger and think of things gone by, and before I know it tears have wet my clothes.

Ho Jongdan started in wonder and said, "This is truly a talent such as the age does not have." When he came back and made his report, the king asked about the remains of Donggyeong, and so he set out this poem as a warning.

My late grandfather, going about the northern frontier as an inspector (繡衣), wrote:

The autumn sun at Yongseong is pale, and white smoke lies over the old garrison. For ten thousand li there is no weapon of war, and the barbarian children give thanks for the great peace.

In being plain and old and without a trace it is like the poem of Choe Hongbin. That poem of Choe felt and sighed over now and long ago, and so its feeling and thought are many. This poem chants of the frontier at ease, and so its force of wind is strong.

Im Geukchung (克忠), Duke Munsuk (文肅), passing Yeonbokjeong, wrote:

On the Bianhe (汴河) of Yangdi the autumn is bleak, on the Shudao (蜀道) of Minghuang the rain is desolate. At that time there was no one who believed in this grief, and over the streams and hills that fill the eye there are some lines of tears.

Duke Munsun inscribed there:

The double corridor (複道) is all grown over with green weeds. The pipes and songs are silent, and birds call to one another. Here within it the mirror of Yin is plainly to be seen. Do not let the ruins be swept away to nothing.

The feeling with which he touches old things is deep, and reading it makes one sad. The one couplet on the mirror of Yin (殷鑑) holds a meaning deep and urgent.

The Daedonggang is the ford where the people of Seodo see off those who part from them. The fine scenery of river and hill there is the rarest under heaven. Jeong Jisang, the secretariat drafter, in sending off a man, wrote:

When will the water of the Daedonggang run dry? The tears of parting are added year by year and become its waves.

The men of that time counted it the line that carries the whole poem (警策). But Du Fu, called Shaoling, said, "The tears of parting are added far off to the water of the Jinjiang," and Li Taibai said, "I would tie the waves of Jiujiang and make them ten thousand lines of tears." All come out of one mold.

Duke Munsun, parting from someone at Jogang, wrote:

The boat takes the man far and the heart follows after. The sea sends the tide in and the tears flow along with it.

The speaking of tears is the same, but the meaning is perhaps a little different.

In general, a piece left inscribed is counted fine when the words are spare and the meaning is complete, and it is not for boasting of quantity or shining with plenty. What Bak Illyang, the chamjeong, inscribed at Seunggagul runs to twenty rhymes, what Ham Jajin (咸子眞), the nangjung, inscribed at Naksan runs to forty-four rhymes, and what Yi Yunbo (李允甫), the court historian, inscribed at Buryeong runs to a hundred rhymes. All of these record facts, and their words could not help being many.

At a pavilion or a terrace or a tower, what a man inscribes as he passes lies only in a couplet or two that paints the scene. It spreads before the eye like a picture, so that a traveler hurrying by may read it without tiring his mouth or wearying his heart, and may chant it and enjoy it and send his mood along with it.

All my life I had heard my fill of what Minister Im Geukchung inscribed at the guest tower of Hwangnyeo-hyeon:

The moon is dark and seems to fly to the shore, the mist has sunk and the river makes waves of itself. Where does the fishing boat lodge? Far off, one strain of a song.

I had thought his rhyming words strange and no more, and I had not got the taste of them. When I became circuit commissioner (按廉) and lodged at this tower on the road, at that hour the mist of the river was dim and far, a pale moon was hazy, water birds flew and cried, and the fishermen sang to one another. What troubled the eye and rang in the ear was all of it what Duke Im had chanted, and the worth of his poem rose the higher when set against the scene.

At the Hwangsan River in Gimhae-bu, if you go down along the water six or seven li, a green cliff rises sheer. Where it faces the peak and holds the river there are ten and more houses of a misty village, all of them bamboo fences and thatched huts, so that it is like being inside a painting.

Choe Chiwon, the Tang siyeosa, once heaped stones and made a terrace and named it Imgyeong (臨鏡), and he inscribed a poem on the rock wall:

The misty peaks stand close and the water is brimming. In the mirror the houses face the green summit. Where is the lone sail going, filled with wind? In a flash, like a flying bird, it is far off and leaves no trace.

