A Record of the Months and Days of the Journey South (南行月日記)南行月日記
予嘗欲遊踐四方。凡吾馬足之所到。若有異聞異見。則詩以拾文以採。以爲後日之觀。其意何哉。假得老以至脚衰腰僂。所處不過房櫳之內。所見不出衽席之間。則取吾手集。覩昔少壯時奔馳步驟遊賞之跡。赫赫若前日事。尙足以舒暢其幽鬱也。予詩集中有江南詩若干首。至今讀其詩。則當日之遊。了了然若在眼前矣。後五載。出補全州幕府。二年間凡所遊歷。頗亦多矣。然每遇江山風月。嘯才出吻。而簿書獄訟。來相侵軼。止得一聯一句。而其不能卒就者多。故所得全篇。不過六十餘首。然列郡風土山川形勝。有所可記。而倉卒不能形于歌詠。則草草書于短牋片簡。目爲日錄。雜用方言俗語也。及庚申季冬。入洛閑居。始出而見之。莽莽焉不可讀之。其所自爲而反自笑也。盡取而焚棄之。拾一二可讀者。姑次而記之云。夫全州者。或稱完山。古百濟國也。人物繁浩。屋相櫛比。有故國之風。故其民不椎朴。吏皆若衣冠士人。進止詳審可觀。有中子山者。最蓊鬱。州之雄鎭也。其所謂完山者。特一短峯耳。異哉。一州之以此得號也。距州理一千步。有景福寺。寺有飛來方丈。予自昔聞之。以事叢務劇。不得一訪。一日。因休暇遂往觀焉。所謂飛來方丈者。昔普德大士自盤龍山飛來之堂也。普德字智法。嘗居高句麗盤龍山延福寺。一日。忽謂弟子曰。句麗唯尊道敎。不崇佛法。此國必不久矣。安身避難。有何處所。弟子明德曰。全州高達山。是安住不動之地。乾封二年丁卯三月三日。弟子開戶出見。則堂已移於高達山。距盤龍一千餘里也。明德曰。此山雖奇絶。泉水枯涸。我若知師移來。必幷移舊山之泉矣。崔致遠作傳備詳。故於此略之。十一月己巳。始歷行屬郡。則馬靈，鎭安。山谷間古縣也。其民質野。面如獼猴。杯盤飮食腥膻。有蠻貊風。有所訶詰。則狀若駭鹿然。似將奔遁也。循山繚繞而行。乃得至於雲梯。自雲梯至高山。危峯絶嶺。辟立萬仞。路極窄。下馬而後行。高山於他郡中。頗爲不陋。自高山至禮陽。自禮陽至朗山。皆一宿而去。明日將向金馬郡。求所謂支石者觀之。支石者。俗傳古聖人所支。果有奇迹之異常者。明日。入伊城。民戶凋耗。籬落蕭條。客館亦草覆之。吏之來者。不過纍纍四五人而已。見之惻然可傷。十二月。奉朝勑。課伐木邊山。邊山者。國之材府。修營宮室。靡歲不採。然蔽牛之大。干霄之幹。常不竭矣。以其常督伐木。故呼予曰斫木使。予於路上。戲作詩曰。權在擁軍榮可詑。官呼斫木辱堪知。以類於擔夫樵者之事故也。正月壬辰。初入邊山。層峯複岫。昂伏屈展。其首尾所措。跟肘所極。不知幾許里也。旁俯大海。海中有群山島猬島鳩島。皆朝夕所可至。海人云。得便風直若激箭。則其去中國。亦不遠也。山中尤多栗。一方之人。歲相資以爲食焉。行若干里。有美箭植植立如麻。僅數百步。皆以樊籬障之。絶竹林直下。始得平路。行至一縣。曰保安者也。方潮汐之來。雖平路。忽漫然爲江海。故候潮之進退。以爲行期。予始行也。潮方來。尙去人五十許步。於是促鞭馳馬欲先焉。從者愕然急止之。予不聽猶馳之。俄而崩奔蹴踏而至。其勢若萬軍倍道趨來。穹豐然甚可畏也。予𢥠然急走登山。而後僅得免焉。然亦能追及而蕩馬腹也。其或蒼波翠巘。隱見出沒。陰晴昏旦。每各異狀。雲霞綵翠。浮動乎其上。縹緲如萬疊畫屛。擧目眺賞。恨不與二三子之能詩者齊轡而同吟也。然萬景觸惱。使人情張王。初不思爲詩。不覺率然自作也。嘗過主史浦。明月出嶺。晃映沙渚。意思殊蕭洒。放轡不驅。前望蒼海。沈吟良久。馭者怪之。得詩一首云云。閏十二月丁未。又承朝旨。監諸郡冤獄。先指進禮縣。山極高。入之漸幽奧。如蹈異邦別境。邑邑然意漸無聊。日過午。始入郡舍。令尉皆不在。夜二更許。令尉各自八千步許。皆奔喘而來。以馬縛懸於門柱。戒人不給蒭粟。凡馬之極於馳者不如是。恐斃也。予陽睡而聞之。知二君顧老夫頗誠。故不得已聽置酒。有妓彈琵琶。頗可聽。予於他郡不飮。至是稍痛飮。又聽絃聲。豈以路遠境絶。如入異邦。而觸物易感之然耶。自進禮至南原府。南原。古帶方國也。客館後有竹樓。閑敞可愛。一宿而去。庚申春三月。又沿水課船。凡水村沙戶漁燈鹽市。無不遊閱。入萬頃，臨陂，沃溝。凡留數日而行。將指長沙。有一巖。巖有彌勒像。挺然突立。是因巖鑿出者。距其像若干步。又有巨巖枵然中虛者。自其中入之。地漸寬敞。上忽通豁。屋宇宏麗。像設嚴煥。是兜率寺也。日侵暮。促鞭絶馳。入禪雲寺宿焉。明日入長沙。自長沙到茂松。皆殘敗小郡。事亦無可記者。但沿江問船計艘而已。平昔遇一泉一池。挹酌游泳。愛翫不足者。慕江海而不見故也。今竝海久矣。態於目者。皆水也。聲於耳者。亦水之哮怒也。則倦然已猒見矣。何天之餉人驟過。如使飢者暴飽。而反猒見甘旨耶。是年八月二十日。予先君諱旦也。先一日遂往邊山蘇來寺。壁上有故資玄居士詩。予亦和二首書于壁。明日。與扶寧縣宰李君及餘客六七人至元曉房。有木梯高數十級。疊足凌兢而行。乃得至焉。庭階窓戶。上出林杪。聞往往有虎豹攀緣而未上者。傍有一庵。俗語所云蛇包聖人所昔住也。以元曉來居故。蛇包亦來侍。欲試茶進曉公。病無泉水。此水從巖罅忽湧出。味極甘如乳。因嘗點茶也。元曉房才八尺。有一老闍梨居之。庬眉破衲。道貌高古。障其中爲內外室。內室有佛像元曉眞容。外則一甁雙屨茶瓷經机而已。更無炊具。亦無侍者。但於蘇來寺。日趁一齋耳。予陪吏竊語予曰。此師嘗遇全州。所至恃力橫暴。人皆病之。其後莫知所去。今見之則其師也。予歎曰。夫中下人。其器有常。故滯而莫遷。凡以惡駭人者。器必有異於人。故其反於善。必岌岌超卓如此者。昔有獵將遇牛頭二祖大士。改過修善。卒成宿德。海東明德大士。亦自捉鷹。爲普德聖師之高弟。推此類言之。此師之折節易行。介然有殊行。殊不爲怪也。又問所謂不思議方丈者求觀之。其高險萬倍於曉公方丈。有木梯高可百尺。直倚絶壁。三面皆不測之壑。回身計級而下。乃得至於方丈。一失足則更無可奈何矣。予平日登一臺一樓高不過尋丈者。以頭病故。猶眩眩然不得俯臨。