A Record of the Jao Hall (自娛堂) at Gyeyang桂陽自娛堂記
貞祐七年孟夏。予自左司諫知制誥。謫守桂陽。州之人。以深山之側雚葦之間一頽然如蝸之破殼者。爲大守之居。觀其制度。則拋梁架棟。強名屋耳。仰不足以擡頭。俯不足以橫膝。當暑處之。如入深甑中而遭蒸灼也。妻兒臧獲。矉之皆不欲就居。予獨喜焉。灑掃而處之。因榜其堂曰自娛。客有詰其由者曰。今之太守。古之邦伯。賓客請謁。日相踵繼。登是堂者。皆官曹之俊秀。儒釋之魁奇。無不與太守享其樂者。而太守遽稱之曰自娛。則其不以向之賓客。置人品中耶。何示人以不廣歟。予笑而應之曰。客安有是言哉。方僕之爲省郞也。出則黃裾喝道。入則方丈滿前。當是之時。在膏梁之子。則雖若不足。於僕則大過矣。然詩人命薄。自古而然。忽一旦被有司所誣枉。而落此幽荒卑濕之地者。殆天也。非人也。若屋宇宏傑。居處華靡。不痛自貶損。則非天所以處我之意。而祗益招禍耳。然則玆陋也。獨予之所自娛。而衆人之所深矉也。豈可以己之所偏嗜。而欲強人以同之哉。如或有籩豆之設。聲色之歡。則予亦何心獨享其樂。而忍不與賓客共之耶。然居是州處是堂。其無此樂也審矣。又何疑哉。客慙而退。因以誌之。時己卯六月二十四日也。
In the early summer of the seventh year of Jeongu (貞祐) I was banished from being Left Remonstrator and Drafter of Edicts (左司諫 知制誥) to be the magistrate of Gyeyang (桂陽). The people of the district took one crumbling house that stood among the reeds beside a deep mountain, like a snail whose shell is broken, and made it the prefect's dwelling.
To look at its fashion, it was only that beams had been laid and a ridgepole hung and it had been forced to bear the name of a house. Looking up, there was not room enough to lift the head; bending down, not room enough to stretch the knees. To be there when the heat comes is like entering a deep steamer and being steamed and scalded. My wife and my children and the servants frowned, and none of them would go forward and live there. I alone was glad, and sprinkled water and swept and dwelt in it. For this I wrote up on that house 「Jao (自娛)」, Taking One's Own Pleasure.
There was one among my guests who took issue with the reason of it and said: 「The prefect of today is the lord of a region (邦伯) of old. Guests and those who ask to be received follow one upon another day by day, and those who come up into this house are all the choice men of the office and the eminent among Confucians and Buddhists, and there is not one of them who does not share your pleasure with you. Yet you suddenly call it 「taking your own pleasure」: is this to count the guests I have spoken of as no men at all? Why do you show men so little breadth?」
I laughed and answered: 「How do you come to say such a thing? When I had just become a Gentleman of the Secretariat (省郞), those in yellow coats cleared the road when I went out, and tables a fathom long were full before me when I came in. At that time this may have seemed not ample to the son of a house that eats rich food, but for me it was greatly too much. Yet that the lot of poets is thin has been so from of old. Suddenly, in a single morning, I was falsely charged by the officials in charge (有司) and dropped into this hidden and rough and low and damp ground, and this, I think, was Heaven and not man. If my house were great and eminent and my dwelling splendid and sumptuous, so that I did not bitterly lower and lessen myself, this would not be the meaning of Heaven's dealing with me, and it would only call down the more misfortune.
If it be so, then this meanness is what I alone take my own pleasure in and what the multitude deeply frown at. How should I wish to force others to share what I take a one-sided pleasure in? And if there were the setting out of the vessels and the pleasures of sound and of color, with what heart should I enjoy that pleasure alone and not bear to share it with my guests? But living in this district and dwelling in this house, it is plain that there are no such pleasures; so what is there to doubt?」
The guest was ashamed and withdrew. For this I write it down. The time is the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month of the year gimyo.