With the long years the terrace fell down and the writing on the wall was blurred away. Later men moved the writing to Hwangsannu, but the things it takes hold of and the poem go against each other. How far apart are the plaque of a county and the board (榜) of a prefecture!

What the duke left chanted was as a rule no more than one quatrain, and yet within it there is no fine scene that he does not pierce exactly. So a traveler who sees it may chant and enjoy it and still want more. What he sent and gave to others is mostly quatrains as well, clear and lovely and to be cherished. On "Given to a Monk Living Alone at Hoegok":

Put aside the pine wind, and the ear is not troubled. He wove a thatched hut and leaned it deep on the root of the white clouds. It would be a grief instead if the men of the world learned the road: the moss on the stones would be soiled with the marks of clogs.

Yi Jisim (李知深), the academician, inscribed at the Seongduru of Pungju:

Heaven and sea have no bound. Far off I look, and it does not come to an end. The four quarters are an eye of a thousand li. In the sixth month it is the wind of the ninth autumn. A painting could hardly catch its fineness. How should a piece of writing be made well enough? I only doubt that wings have grown on me and that my body is in the great void.

The men of that time said of this couplet that its words are not cut and polished and yet the spirit is bold and the meaning open. Even so, within ten characters he says "no bound" and then again "does not come to an end," and above he says "I look, and it does not come to an end" and below "an eye of a thousand li," so that the meaning seems doubled. And yet in reading it no one is aware of a doubled meaning, and this is because there is no fault of sound (聲病). The men of old called the turning back and avoiding of faults of sound the geumchimgyeok (金針格), and it is truly so.

Jeong Jisang, the secretariat drafter, inscribed at Palcheokbang:

On the head of the rock a pine grown old and one flake of moon. At the sky's end a low cloud and a thousand points of hills.

I had long loved the clearness and the excellence of its words and meaning, and I chanted and enjoyed it from time to time. When I became allyeom of Jeollado, about the time the moon brightened in the second month, I climbed the peak behind the Bulsauibang on Byeonsan. Beside me an old pine stabbed at the sky and a new moon shone faintly. Looking down on the plain, the many hills that touched the sky were sharp as if burned in with moxa, and they smeared the cloud and the mist. Suddenly Duke Jeong's poem came to me, and I chanted it low and chewed it over, and I thought that unless a man comes to such a place, how should he know where Duke Jeong found his meaning?

Punggak stands all in bone with no earth on it, and so it is named Gaegol (皆骨). It is where the true body of the Bodhisattva Dammugal dwells, and it is said that a monk who lives there attains the Way even if he has no conduct.

Yi Sunu (李純祐), the libationer, became military commissioner of the Northeast Circuit (東北面兵馬使), and passing this mountain he inscribed a quatrain. My grandfather on my mother's side, Kim Yegyeong (金禮卿), took up its rhyme and wrote:

Wei Yan (韋偃) in that year was buried on Guoshan, and he has turned into Gaegol, leaning cold against the sky. It props itself high and sheer and looks like a painting, and surely this is the old brush tip that used to paint.

The libationer would not stop praising it, and my grandfather said, "Even this has not said it all. There is something left in me still." He made another quatrain:

The true body of Mugal dwells on this mountain, and by illusion he has hung dry bones at the edge of the clouds. It must be to make the eyes of the monks who live without conduct look on them morning and evening and enter the fine contemplation (觀).〔In the Buddha's way (浮屠) there is the contemplation of white bones (白骨觀).〕

Then he said, "Now I have scratched every place that itched."

Behind the guest house of Dongnae there is Jeokchwijeong, and Gwak Dongsun (郭東珣), the circuit commissioner, left one poem there. Minister Mun Gongyu (公裕), when he was daeri (大理), wrote it out with his own hand and set it on a board, and after that not one poem was added to it. Kim Jeong (金精), the academician, made a record for it, and Minister Choe Yucheong made an afterword and wrote it out himself, so the world calls them the Three Excellences of Jeokchwijeong, meaning that the poem is excellent, the record is excellent, and the writing is excellent.