至是益悚然股抃。未入而頭已旋矣。然自昔飽聞勝跡。今幸特來。若不入見其方丈。又不得禮眞表大士之像。則後必悔矣。於是盤桓蒲北而下。足猶在級而若將已墮者。遂入焉。敲石取火。焚香禮律師眞容。律師者。名眞表。碧骨郡大井村人也。年十二。來棲賢戒山不思議巖。賢戒山者。卽此山是已。眞心宴坐。欲見慈氏地藏。踰日不見。乃投身絶壑。有二靑衣童子以手奉之曰。師法力微小。故二聖不見也。於是努力益勤。至三七日。巖前樹上。有慈氏地藏現身授戒。慈氏親授占察經二卷。幷與一百九十九栍。以爲導往之具。其方丈。以鐵索釘巖故不欹。俗傳海龍所爲也。將還。縣宰置酒一巓曰。此望海臺也。吾欲勞君。先使人設席而待。請小休焉。予遂登眺。則大海周廻。距山才百餘步。每一杯一詠。萬景自媚。殊無人世間一點塵思。飄然若蛻俗骨傅羽翰。飛出六合之外。而擧首一望。若將以手招群仙也。坐者十餘人皆醉。以予先君諱日故。但無管絃歌吹耳。凡所歷無可記則不載。夫以京師爲身。以四方爲支。則予所遊者。南道之一偏。而特一支之一指耳。況此錄也皆忘漏剗削之餘。烏足爲後日之觀乎。姑藏之。以待東西南北之窮遊極踐。摠記備錄。然後合爲一通。以爲老境忘憂之資。不亦可乎。辛酉三月日。志。
I used to wish to go about the four quarters and tread them over. Wherever my horse's hoof should come, if there were anything heard beyond the common and anything seen beyond the common, I meant to gather it up in poems and dig it out in prose and make of it a thing to look at in days to come. What was my purpose in this? Because if I should grow old, my legs failing and my waist bent, so that the place I dwelt in went no further than one room and what I saw did not pass beyond the space of my mat, I could then bring out what I had gathered with my own hand and look upon the traces of my running and walking and roaming and taking pleasure in the days when I was young and strong; and they would be as plain as yesterday's doings and still be ample to unfold the hidden heaviness of my heart.
Among my poems there are several 「Poems of South of the River」 (江南詩), and when I read those poems now that day's roaming is plain, as though it were before my eyes. Five years afterward I went out and was appointed to the headquarters office (幕府) of Jeonju (全州), and in the space of two years the things I went about and met with were a good many as well. But whenever I met with river and hill and wind and moon and the knack of chanting was about to come from my mouth, documents and lawsuits came and encroached upon me, so that there was much of which I barely got a couplet or a line and never finished at all. Therefore the whole pieces I got come to no more than some sixty poems.
Yet there were things worth writing down in the airs and soils of the several districts and in the excellent shapes of mountain and stream, and when I could not bring them out in song upon the sudden, I noted them roughly on short papers and scraps of slips and called this a 「Day Record」 (日錄), writing it with dialect and vulgar speech mixed in. In the twelfth month of the year gyeongsin I came into the capital and, living at leisure, took it out at last and looked at it, and it was so blurred that I could not read it. It was my own making, and yet I laughed at myself over it. I took it all and burned it up, and picking out one or two things worth reading I set them in order for the present and write them down.
