A Record of Cheongae Valley (天開洞)天開洞記
泰和二年壬戌歲。予去城東之舊居。卜遷于城南安申之里。有冷泉潺湲。出於洞之左趾之巖竇。洞深地奧。如山村野居。蕭洒可愛。予居之甚樂。但洞名塞。雖吾亦不喜其名。後數載。有白秀才廷珪者來卜隣。其嚴君右承宣翰林學士某。或來寓居。往往嘗謂予曰。洞名殊未佳。子盍改之耶。予對曰。業已呼之久矣。非特此洞。擧一國皆呼之。予雖名之。豈盡戶曉。使皆導耶。矧微者所名。孰從之耶。遂不改至于今。然予之卜居是洞。今已二十餘年矣。自始來不數載。得除拜翰林。驟歷華要。今已踐四品矣。白君亦如之。自卜居于此。始得仕。累遷至侍御史。自爾美官豐祿者。衮衮來居。鬱乎騶騎之旁午。則予以爲天將大啓玆洞矣。夫否極則泰。塞久則通。是陰陽常數。洞之將啓也。予不可以不新其名。以答天意。於是。乃名之曰天開。今雖未使人導吾所名者。安知後世不有人能喩萬人。使皆得導玆名耶。人雖不呼之。天若知所以名之之意。則洞之益啓也無疑矣。況始之名塞者。人猶從之。若玆名豈終廢者耶。貞祐十一年癸未歲記。
In the second year of Taehwa (泰和), the year imsul, I left my old house east of the city wall and moved and settled in Ansin ward (安申里) south of the city. A cold spring trickles out of a hole in the rock on the left slope of the valley. The valley is deep and the ground secluded, so that it is like a mountain hamlet or a house out in the fields, cool and lovable. Living there I was exceedingly glad. Only the valley's name was 「Saek (塞)」, the Blocked, and even I did not like that name.
Some years later one Baek Jeonggyu, the Promising Scholar (白秀才廷珪), came and settled next door. His father, a certain Right Transmitter and Academician of the Hallim (右承宣 翰林學士), came sometimes and lodged there, and from time to time he said to me: 「The valley's name is not very fair; why do you not change it?」 I answered: 「It has been called so a long while now. Not this valley only — the whole country calls it so. Though I should make a name for it, how should I make every household understand and have them all call it so? How much the less would anyone follow a name made by a man of no account.」 And so it was not changed, and has come down to this day.
Yet I have now settled and lived in this valley some twenty years and more. Not many years after I first came I was appointed to the Hallim, and passing swiftly through splendid and essential posts I have now reached the fourth rank. Baek too has been the same: only after settling here did he enter office, and being moved many times he has come to be Investigating Censor (侍御史). Since then those who hold fine offices and receive ample emoluments have come and lived here without a break, and the mounted servants going to and fro in all four directions are many.
And so I hold that Heaven is about to open this valley greatly. Now when blockage comes to an end there is an opening, and when a thing has been blocked long it gets through: this is the constant principle of yin and yang. Since the valley is about to open, I cannot but make its name new and answer Heaven's will. And so I have named it 「Cheongae (天開)」, Heaven Opens.
Though I cannot now make men call it by the name I have made, who knows but that in later ages there may be one able to make ten thousand men understand and have them all call it by this name? And though men do not call it so, if Heaven knows the meaning of the naming, there is nothing to doubt that the valley will open the more. How much the more when men still followed the naming of it 「Saek」 at the first: how should a name like this one be abandoned in the end? Written in the eleventh year of Jeongu, the year gyemi.