A Record of the Rebuilding of Hyeonjong Hostel (懸鐘院)懸鐘院重刱記
甚矣。行路者之難也。觸涉艱梗。足累繭矣。奔喘暑熱。喉生煙矣。方是時。息爽塏嚥淸甘。有以順攝然後釋然夷泰者。人情之常理也。脫不幸奈勞忍渴。又適遐阻。則其所謂淸之常理乖戾反逆。而病之芽孼。由此而生矣。其或雨雪暴作。顧鬜然無所依庇。則無奈草跧林伏。麕鹿之若也。何況如王人大賓者。敢舍於野哉。是亭館院宇之所由作也。懸鐘院者。南路之要會也。頽壞寢久。行人不得宿。則東西往來者病之。金海府吏某甲。慨然有肯構之志。悉罄其家貨。使龜巖寺浮屠某句當之。鳩工庀材。一新其宇。豐梁傑棟。以壯其內。崇門大閎。以固其外。繚之以脩築高墉。備捍衛四阿。然後行旅之入宿者。如入金城。夜不相警焉。前立一亭。置床茵以備休息之所。設甌勺以資挹酌之具。向之繭其足者。煙其喉者。求息求飮。各充其望焉。舍賓客。不宜使夷庳而錮遠目。故樓以崇其居。飛枅走栱。上出鳥道。南望蒼海。桅檣相望。西望墟落。村閻撲地。下有蓮塘柳渚。白鷺翠禽。飛相往來。浮沈遊戲。其若乘時得意者之樂也。向之王人大賓行使往來者。弭節而登此樓。則飄飄若霞擧。莫不逍遙偃仰。非特避雨雪息騶馭。抑移日忘去。去必屢顧眷眷焉。如遇佳人勝友而不忍別也。嗚呼。世之有重官豐祿者。顧自奉何如耳。鮮必以濟物利人爲意者。某甲直一州之吏耳。奔公走私。宜若不給。而獨奮然發志。輕一時之費。重萬世之利。忘一己之勞。規萬人之逸。於咄嗟間。其所樹立如此。此孰督之而孰命之耶。良由天機自動。得於中而應於外也。是可謂惇篤謹愿至誠者歟。其族子進士金某欲爲不朽之圖。草具本末。乞予爲志。勤且誠。故但次而文之耳。其屋宇楹棟之多少。工後日月之始卒。皆不列以請。故未之載也。承安三年月日記。
How hard it is, the lot of the traveler! In striking against and crossing the steep and the blocked his feet are blistered, and running in the heat and panting, smoke rises in his throat. At such a time it is the constant way of a man's feeling that only after resting in a cool place and drinking what is clear and sweet and being set smoothly in order does he loosen and come to ease. If by ill luck he must bear the toil and endure his thirst, and the way besides happens to be far and blocked, then that clear constant way of his is warped and overturned and the sprout of sickness comes forth from this. And if rain or snow comes on suddenly and he looks about him and there is nothing at all to lean on and shelter under, what can he do but crouch in the grass and lie prone in the thicket and become as a roe or a deer? How much the more — could such as the king's envoy or a great guest dare sleep out in the fields? This is why pavilions and official lodges, hostels (院) and houses are built.
Hyeonjong hostel is a key point on the southern road. It had long been fallen down, so that travelers could not lodge there, and those who came and went east and west took it for a plague. A certain clerk of Gimhae prefecture resolutely set his mind to build it, and poured out all the goods of his house and gave a certain monk of Gwiam temple (龜巖寺) the charge of doing it.
They gathered craftsmen and made the timber ready and made the whole house new. With ample beams and eminent ridgepoles they made its inside manly, and with high gates and a great doorway they made its outside firm. Only after they had ringed it with long courses and high walls and shut off the four sides and provided for its keeping did those who came in to sleep as travelers feel as though they had entered a city of iron and cease to startle one another in the night.
In front they set up one pavilion and put couches and mats in it to provide a place for rest, and laid out bowls and ladles to be the gear for drawing and drinking. And those who before had blistered feet and smoke in the throat came to seek rest and to seek drink and have each his wish filled.
In lodging guests it is not fitting to make the place low and narrow and so block off the far-seeing eye, and therefore they raised their dwelling into a tower. Flying brackets and running arms came out above the path of the birds. Looking south at the blue sea, the masts look across at one another; looking west at the villages, the hamlets are spread upon the ground. Below there are a lotus pond and a willowy waterside, where white egrets and green birds fly to and fro and float and dive and play and take their joy. It is like the joy of one who has ridden his time and got his will.
When the king's envoys and great guests spoken of before, and those who come and go bearing commissions, halt their carriages and climb this tower, they seem to be lifted up like the sunset glow, and there is none who does not walk about and lie down and look up. Not only do they flee the rain and the snow and rest their horses and their grooms: they also forget to move on from day to day, and even as they go they look back many times and long for it. It is like meeting a fair one or an excellent friend and not bearing to part.
Ah, those in the world who have weighty office and ample emolument look only to how they shall maintain themselves, and rare are those who must needs make it their purpose to save things and to benefit men. This man is only a clerk of one district. Running on public business and running on his own, he would seem not to have enough; yet he alone roused himself and brought out his purpose, holding light the cost of an hour and holding heavy the benefit of ten thousand ages, forgetting the toil of his own single body and planning the ease of ten thousand men, and what he set up in the blink of an eye is like this. Who urged this on and who commanded it? It was truly that Heaven's own spring moved of itself, and he got it within and answered to it without. He may be called a man deep and careful and sincere to the utmost.
His nephew, the presented scholar Kim, wishing to make a plan that should not rot, got the heads and tails of it roughly together and asked me to make a record, diligently and sincerely. Therefore I only set it in order and make writing of it. The number of the buildings and the pillars and the ridgepoles, and the later beginning and finishing of the work, were none of them laid out and asked of me, and so they are not set down. Written on a certain day of a certain month in the third year of Seungan (承安).