Now the place called Jeonju is sometimes also called Wansan (完山), and it is the old land of Baekje. Its people are flourishing and the houses stand ranged against one another like the teeth of a comb, and it has the air of an old kingdom. Therefore its people are not rude, and the clerks are all like scholars in full cap and robe, so that their coming forward and withdrawing is minute and worth examining. There is one called Jungja mountain (中子山), the most densely wooded of all, and it is the district's grand guardian mountain. What is called Wansan is only a single short peak. It is strange that a whole district should have got its name from this.
A thousand paces from the district office there is Gyeongbok temple (景福寺), and in the temple is the Biraebangjang (飛來方丈), the abbot's room that came flying. I had heard of it long since, but my affairs were many and my business pressing, and I never once sought it out. One day I got leave and went at last to see it. What is called the Biraebangjang is the house that the great master Bodeok (普德) flew in with from Ballyong mountain (盤龍山) of old.
Bodeok's style name was Jibeop (智法), and he lived for a time at Yeonbok temple (延福寺) on Ballyong mountain in Goguryeo. One day he said suddenly to his disciples: 「Goguryeo honors only the teaching of the Dao and does not revere the Buddha's law, and this country will surely not last long. If I would set my body at ease and flee the troubles, which place would be good?」 His disciple Myeongdeok (明德) said: 「Godal mountain (高達山) in Jeonju is ground where one may stay at ease and not be moved.」 On the third day of the third month of the year jeongmyo, the second year of Geonbong (乾封), the disciples opened the door and went out to look, and the house had already been moved to Godal mountain, a place more than a thousand li from Ballyong mountain. Myeongdeok said: 「Though this mountain is strange and excellent, its spring water has dried. Had I known that the master was moving here, I should surely have moved the spring of the old mountain along with it.」 Choe Chiwon (崔致遠) made a life of him and set it out in full, and so it is left out here.