In the spring of the year jeongmi I was riding post horses and passed this pavilion, and at one sight of it I marveled and could not keep silent, and I answered it and made one poem. Ji Jangwon (池壯元), the county magistrate, wished to cut it into the board, but I firmly stopped him, fearing that it would be a blot on the Three Excellences and would fail this pavilion.

On the tower of Geumgwan (金官), Academician Song was the first to inscribe three poems in seven syllables and six rhymes. At that time one man took up the rhyme and left three more, and afterward those who followed and answered were more than ten. Poem boards filled the tower, and everyone who read them grew weary. A traveler wrote at the end of a board:

One couplet had already said all the meaning of the western peak. What need was there of four lines to write of Bugak? Laughable is Duke Song, a true lover of doings: the inscriptions of one tower run past a hundred words.

The mountain man Hyeso (慧素) made a record for Chongseokjeong at Geumnan. Duke Munyeol teased him and said, "Does this master mean to write a regulated poem?"

At the public lodge of Seongsan an envoy left a poem of ten rhymes inscribed, and its words were many and its meaning bent. Gwak Dongsun saw it and said, "This is a record, not a poem."

Not only are poetry and prose each different, but within one poem or one piece of prose there is also a form (體) proper to each part. A man of old said, "One who learns poetry takes Du Zimei for his form in regulated lines, Li Taibai for his form in the song chapters, and Han Yu and Su Shi for his form in old-style verse. As for prose, every form is complete in the writings of Han Yu, and by reading them closely and going deep one may get their form." Even so, the old-style verse of Li Bai and Du Fu is not below that of Han Yu and Su Shi, and he spoke in this way only to make those who come after learn the forms of the several houses broadly.

Yu Hui (劉曦), the academician, took the royal examination in the time of Uijong and was chosen head of the list. In a poem he once sent to someone he said, in outline:

To take the first place in the examination is a common thing. But how many men are disciples of the Son of Heaven?

When he became sudo of Milseong he passed Hwabongwon, and resting there by day he wrote on the wall:

In banishment I went south through sixteen post stations, and only this morning have I set foot on the land of Sangwon. A few li from the side of Yoseong there is one remote county, and its name is Mungyeong. By the county there is a new won, and its bearing is very stern, and the glowing gold and the blue shine upon one another. The small tower set off to the east is stranger and finer still, and it beats down the old Eight Chants (八詠) of Shen Xiuwen (沈休文). How fine is this house, and who built it? Mun (文), the shining one, is his name, and Min (閔) is his surname. I am a man of Duke Min's school, and seeing now what he built I revere him the more. Ah, had this man stayed on in the world, to govern all under heaven would not have been too much for him. Why is it that a jade tower has been finished in heaven, and the wild goose passes the long sky and leaves no shadow? The world of dust is shut off already and hard to search out far away, and I can only sigh to myself over this endlessness.

If Gwak Dongsun had seen this, he would likely have called it a record.

Another man inscribed at this won:

Even the old layman whose ten thousand bonds have cooled to ashes still holds a red heart and serves the sage brightness (聖明). All the living people under heaven ask leave to pray for him. How then has this place alone taken the name of Hwabong (華封)?

Yu Hui's poem met a scene and longed for old things, and so its words are many and its meaning bent. This poem only attaches itself to inscribing this won, and so its words are spare and it has the line that carries the whole poem.

Yu Hui's son Chunggi (沖基), the daesaseong, was lonely and clean in his integrity and conduct, and his writing was broad and ample, and he had his father's air. But what he composed was all scattered and lost, and it cannot be set down.

Ha Cheondan (河千旦), the lecturer (直講), recited the poem "Roaming on Paljeonsan" by Baegunja O Jeongseok (吳廷碩):

The water is long and the mountain's shadow far. The wood is thick and the birds cry deep. Weary servant, do not whip the horse. Go slowly, and I can chant the longer.

