A Record of the Cold Spring Pavilion (冷泉亭) of Son of the Palace Library (祕書)孫祕書冷泉亭記
芸臺亞監孫君。卜新宅于城北之某里。有巨巖高可數丈。形若削鐵者。巉巉然蒼蒼然。自廳事之北。彌于東隅。其下有冷泉。泫然流出。渟成一泓。澄湛可愛。附廳事之東。架以小亭。可坐十許人。蕭洒如山齋。是遊讌閑適之所也。予觀貴人之居多矣。其飾林園。必以怪石之盤窪癭瘤者。累之爲山。效衡霍之奇。信妙矣。然未若造物者之所曾開闢。嶙峋奇秀天然之狀也。彼亦非不識假之不似眞也。然富貴所能致者。如奇花異木珍禽奇獸之類是已。其若巖石之巍峨磊碨者。權力所不能來也。強欲致焉。當用巨鑿利刃。片截段剖。車載馬馱。然後似可矣。苟如是。特碎石與散礫耳。雖積而高之。其與向之累怪石爲山者無別矣。寧復有嶙峋奇秀天然之舊狀耶。今孫君之居。非在幽遐僻遠之地。乃鳳城中萬人所寰之間也。於焉有巨巖之奇勝如此。孫君得而有之。此豈君之高懷逸想。固超軼世外。而一爲功名所羈。心未嘗不在靑山白雲。故天以此餉之。而有以慰之耶。巖瞻之望。亦基于此矣。予謂主人曰。巖之立于北者。誠穩當無可增損。唯在東者甚迫近。使人情頗鬱。宜鑿開小却數四尺。則當極佳。主人亦以吾言爲然。因指其軒。請予名之。予以冷泉名之。客有曰。此亭所倚以爲勝者。凡以玆巖也。反以一勺小泉名之。似未宜也。予曰。巖雖奇。餉人之利小矣。泉雖淺。能以氷漿乳液潤人周矣。予今與若點荈而飮。漉酒而酌。亦莫非泉之施也。可忍負乎。客破顔大笑。孫君又請予爲記。噫。予與筆俱老矣。然重違主人之請。粗書所見耳。某月日。寶文閣待制典誥李某記。記後復題四十字云。
Son, Assistant Supervisor of the Palace Library (芸臺亞監), has taken a new house in a certain ward north of the city wall. There is a great rock some two fathoms high, shaped as though it were hewn out of iron. It stands sheer and green and stretches from the north of his hall to the eastern corner. Below it there is a cold spring that trickles out and gathers into a single hollow, clear and deep and lovable. Joined to the east of the hall a little pavilion is laid out, where some ten men may sit. It is as cool as a study in the hills: this is where he roams and feasts and passes his time at leisure.
I have seen many houses of the honorable. In adorning their groves and gardens they always heap up strange stones, coiled and hollowed and knobbed, and make hills of them in the likeness of the strangeness of Mount Heng (衡山) and Mount Huo (霍山), and it is truly subtle. Yet it falls short of the towering, strange, excellent natural shapes that the Maker of things opened out long ago. Nor are they themselves unaware that the false falls short of the true. But what wealth and rank can achieve is only such things as strange flowers and uncommon trees, rare birds and strange beasts. A thing like crags and stones, towering and rugged, is not what power can make come. If one would force it to come, one must needs cut it into pieces with great chisels and sharp blades and break it into blocks, and load it on carts and lay it on horses before it can be done. And if it is truly so, it is only broken stone and scattered gravel. Though one heap it up high, it would be no different from the heaping of strange stones into hills spoken of before; and where should the towering, strange, excellent ancient shape of nature be any more?
Now Son's dwelling is not in secluded and far and out-of-the-way ground, but in the very midst of the Phoenix City (鳳城), among the ten thousand men who ring it round. And yet here is the strangeness and the excellence of a great rock such as this, and Son has got it for his own. How should this not be that Son's lofty bosom and surpassing thought are truly beyond the world, and that, once he was bound to fame and office, his mind was never for a moment away from green hills and white clouds, so that Heaven gave him this to feed and comfort him with? And the fame that looks up to the rock has likewise made its footing here.
I said to the master: 「That the rock stands on the north is truly proper, and there is nothing to add or take away. Only the part on the east is too close upon one and makes a man's feeling rather stifled; if it were cut back and made to draw off three or four feet, it would be very beautiful.」 The master too thought my word right. And he went on to point to his hall and asked me to name it. I named it 「Cold Spring (冷泉)」.
There was one among the guests who spoke, saying: 「What this pavilion leans upon for its excellence is wholly this rock. To name it instead for a little spring of a single ladleful seems unfitting.」 I said: 「Though the rock is strange, its profit in feeding men is small. Though the spring is shallow, its wetting of men is thorough, with gruel like ice and liquor like milk. That I now brew tea and drink it with you, and strain the wine and pour it, is likewise nothing but the spring's giving: could I bear to turn my back on it?」 The guest's face cleared and he laughed aloud.
Son asked me besides to make a record. Ah, I and my brush have grown old together. But it is hard to go against the master's asking twice over, and so I merely write down the outline of what I saw. On a certain day of a certain month, written by one Yi, Expositor-in-Waiting of the Bomun Pavilion and Drafter of Proclamations (寶文閣待制 典誥). Having written it, I add forty characters besides.
2Poem
累繭覓奇峯。何處不相遇。力未負而來。及廻空眷顧。羨君得玆巖。擬向香爐住。何必思天台。遠學百世祖。
I sought out strange peaks till my feet were blistered; in what place would I not meet with them? My strength fell short and I could not carry one home, and turning away I looked back in vain. I envy you, who have got this rock and seem to stay facing Xianglu Peak. Why must one think of Mount Tiantai and learn afar from the patriarchs of a hundred generations?