On the day gisa of the eleventh month I first went round all the districts under us. Maryeong (馬靈) and Jinan (鎭安) are old districts among the mountain valleys. Their people are plain and rustic and their faces like a monkey's, and the eating and the drinking in their cups and on their trays has a rank smell and there are barbarian ways in it. If there is anything they are rebuked for, their look is that of a startled deer about to run away.
Only by going round along the mountains could one reach Unje (雲梯). From Unje to Gosan (高山) the perilous peaks and broken passes stand hewn up ten thousand fathoms, and the road is exceedingly narrow, so that one can go on only after getting down from one's horse. Gosan is not at all shabby among the other districts. From Gosan to Yeyang (禮陽), and from Yeyang to Nangsan (朗山), we slept one night in each and left.
The next day, making for Geumma commandery (金馬郡), I sought out and looked at what is called the Jiseok (支石). The Jiseok is what common tradition says the sages of old propped up there, and it was indeed a strange relic, with something in it out of the common.
The next day I entered Iseong (伊城), where the households had dwindled away and the fences were desolate and the guest house too was roofed with grass. The clerks who came out came to barely four or five men. It was pitiful to look at and enough to hurt the heart.
In the twelfth month, bearing a command of the court, I oversaw the felling of timber at Byeonsan (邊山). Byeonsan is the state's storehouse of timber. For the repairing and the raising of palace buildings there is no year in which they do not fell there. Yet trees great enough to hide an ox, and trunks that could pierce the sky, are never exhausted. Because I always oversaw the felling of timber, they called me 「the Commissioner for Felling Timber」 (斫木使). On the road I made a poem in jest.
My power lies in the leading of soldiers, and its glory might be boasted of; but the office calls me a feller of trees, and its shame may be known.
This was because it is like the work of porters and woodcutters.
On the day imjin of the first month I entered Byeonsan for the first time. Its tiered peaks and folded summits rise and fall, bend and straighten, so that I do not know how many li it is to where their head and tail are laid and where their heels and their elbows come to an end. To one side it looks down upon the great sea, and in the sea are Gunsan isle (群山島) and Wi isle (猬島) and Gu isle (鳩島), all of which may be reached in a morning or an evening. A man of the sea said: 「With a fair wind, going straight as a shot arrow, it is not far even to China.」
In the mountains the chestnut trees are the more plentiful, and the people of that region rely upon them year by year and make their food of them. Going a few li, there were good arrow bamboos standing thick as hemp for barely some hundreds of paces, and all of them hedged about. Only after cutting through the bamboo grove and going straight down did I come upon a level road.
Going on, I came to a district called Boan (保安). When the tide is just coming in, even a level road suddenly becomes brimming river and sea. Therefore men watch the going forward and the drawing back of the tide and make that their time for traveling. When I first went, the tide was just coming in and was still some fifty paces off from a man. At this I hurried my whip and galloped my horse and tried to get ahead of it, and those who followed me were alarmed and stopped me in haste. I did not listen and galloped on all the same. Presently it came rushing as though it would fall in upon us, trampling as it came, and its force was like ten thousand soldiers coming on at double marches, towering and ample and exceedingly to be feared. I was afraid and galloped in haste, and only after climbing the hill could I barely escape it. Yet it came after us even so, and could wash my horse's belly.
At times the blue waves and the green summits hid themselves and showed themselves, clouded and cleared, darkened and brightened, and each time they were of another shape. The colors of cloud and of sunset glow floated and moved above them, far off as a painted screen of ten thousand folds. I raised my eyes and looked and took joy in it, and regretted that I had not two or three men good at poetry to ride abreast of me and chant with me. Yet all those views touched the heart and spread a man's feeling out before him, so that having had no thought of making a poem at first, I made one of myself without knowing it.
Once, as I passed Jusa harbor (主史浦), the bright moon came out over the pass and shone clear upon the sand bar. My spirit was so refreshed that I let the reins go and did not drive, and looked ahead at the blue sea and chanted a long while, so that my groom thought it strange. I got one poem of it.
