O Baegyun the Seondal (先達) Having Answered in Kind, I Reply Again吳先達伯胤見和。復答之。
文章小技等反眩。供人一笑卽可卷。不用彫鑿愁眞君。自雖差苦誰留眄。穿珠度曲安用蟻。隨車無傷須似醉。忘機可與海鷗遊。順性堪觀庭虎媚。斂藏鋒刃諱切玉。蛺蝶已甘兒女撲。先生乃我忘情交。共讀三元琳字綠。身寄浮生心不寓。名雖今人實是古。天地歸君一指齊。溪山厭我餘愚汙。死生哀樂各拋了。相見忘言握手笑。招邀且入無何遊。輕脫休爲造物誚。謂君洗髓追黃眉。謂君專氣如嬰兒。胡爲又逐好事輩。漏洩天奧誇雄詩。斗膓無奈欝迴薄。瀉作懸河浩難酌。惠然見貺意何深。忍把酸寒容易酢。君看人心翻覆裏。紛紛喜怒如鋒起。吾儕出處貴如愚。美羽自戕看孔翠。
Letters are a small skill and come rather to the same thing as confusion, and once they have given another a laugh they may well be furled away. There is no need to chisel and carve and trouble the true sovereign. Though I suffer much of myself, who would turn and look? In stringing pearls and turning tunes, what use are ants? Following the cart there is no harm, so one must be as if drunk. Forget your schemes and you may play with the gulls of the sea; follow your nature and you may even see the tiger in the yard fawn. I draw in my blade and hide it, loath to cut jade with it, and the butterfly already takes it sweetly that women catch it. The Master is my friend in the forgetting of feeling, and together we have read the jade-blue letters of the Three Primes (三元). He has lodged his body in a floating life but has not lodged his mind; in name he is a man of today, but in truth a man of old. Heaven and earth return to you and are made level by a single finger, while stream and mountain dislike the soiling of my remaining folly. Death and life, sorrow and joy, each of us has thrown away, and seeing each other we forget speech, take hands and laugh. Let me call you and enter once more the roaming of Nowhere-at-All (無何有), and do not slip lightly off and become the Maker's reproach. You say that I have washed my marrow and follow the yellow brows, and you say that I keep my breath whole and am like a newborn child. Why then do you follow again the crowd that loves a stir, letting out the depths of heaven and boasting a stout poem? What is to be done with bowels big as a grain measure, coiling stifled within? Poured out, they become a hanging river, so wide it is hard to reckon. You sent it to me readily — how deep your intent is! How could I bear to repay it lightly with what is sour and dismal? Look: in the midst of the overturning of men's hearts, joy and anger rise up in confusion like the points of swords. Our sort holds dear a look of foolishness in going forward and in drawing back: see in the peacock how beautiful feathers do their owner harm.
Interlinear notes 1
東方朔古事。
This is the old story of Dongfang Shuo.