Then he said, "The line 'the wood is thick and the birds cry deep' is the finest song of all."

I said, "In this poem the sending of the meaning is idle and far, and only after chanting the four lines through does one get the good taste of it. How should one line alone be called the finest? A line like 'the wood is thick and the birds cry deep' is peeled off from Du Zimei's 'beyond the bamboo the bird's voice is deep.' Set the words 'the wood is thick' beside the words 'beyond the bamboo,' and like the Jing and the Wei they part of themselves into clear and muddy."

When Duke Munsuk of the Choe family had charge of the examination, Kim Ipji (金立之), the seungseon, was chosen head of the list, and when Duke Munui, the son of Duke Munsuk, had charge of the examination, Gunsu (君綏), the ganui and son of Kim the seungseon, was again head of the list.

The ganui was rich in talent and judgment, and bamboo painted in ink ran in his family, and his brushwork was out of the common. A monk who was about to go back to the land south of the river asked him for a painting on a single sheet of paper, and when the painting was done he inscribed a poem:

Go some tens of li to the south and you will see your fill of woods where the bamboo is thick as a blind. I mislike your troublesome and blunt hand, and a blunt hand is idle at painting what is in the breast. A thousand acres stand deep and green and ten thousand fathoms high, and how narrow is this one sheet of scented paper! Have you not seen that the land of Changsha (長沙) is narrow of itself, and yet it is not that the dancing sleeves of the great king do not flutter wide and large?〔This is the manner of mixing rhymes.〕

When he became allyeom of the Dongnam Circuit he passed Yoseongyeok and left a poem:

Last year, when the maples were about to redden, I rode the carriage and went to the southern country. This year, when the willows first turn yellow, I turn the banners back and go to court at the north pole. The changing of all things has no constancy, and the going of the four seasons does not rest. The flow of the stream is like my heart, clear and clean and of one color only.

People said that this poem is harmonious and ample and has a taste to it, and is truly the work of a great officer on a journey of duty.

Chae Bomun (蔡寶文), the seubyu, had a heavy name in his time. Looking at his poems, they are strong and lovely and without a trace of cutting and polishing.

He had once studied at Geumseong, and later he came there as allyeom and inscribed on the wall of the public house:

It is ten years and more since I came and stayed in this land, and this autumn I am a wild goose flying south again. I roll up the blind at dusk and the river and hills are the same, I open the mirror case in the morning and my teeth and hair are not. At midnight the white sand keeps the moonlight, through long years the green bamboo flirts with the light of spring. With a yellow belt and red eyes my new honor is heavy. Who on the road I come and go by would call me a man in plain cloth?

And he answered a poem on Byeokpajeong at Jindo:

Who built this pavilion on the blue riverside? Endless yellow reeds and green bamboo. On the willow bank I am glad to meet the magistrate of Pengze, and going to Taoyuan I seek out the man of Wuling. Far and faint, the isle of Penglai on the sea, and the wheels of sun and moon coming and going among the waves. A few branches of golden tangerine hang low at the horse's head. Who among the travelers would tell them that the governor (使君) is poor?

And taking up the rhyme of a poem on Hoeseonjeong at Dogang:

To hurry along the traveler's road is the same now as of old, and in breaking down the citadel of sorrow wine has its merit. The wind draws the sound of water to the jade pillow, the moon moves the shadow of flowers up the pearl lattice. By the steps a hundred grasses vie in the color of spring, beyond the railing two pines have wind all day long. The many immortals in this seat are all of fine virtue, and one may sing the Odes (詩雅) and chant of the paulownia (椅桐).

When Kim Donsi (金敦時), the useung, was young, he followed a monk to the merchants' house of Tang. A trader there had fallen out with his wife and meant to cast her off and go to another house. It was then the depth of winter, and rain fell all at once. Kim Donsi called at once for paper and wrote a quatrain:

The land of Donghan (東韓) is fair and has drawn in the fierceness of the cold, and the auspicious snow has turned about and falls as auspicious rain. This must be the art of the goddess of Wushan, who has shut the guest house on purpose so that he cannot go.