On the day jeongmi of the intercalary twelfth month I again bore the court's will and looked into the wrongful lawsuits of the several districts. First I made for Jinrye county (進禮縣). The mountains are exceedingly high, and the further in one goes the more secluded and deep it grows, so that it was like treading another country and a strange region, and heavily my spirit grew less and less glad. Only when the sun had passed noon did I enter the commandery's offices, and the magistrate (令) and the warden (尉) were both away. About the second watch of the night the magistrate and the warden came running, each from some eight thousand paces off, and both were panting. They tied their horses up to the gatepost, hanging them there, and warned their men not to give them fodder or grain. When a horse has run to the end of its strength it is because they fear it will die if this is not done. I pretended to be asleep and heard this, and knew that the care these two men had for an old man was deep indeed. Therefore I let them have their way, unwillingly, in setting out a drinking party. There was a singing girl who played the pipa, and it was well worth hearing. In the other districts I had not drunk, but when I came here I drank a little to the full and listened to the strings besides. Is it that the road was long and the region cut off, so that it was like entering another country, and that one comes easily to be moved whenever one touches upon anything?
From Jinrye I came to Namwon prefecture (南原府). Namwon is the old land of Daebang (帶方國). Behind the guest house there is a pavilion of bamboo, at leisure and cool and lovable. I slept one night and left.
In the third month of the spring of the year gyeongsin I again oversaw the building of boats along the waterways. There was not one village by the water, not one house upon the sand, not one fishing lamp, not one salt market, that I did not roam and look at. I went into Mangyeong (萬頃) and Impi (臨陂) and Okgu (沃溝), stayed some days in all, and left.
As I was about to make for Jangsa (長沙), there was a single crag, and upon the crag an image of Maitreya standing up aloft. This had been carved out following the crag. A few paces from the image there was another great crag, hollow and pierced through within, and going in through it the ground grew broader by degrees and the top opened out suddenly bright. The hall was broad and splendid and the Buddha image solemn and shining: this is Dosol temple (兜率寺).
The sun went down, and hurrying my whip I galloped hard and went in to sleep at Seonun temple (禪雲寺). The next day I entered Jangsa. From Jangsa to Musong (茂松) all were wasted little districts, and there was nothing worth writing of either. I only asked after the boats along the river and counted their measure, and that was all.
That in ordinary times I never had my fill of loving and delighting — of scooping up and drinking, of swimming — even when I met with a single spring or a single pool, was because I longed after river and sea and had not seen them. Now I have been beside the sea so long that all that shows its form to my eyes is water, and the sound in my ears is the roaring of water, so that I am worn out and already sick of looking. How is it that Heaven's feeding of a man is suddenly too much, and makes one who was hungry full all at once, so that he comes rather to loathe the taste of what is sweet?
The twentieth day of the eighth month of this year is my late father's death day. A day before it I went at last to Sorae temple (蘇來寺) in Byeonsan. On the wall there were poems by the departed Hermit Jahyeon (資玄居士), and I too answered them with two poems and wrote them on the wall.
The next day, with Yi, the magistrate of Buryeong county (扶寧縣), and six or seven other guests, I came to Wonhyo's room (元曉房). There is a ladder of wood some tens of rungs high, and one can get there only by setting foot above foot and going fearfully. The yard and the stone steps and the window and the door come out above the tops of the grove. I hear that from time to time a tiger or a leopard has taken hold to climb up and has not been able to climb.
Beside it there is a hermitage, the place where the one whom common speech calls the Holy Man Sapo (蛇包聖人) stayed of old. Because Wonhyo came and lived there, Sapo too came and served him. He wished to brew tea and offer it to the Lord Wonhyo, but was troubled because there was no spring water; and this water suddenly welled up from a cleft of the rock, and its taste was exceedingly sweet, like milk. And so he always brewed tea with it.
Wonhyo's room is barely eight feet. One old monk lives there, his eyebrows shaggy and his patched robe worn out, and the look of a man of the Way upon him, lofty and of the olden time. He had partitioned the middle of it into an inner room and an outer room. In the inner room are a Buddha image and a portrait of Wonhyo, and in the outer there was only one bottle, one pair of shoes, a tea bowl, and a desk for reciting the scriptures. There was no gear for cooking besides, nor anyone to serve him. He only had one meal of temple food brought to him daily from Sorae temple, and that was all.
