Also, a Record of the Great Tower (大樓)又大樓記
夫在陽則舒。在陰則慘。處高則快。處卑則鬱。是人所以受之天而固常有者也。老子曰。雖有榮觀。燕處超然。月令曰。可以居高明處臺榭。蓋謂是也。雖然。樓臺觀榭之大小繁簡。亦沿人之勢而各有當焉。雖於位同貴均者。顧人所屬望則異矣。人心所不當大而大之。則人不以爲可。而皆謂之過矣。至如功豐德鉅。望壓萬人。處一國奔走瞻望之地者。雖極其大也。人不以爲侈。而猶以爲隘也。是今承制崔公之所以作大樓於居室之南偏者也。上可以坐客千人。下可以方車百乘。高則橫絶鳥道。大則蔽虧日月。碧瑤瑩柱。玉舃承跋。陽馬負阿。矯首軒挐。飛禽走獸。因木生姿。自棟宇已來未之有也。按仙經。神仙有玉樓十二。然世無眼覩者。不知其制度何如。而其中有何等奇觀。嘗以此爲恨。及觀是樓。雖天之玉樓。想不能侈玆也。其東偏安佛龕。有營佛事。則邀桑門衲子。多至數百人。恢恢有餘地。直樓之南。闢毬場無慮四百許步。平坦如砥。繚以周墻。連亘數里。公嘗以暇日召賓客。開瓊筵命玉觴。及于目倦乎姿色之靡曼。耳厭乎絲行之激越。則顧可以壯其觀暢其氣者。莫若擊毬走馬之戲也。於是乎命善馭如王良，造父之輩。乘十影之足。跨千里之蹄。翕忽揮霍。星奔電掣。將東復西。欲走反駐。人相叢手。馬相攢蹄。爭毬於跳轉滅沒之中。譬若群龍揚鬣奮爪。爭一箇眞珠於大海之裏。吁可駭也。大抵擊毬走馬。非以平衢廣陌。則疑若不可。而公獨不爾。使戲於周墻環廡之間者。何哉。凡廣陌也平衢也。雖立標樹柱。要不出其限。猶有不守關禁。逸而過之者。此直由地不束心不撿故爾。不若置之於墻廡之間。觀其廻環宛轉。不離其域。地束而枝有餘。心檢而巧愈出。此公之所以爲樂也。噫。樓雖欲不邀。而萬景之效於玆樓者如彼。公雖欲不受。而樓之供於公者如此。凡勝特之觀。皆聚於玆樓。則予恨左右好事者之無有以聚勝。請於公而暑其額也。
Now when a man is in the sunlight he unfolds, and when he is in the shade he is desolate; set high he is refreshed, and set low he is stifled. This is what man has received from Heaven and truly bears always with him. Laozi said, 「Though there be glorious sights, he dwells at leisure and stands out above them」; and in the 「Monthly Ordinances」 (月令) it is said, 「Dwell in the high and the bright; it is fit to be in terraces and pavilions.」 This, in the main, is what they meant.
Yet in the greatness or the smallness, the elaborateness or the plainness of towers and pavilions there is likewise a fitness for each according to a man's standing. Even among men of the same place and of even rank, what men look for differs when one considers it. If a man makes great what in men's minds ought not to be made great, men do not hold it right and all call it excessive. But when it comes to one whose merit is ample and whose virtue is great, whose fame presses down upon ten thousand men, who holds a place to which a whole country runs and looks up, then though he should go to the very limit of greatness men do not think it sumptuous but think it rather too narrow. This is why Duke Choe, now Transmitter of Edicts, has built a great tower at the southern edge of the house where he lives.
Above, it could seat a thousand guests; below, it could set a hundred carriages abreast. For height it cuts across the path of the birds, and for size it hides the sun and the moon. He has made the pillars shine with green jade and has taken shoes of jade for their plinths, and the hip rafters (陽馬) bear up the slope and lift their heads and stretch high. Flying birds and running beasts have taken their shapes along the timbers: such a thing has not been since ridgepole and eaves came to be.
If one looks into the canon of the immortals, it says that the immortals have twelve towers of jade (玉樓). But no one in the world has seen them with his eyes, and we do not know what their fashion is nor what strange sights are within them. I used to regret this; but looking at this tower, I think that even the jade towers of heaven could hardly be more sumptuous than it.
At its eastern edge he has set a Buddha niche (佛龕), so that when there is occasion to hold a Buddhist service he may receive the monks, and even when they come to some hundreds there is seating ample and to spare. Straight south of the tower he has opened a ball ground, some four hundred paces about, level as a whetstone, and the wall that rings it runs on and stretches some li.
One day of leisure the Duke called in his guests, opened a seat like jade and ordered cups of jade. And when the eye grows weary of fair and lovely forms and the ear sick of the violence of the strings, then for making the sight manly again and opening out the spirit there is nothing like the game of the ball and the galloping of horses.
And so he has such men as Wang Liang (王良) and Zaofu (造父) drive well, mounting feet of ten shadows and bestriding hooves of a thousand li. All at once, swift as a star running and lightning striking, they would go east and go west again, would gallop and halt instead. Men join hands against men and horses join hooves against horses, and amid their leaping and rolling, their vanishing and appearing, they contend for the point. To liken it, it is like a host of dragons shaking their manes and shaking out their claws and contending for a single pearl in the midst of the great sea: ah, it is startling.
Now it would seem that the game of the ball and the galloping of horses cannot be unless on a level street and a broad road; but the Duke alone is not so, and has them play between the ringing wall and the encircling corridor. Why? Now on a broad road and a level street, though one set up marks and plant posts, the point is to keep them from going beyond their bound, and yet there are still those who do not keep the barriers and the prohibitions and go out past them. This is only because the ground does not bind them and the mind does not hold them in. It is not so good as setting them between the wall and the corridor and watching their turning and winding never leave that ground. Since the ground binds them their skill is left over, and since the mind is held in their cunning comes out the more: and this is why the Duke makes a pleasure of it.
Ah, though the tower would not receive them, all those views offer themselves to this tower as we have seen; and though the Duke would not take it, the tower offers itself to the Duke as we have seen. All the excellent and uncommon sights have gathered in this tower; and I regret that there is no one at his right and left fond enough of such things to gather up what is excellent and ask the Duke and write a name up on its forehead.