A Letter Presented to the Gentlemen of the Inner Chancellery呈內省諸郞。
某天地間一微喘也。偶落女媧縆土之戱。不奈愚貧。悞師匡鼎鑿壁之懃。頗窮書史。自登一第。已換九霜。陸沈之恨劇焉。途窮之哭痛矣。朝庭豈不好善。臺閣豈無知音。然性本散踈。加之迂闊。徒自守轉胞之懶。未嘗趨炙手之炎。蝸角纔生。見人卽縮。蟬膓自潔。與物無營。緘口如瘖。掩顔自拙。然則雖窮且苦焉。孰唁之而孰憐之耶。近者。伏聞內省諸郞學士閤下。視草之暇。言及人物。不以爲僕淺薄無取。雌黃潤澤。將欲薦進於國家。僕竊自以爲古人所謂至公之道。廢之已久。不意復行於今日矣。僕旣踈懶迂闊。不敢以長喙頑脣自鳴自叫。而學士諸郞。特置於齒牙之間。至以薦達爲心。況萬萬賢於僕者哉。口嘗笑而不闔。舌嘗詫而不停。躍躍然若已得美官豐祿矣。雖諸郞至公之心。平似無蠅之秤。而鯫生私喜之淚。滴若泣鮫之盤。義不可辜負。禮不可不謝。是用執將斷之索。汲出餘波。連已絶之絃。彈生乾韻。謹隨韻著成記德五言今體詩各一首。連簡繕寫。奉贄于左右。旣有以謝之。復竊望諸郞學士勿謂前言戱耳。期以好爵縻之。以終其惠而已。無任惶悚之至。
I am one frail breath between Heaven and Earth. By chance I fell into the sport of Nüwa (女媧), who dangled clay to make men, and could do nothing about my foolishness and poverty; and wrongly taking for my master the diligence of Kuang Heng (匡衡), who bored through a wall, I went through the books and the histories to some purpose. Since I passed the examination once, nine frosts have already turned, and deep is the regret of one sunk on dry land, and painful the weeping that the road is blocked. It is not that the court does not love the good, nor that in the Censorate and Chancellery (臺閣) there is none who knows me; but my nature is loose and scattered from the first, and to that is added my ignorance of the ways of the world, so that I merely keep my own idleness and have never gone forward to the powerful whose influence might warm my hands. Like a snail whose horns have barely come out, I draw them in the moment I see a man; clean in myself as a cicada's gut, I have no dealings to manage with things. I shut my mouth and am as one dumb; I cover my face and am clumsy of myself. And so, though I am straitened and in distress besides, who will comfort me and who will pity me? Of late I have respectfully heard that Your Excellencies, the several Gentlemen and Academicians of the Inner Chancellery, at leisure from examining the royal edicts, came to speak of men, and did not hold me to be shallow and thin and with nothing to be taken, but would grind and burnish me and recommend me up to the state. Quietly I thought: what the men of old called the way of utmost fairness has long been lost, and unlooked for, today it is practiced again. I am already loose and idle and ignorant of the world, and dare not, with a long beak and blunt lips, cry for myself and call out for myself; yet the Academicians and the several Gentlemen have set me especially among them and have bent their minds even to recommending me and opening a way for me — how much more, then, for one ten thousand times worthier than I? My mouth laughs always and will not close, my tongue boasts always and does not stop, and I am glad as though I leapt, as if I had already got a good office and an ample stipend. Though the utterly fair minds of the several Gentlemen are level as a balance on which not even a fly has settled, the privately joyful tears of a paltry student fall in drops like the dish of the weeping merfolk (鮫人). In righteousness I cannot turn away from it, and in propriety I cannot but give thanks. So I take hold of a well-rope about to part and draw up what waves are left, and splice a string already snapped and try a dry tune upon it. Respectfully, following the rhymes, I have made for each of you one five-character poem in the modern style (今體詩) setting down your virtues, and have copied them out fair after this letter and offer them as a gift to your attendants. Having given my thanks, I quietly beg again that the several Gentlemen and Academicians will not say that what you said before was in jest, but will promise to bind me to a good office and so bring that kindness to its end. I cannot overcome my awe.
Interlinear notes 1
幷敍。戊午年。
The preface is appended together with it. It is the year of mu-o.