The trader saw it and sighed in wonder and went so far as to shed tears, and in the end he did not cast off his wife. Even a common trader among the men of China is moved like this when he sees a good poem. How much more a scholar-officer.

Academician O Hangnin (吳學麟) of the Hallim, coming again to Heungboksa, wrote:

The days change and the things of themselves change. Matters move and men move as well. The crane has added a chick in the new year, the pine has aged the branch of last year. Court by court, it is old and yet not old. Monk by monk, they know me and do not know me. At ease I climb the water pavilion and prove again the poem I inscribed long ago.

The bringing out of his words is round and smooth, and it exhausts in full the feeling of coming again.

The academician's house carried on the Confucian calling age after age. His grandsons Segong (世功) and Semun (世文) and Sejae (世才), three brothers, were all great hands at writing, and the youngest, Sejae, was the best of them, and Semun next. The drafts of their poems piled up like a mountain through their lives, but all were scattered and are not handed down in the world, and this is a grief.

The two elder brothers both rose high, but Sejae grew old without gaining his wish and wandered as a stranger in Donggyeong. Sunji (淳之), the Giam Layman, gave him a poem:

I am by birth only one commoner of the southeast, and being old and idle I cannot hold the plow myself. I have come and leaned on an old temple and lodge in an idle room, and people always call me a layman. It is just as it was under the eaves of the house of Botong (伯通), when Liang Hong (梁鴻) and Deyao (德耀) stayed there a while together. Sometimes I follow a monk and ask about the sutras and the treatises. How should I dare follow the officials and contend over letters? This district, like Lu, has had many scholars from of old, but even when we meet they seem to hold back from me. By this I know that if the road men take is not truly the same, then though they live next door they are far off as a thousand li. How much more the Munhanwon (文翰苑) of the capital, of which I hear nothing at all, as if it were a thing above the sky. Yet I had long heard much of Duke Bogyang (濮陽公), whose sea of learning is wide and wide and has no shore. His prose is like the Dian and the Gao (典誥) and has few windings, his poems are like the Ya and the Song (雅頌), and how should they be gaudy? The "Daren" (大人) of Xiangru (相如) is wild and boastful beside them, and the "Lisao" (離騷) of Qu Ping (屈平) is twisted instead. Deep as a pool and hidden away, he is glad to hold himself a treasure, and he does not show the rainbow spirit that is a thousand fathoms high.〔Kim Mujeok (金無迹) once said to me, "Those in the world who blame Duke O and call him a man who drives his wine and is bold and unruly are all wrong. The duke is deep and still and idle and refined, and he breaks his own edge and hides his light and will not show so much as a hair's point of it."〕 In my heart I prayed to see him once and always knocked at heaven, and I did not even feel how low and mean my own person was. That utmost sincerity moves the spirits is truly no empty word, for suddenly I have met him like this, and not inside a dream. I once saw a man of heaven in a dream, and I remember his face still, and the duke is that very man. How should I dare set my clumsy verse against the line of a spirit? I only grieve that I could not offer it at that time.〔I once saw in a dream a spirit man coming down, and the men and women who watched were very many. I looked at him from within the crowd, and the one they called a spirit man was not very fat or fair of face but looked like a scholar of this world. It was told that the spirit man had made a poem, and one line of it ran, "The ten thousand families rejoice and take joy in Taijie (泰階)." I thought that if the spirit man saw me and told me to match this line I could not answer on the instant, so I made one beforehand: "The three lights blaze and open the guard of heaven." I was about to go forward before him myself, but I did not manage it and woke. Now I look at the duke's face, and it is no different from what I saw in the dream.〕 Now I have attended him many times at the wine table, and I have his new pieces besides, which add an overflowing beauty. Gladly the yellow color rises between my brows, and now, were I to die at once, I should have nothing to be ashamed of. By old writings a man may still long for the sages of old. How much more for a great gentleman alive in the same age. Ah, I love him and I fear him too, and what day shall I stop wearing his words of virtue about me?