The clerk who attended me said to me quietly: 「This monk once went about Jeonju relying on his strength and behaving fiercely wherever he came, so that all men took him for a plague; and afterward no one knew where he had gone. Now that I see him, this is that monk.」 I sighed and said: 「Now men of the middling and the lower sort have their vessel fixed, and so they are stopped up and cannot be moved. One who startles others by his evil has surely something in his vessel unlike others, and so when he turns to the good he surely stands out aloft like this. Of old a certain captain of hunters met the Second Patriarch (二祖) of Niutou (牛頭) and mended his faults and cultivated the good and achieved an enduring virtue at last; and the great master Myeongdeok of Haedong (海東) too, who had been a taker of hawks, became the high disciple of the holy master Bodeok. Reasoning from these, it is not in the least strange that this monk should have broken his old bent and mended his ways and stand firm in conduct beyond the common.」
I asked besides to see what is called the Busaui abbot's room (不思議方丈). Its height and its sheerness were ten thousand times those of the Lord Wonhyo's room. There is a ladder of wood some hundred feet high, leaning straight against the cliff, and on three sides are gorges beyond measure. One can reach the room only by turning one's body and counting the rungs as one goes down, and if one's foot slips once there is nothing more to be done.
In ordinary times, even when I climb a terrace or a pavilion no higher than eight feet, I grow dizzy from my trouble of the head and cannot look down. Coming here I was the more afraid, and my legs shook, and my head was already turning before I had gone in. Yet I had heard my fill of its excellent relics long since, and now by good fortune I had come there on purpose; and if I failed to go in and see the room, and failed besides to do reverence before the image of the great master Jinpyo (眞表), I should surely repent it afterward. So I hesitated, and then went down northward, and though my foot was still on a rung I felt as though I were already falling. At last I went in. I struck stone and got fire and burned incense and did reverence before the portrait of the master of discipline (律師).
The master of discipline was named Jinpyo, and he was a man of Daejeong village (大井村) in Byeokgol commandery (碧骨郡). At twelve years of age he came and lodged at Busaui rock (不思議巖) on Hyeongye mountain (賢戒山). Hyeongye mountain is this very mountain. With a true mind he sat in stillness and sought to behold Maitreya and Kṣitigarbha, and when the days passed and he did not behold them he threw his body into the broken gorge. Two boys in blue clothes held him up with their hands and said: 「The master's power in the Law is small and slight, and that is why the two holy ones do not show themselves.」 At this he strove the more diligently, and when he came to one-and-twenty days Maitreya and Kṣitigarbha showed their bodies upon a tree before the rock and gave him the precepts. Maitreya himself gave him two scrolls of the Sutra of Divination (占察經) and gave him besides a hundred and ninety-nine divining sticks, to be his instruments for leading men onward. That room is nailed to the rock with chains of iron, and so it does not tilt. Common tradition says that a dragon of the sea did it.
When I was about to come back, the magistrate of the county had a drinking party set out upon one peak and said: 「This is the Sea-Viewing Terrace (望海臺). Wishing to comfort you, I first sent men to spread the mats and wait; I beg you to rest a little.」 So I went up and looked out, and the great sea lay round about, barely a hundred paces and more from the hill. At every cup drunk and every chant made, all the views played the coquette of themselves, and I had hardly a single speck of a thought of the world of men. I seemed to have fluttered free of my common bones and put on wings and flown out beyond the six directions, and as I lifted my head and looked once about me I could have called to the host of immortals with my hand. All ten and more of us who sat there were drunk. Because it was my late father's death day, only strings and pipes and singing and flutes were wanting.
Of the places I passed through, those not worth writing of I did not set down. Now if one takes the capital for the body and the four quarters for the limbs, the place where I roamed is one corner of the southern country and only one finger of a single limb. How much the more when this record is all that is left over from what I forgot and let fall and pared away: how should it be ample to become a thing to look at in days to come? I shall keep it for the present and wait until I have gone to the full and trodden to the full east and west and south and north and have written it all down and recorded it in full, and then join them and make one set of it and take it for my stock against forgetting care in my old age — would that not be right as well? Written on a certain day of the third month of the year sinyu.