In the Headquarters of the Army Commander and Minister, Viewing the Cursive Writing of the Reverend Kim統軍尙書幕。觀金上人草書。
吾師草聖天下少。搖簸乾坤駈造化。十幅鵝紈展素煙。千金螺墨噴香麝。酒酣高踞如箕張。筆頭生翼欻飛揚。手所未到心先呑。軒騰奮迅何顚狂。我疑海水一朝涸。鯨奔龍走橫脊張牙跳巨壑。又疑神山之頂風大簸。鸞驚鳳駭奮翮洒毛向寥廓。其間細黠何所况。飛蘿走葛倒掛枯松上。或竪點若輕雲湧岫直奔天。或落晝如飛石放下山萬丈。或將斷而復縈。或方縱而旋橫。上人之筆信神授。不是臨池費墨學所成。幕中之人殊未知。皆言熊虎方爭何暇草書爲。我獨先窺相公意。此意尤深識者誰。君不見費褘圍碁敵自退。宜僚弄丸難卽解。况此草書所自作。本爲軍中占授不令人易會。師乎師乎縱筆無忌畏。吾欲撞鉦撾皷助其氣。見公草書不可無我詞。橫槊賦詩古所貴。
Our monk's saintly hand at cursive is rare in the world: it winnows heaven and earth and drives creation before it. Ten lengths of goose-silk spread out a white mist, and ink worth a thousand pieces of gold, in a conch, breathes out musk. The wine has ripened and he squats up high as though he had spread a winnowing-fan, and wings sprout at the brush-tip and all at once it flies up. Before the hand arrives the mind has swallowed it first: how wild is this soaring high and shaking loose and racing! I half suspect that the sea water has dried up in a single morning and whales run and dragons leap, setting their backs crosswise and baring their teeth as they spring into the great gorge. I half suspect, too, that on a holy mountaintop the wind has winnowed hugely and the simurgh is startled and the phoenix afraid, shaking their wings and scattering their feathers toward the wide sky. And the fine, crafty strokes in between — to what are they to be likened? They are like vine creepers and running kudzu hung upside down over a withered pine. Some dots he sets upright are like a light cloud rising from a peak and racing straight for the sky, and some strokes he drops are like a flying stone falling from a mountain ten thousand fathoms high. Some are about to break off and then tangle together again, and some go lengthwise and then at once go crosswise. The Reverend's brush is truly a gift of the gods, not a thing learned and achieved by wasting ink beside a pond. The men inside the headquarters understand nothing of it and all say: with bears and tigers in the thick of the fight, what leisure is there for cursive writing? I alone have peeked first into His Excellency's intent, and who else knows that this intent goes deeper still? Do you not see — when Fei Yi (費褘) played go, the enemy withdrew of itself, and when Yiliao (宜僚) juggled his beads, it was hard to untangle at once. How much more, when the intent in making this cursive writing was from the first to divine for the army and keep men from knowing it easily. Reverend, Reverend, ply your brush and have nothing to shrink from: I would beat the gong and strike the drum to help along your force. Having seen His Excellency's cursive writing I cannot be without writing of my own, for holding a spear athwart and chanting a poem is a thing prized from of old.
Interlinear notes 2
公命予走筆賦。
His Excellency bade me race my brush and compose it.
師必箕踞書之。
The monk always squatted up high when he wrote.