Duke Munsun was more than thirty years younger than O Sejae, but they made a friendship that forgot years, and he too sent him a poem:

The road going east by sea and hill is far and far, and fallen once to the sky's edge I have long been weary of wandering. The yellow rice grows fat by the day and chicken and duck are glad. The green paulownia ages in autumn and the phoenix grieves. He who rowed away to Wu on the misty waves does not come back, and in snow and moonlight I look to float a boat and seek out the Shan stream. A sage age will surely not cast you off at the last. Do not think of fishing the clear stream with white hair hanging down.

So was he named and longed for by the heroes of an age.

My grandfather on my mother's side inscribed at the guest tower of Goseong:

Shut the window, and still there is the breath of the sea. Lean on the pillow, and there is the sound of the waves as well. Cap and canopy are the traces of the Four Immortals. River and lake are a name of three days.

This couplet is high in form and complete in meaning.

O Semun (吳世文), the biseung, inscribed at Nogyangyeok:

Where there are flowers the village's worth is heavy. Where there are no willows the station's name stands alone. On the tall trees the sun shines first. The withered mulberry calls the wind of itself.

This couplet is high and plain and has a taste to it. But having a taste is not the equal of being complete in meaning.

O Sejae chanted on Geugam (戟巖) at Bugak:

The sheer rock of the northern ridge the people beside it call Geugam. The far-reaching chun (椿) is Wangzi Jin (王子晉), who rode the crane. What stabs on high is Xian (咸), who climbed to heaven. Knead the shaft, and the lightning becomes its fire. Wash the point, and the frost is its salt. How may weapons be made of them, to break Chu and destroy Fan (凡) as well?

A man of Song saw this poem and was full of admiration, and asked, "Is this man alive? What office has he reached now? If there were one in our Song who made poems like this, he would surely have been given rank. This poem was not inscribed at leisure. It seems rather that someone set him a hard rhyme and made him compose."

The character jae (哉) is a particle, and it too is hard to make a rhyme of. Long ago a certain officer told Gwon Dollye to compose on "The Bamboo Battle Line" (竹陣) and threw him the character jae. Gwon Dollye wrote:

Blades crossing, and it is the wind brushing by. A bow hung up, and the moon comes forth.

This may be spoken of in the same breath.

Heo Hongjae (許洪材), the head of the list, on the road to Wansan wrote:

I come again to the place where I used to roam, and the wind and the moon are as they were last spring. I only grieve that below Wansan there is now no one who drums on his full belly.

All who heard it said, "It is shallow and easy, and yet it has in it the will to relieve the people and set the world in order." Afterward he did indeed become chief minister.

Choe Yu (崔裕), a jinsa of Jean, inscribed at Dowonyeok:

Three or four households that fled from Qin became in time the station of Dowon. They say themselves that meeting and sending off is hard work, but that it is better after all than the labor of the Long Wall.

It has in it the meaning of satire and admonition, and at that time it was called the line that carries the whole poem. Choe Yu went up ten times and did not pass, and he ended his days in plain cloth. So it seems that the old saying, that one looks at a man's writing and knows his advancing and staying, is not to be trusted for certain. Even so, looking at Choe's poem, the words and the meaning are bitter of themselves, and it has not the harmonious and ample air of Heo Hongjae, who was to grow great.

Choe Hongyun (洪胤), Duke Gyeongmun, was first on the golden list (金牓) and was appointed jeongdang and entered the Jungseo, and the duty room where he lodged was the fourth room. Geum Ui (儀), Duke Yeongnyeol, was also head of the list and was appointed jeongdang, and he came into this room on Choe's heels. Keeping the night watch he made a poem:

This fourth room of the ministers in the Jungseo, how many state councillors and jeongdang has it seen? Who can match the glory of this day? A head of the list has taken the place of a head of the list.

Duke Yeongnyeol held the throat and tongue (喉舌) and served as three daebu and two academicians together, and when he became chief minister he held the beam of the scales a long time. Then he made a poem:

Going in and out of the chancellery (黃扉) and the Cheongswaedal (靑瑣闥), I have come to twenty-four years of it now. The cock crows and the water clock runs out, and still I am on the road, and I fear that on the Sand Causeway (沙堤) I break the ban of the night.

Then he pleaded illness and went home in his old age.

The two dukes were both heads of the list from the school of Mun Geukgyeom (文克謙), Duke Chungsuk. In the spring of the year imsin they took charge of the examination of the Board of Rites together, and I came out of their school. The two dukes were chief ministers at the same time, and Yupil (惟弼), the son of Duke Chungsuk, was a chief minister then as well.

When Duke Yeongnyeol hung up his carriage and went home in age, his disciples wished to offer him a cup of long life, and they opened a great and splendid feast and invited the two ministers Choe and Mun to join it. Leaning on the wine, Duke Yeongnyeol called out, "From one school two heads of the list came out, and together with the jongbaek they were state councillors at the same time, down to retiring in old age. And now to come to this feast of congratulation given by a disciple is truly a thing not heard of in a thousand years. How should we not drink ourselves deep to answer so splendid a thing?"

The disciples all lay face down below the steps and could not contain their joy and their sighing, and some of them even wiped away tears and sobbed.

Jo Bun (趙蕡), who was chosen in the same year, made a poem and chanted it low and privately to those of his year:

From one school we climbed the golden list together, and within a few years they entered the chancellery one after another. The jongbaek 〔in the speech of this country, the son of the master who passed him.〕 too became a chief minister of the same time, and at the spring feast of the Gyedang (桂堂) we give joy to three lords.

Those of his year said that though this poem is shallow and common, it says the thing of that day exactly.

Duke Gyeongmun and Duke Yeongnyeol both loosed the seal cord of a chief minister and went home to grow old. The king invested the Eastern Court (東朝) and came to the railing, and out of reverence for the aged he bestowed a great feast. Both dukes came in and went to the feast, and their several disciples supported them and attended them up to the palace, and they filled the streets and overflowed the lanes, and there was no one watching who did not sigh in wonder.

When the feast broke up and he had gone home, Duke Yeongnyeol said to his several sons, "I became a chief minister as head of the list and have come to retiring in old age, and I took part in the feast that was bestowed, and the way my disciples supported and attended me was very splendid. They are all the fine talents of the age, and how should I contain my gladness? It is right that I follow the old example of Duke Munhwa, who feasted his several disciples."

So he called together the lists of four years and opened a great feast of drinking, and he called out his several sons and grandsons and was about to seat them when he said, "The young men of one house are as close in feeling as flesh and bone. My several sons and grandsons are your brothers too." So he seated them by age.

When the wine was deep and the joy was great, he had the disciples call out to one another and answer. Hwangbo Gwan (皇甫瓘), the head of the list of the year of the dragon, called out:

Men of one year, first and last, are as brothers.

The duke answered the sound at once and matched it:

Heroes that fill the seat sit among sons and grandsons.

The next day the several men of his year each made a poem of thanks. I took the seven characters of the duke's one line and divided them for rhymes and made a poem, and a preface (引) with it, and so gave thanks, and the duke saw it and approved it.

Duke Jo Munjeong had capacity and judgment, virtue and conduct, and the civil and the military together, and his fame tilted both court and countryside.

In the year byeongja, when the Khitan robbers were to be struck, a commander in chief was named and the duke was made second commander. He could not decide alone by himself, and the fighting went badly. He made a poem:

The frosted hoof that runs a thousand li may be allowed one stumble. Its sad cry and its brave spirit, how high they rise! If Zaofu (造父) were let lay on the whip again, it would trample the sandy field and break the old barbarian.

When the year gimyo came, the talk at court pushed the duke forward as sole commander in chief and gave him full charge of the troops. It happened that the Mongol army came chasing the Khitan robbers, and their chief saw the duke and bowed to him and took him for an elder brother, and they joined their strength and swept away the Khitan robbers and then went back. He was moved to Munha Pyeongjangsa and Pan Byeongbu.

At that time Duke Munan and Duke Munsun, the two assistant councillors Han and Jin, Yu Chunggi the director of studies, and Yun Uil the lecturer were all of the same list with him, and they put together a feast to congratulate him. The poem the duke made was most of all the line that carries the whole poem, but it is lost now and I remember only one couplet:

In green sleeves last year I sat at the end of the seat. In the chancellery today I have gone before all the lords.

And taking up the rhyme again he answered Yu the drafting attendant (待制) and Jin the daejang:

In the battle line of letters (文陣) that year the drum and the horn were brave, and in silver gown and blue sleeve we were within the thorn hall (棘闈). Not many men have walked the blue clouds with a steady step, and looking at one another with white hair we have not failed you. The dread majesty of the Obu (烏府) shakes the mountains, and the praise of the good fortune of the Hongchu (鴻樞) reaches the children. The drafting attendant of the Cheonjanggak is such a man as well. When will the rising of our one list come to an end?

His fame and merit were at their height, and yet he had a mind to withdraw into mist and sunset cloud, and he opened Dongnagwon on the Donggo (東臯), beside bamboo and looking on a spring. Day by day, with the disciples of his school and with worthy officers, he took his pleasure in poems and wine. What they exchanged came to several volumes, but alas, there was no one to gather and set it down, and it is not handed down today.

He died at the age of fifty, and there was no one in the Three Han who did not beat his breast and grieve and long for him. Yun Uil, the lecturer, made the tomb inscription, and in outline it says, "Was the duke virtue and conduct? Was he letters and learning? Was he government? He need not be ashamed before Yan Hui and Min Ziqian and Ji Lu and their company. Within he was a chief minister and without a general. What shall be said of fifty years of fame and merit and of wealth and rank?" The men of that time called it a true record.

Duke Yeongnyeol studied under the same master as Im Yeongnyeong (任永齡), the academician, and when they went up for the examination Im was chosen in the second class first. The duke made a poem:

To come out as a jinsa is not what I hoped for, but as for taking the first place, what can a man without talent do? I envy you, my friend, young Lord Im, who in the spring wind on the red street is made the Flower Seeker.

The next year he did indeed take the first place.

Duke Jo Munjeong, with Yu Chunggi the drafting attendant and Yi Baeksun (李百順) the sagan and several disciples of his school, roamed in Dongnagwon, and they opened a drinking bout and called and answered, and they drew the character gi (欺).

Yi Baeksun said:

The valley is still, and the sound answers back. The pond is clear, and the shadow does not deceive.〔They were beside a pond at the time.〕

Yu Chunggi said:

The summer sun is truly to be feared. The autumn cloud does not deceive.〔This points to Duke Jo.〕

The duke said:

The gall is rough and makes light of the fierceness of wine. The Way is straight, and no man deceives him.

The whole company was stirred and startled, and no one carried the answering any further.

The duke had once answered a poem of Duke Yeongnyeol on the getting of a grandson:

That the yin is pushed back and the line goes on, I knew before the rest, and there is no need to lean on a six-eyed turtle to divine going and staying. A child of parts cries out one morning from the embroidered curtain, and a faint warmth stirs the reed screen at midnight.〔He was born on the day of the winter solstice.〕 What need of the trouble of hanging up a bow case and praying for a son, when the peach flower has washed the child's face again and again already?〔When a child is born they wash its face with peach flower. The charm runs, "Bring the red flower, bring the white snow," and they wash the child's face and make it shine.〕 He will meet the half thousand (半千) and be an omen to the world, and at fifteen he will be seen to be a master of men. High in letters, he will be the Zhuo (鷟) of the blue coin (靑錢) that lights the country, and in majesty he will hold off the foe and uphold the king, a white bear.〔This is Wang Pi (王羆) of the Beishi.〕 From of old the kindness between our two houses (通家) has stood like a mountain, and I spread out what I feel of congratulation in this one poem.

At the first the men of letters vied in taking up the rhyme, and they found the character bi (羆) hard. The duke laid it down last of all, and his was the more uncommon.