A Letter Submitted to Chancellor Choe Seon (崔詵)上崔相國詵書
十二月日。門生某官謹再拜奉書執政相國太學士閣下。僕一昨展謁台階。伏蒙賜坐。慰勉備至。垂問比來所著幾何。幷及玉堂承乏之言。驚聳震懼。拜謝而退。僕誠無似者也。文不足備國華。才不能壓人望。而閣下過聽。至以文翰之任期之。踰分之榮。非所敢當。祗以爲愧。莫知其由。反覆尋譯。始得其所以然者。閣下之言。固出於理。然而是亦猶晚也。何者。曩日。閣下不以僕爲不肖。躬造闕下。拜箚子薦進。請例補外寄。然後以備將來文翰之寄。其意不爲不切。但時不幸而未果耳。其後僕已得經外試。則閣下適當國執柄矣。僕竊自以爲平日尙爾。豈手執其柄。而有不能用哉。然僕之零丁蹇散。其亦有年。而猶未蒙其賜意者。醜面濃粧。初若可愛。粉落質見。無所逃於明鏡之鑑耶。審如是則已。不爾。權可施也。恩可及也。方玆時反未若向之拜箚子之日。故僕不揆才分。謂閣下之言猶晚也。以今之勢觀之。殆將終不用於世。計莫如歸田力耕。謀活其妻子。然又不爾者。顧自負於閣下。猶有須耳。譬如人有哀人之窮者。力不能自賑。惇惇告於富者之家。欲丏其毫釐。以濟其急。富者吝而終不肯與。及其人之富與彼富者侔。則窮者自以爲向無賙救之資。猶欲丏諸人。豈其自富而有不及於我耶。金玉錢貨。必分其半而與之矣。窮者之忖度如此。假使其人偶忘而不與。則當其時勃然作色而便去耶。小留而有待耶。未審閣下何以處之耶。在僕似宜小忍須臾。卜其可否。及便忘然後謝去亦未晚也。雖然。此亦僕之汲汲有及時之志。而計之大早耳。度閣下之心。何至使僕爲終窮者耶。何以度其然也。蓋僕嘗和閣下謝奇平章所餉熨石之什獻焉。閣下方飯。卽放匙輟饌。賞詠不已。致令中饋叱僕御之進予詩者。此非人所側傳。而季嗣郞子親與我導之者也。以此取必。而度閣下之不終忘也。所恨者。犬馬之齒。迫將過半耳。且士之所以筮仕者。非苟欲自營一己之榮宦而已。蓋將以所學於心者。施於有政。振經濟之策。宣力王室。垂名於百世。期爲不朽者也。然計官爵之等級。約則九級。其詳不可言。所謂權務者。又不在此例。就九級中。亦有權假試眞。一船品內。有從與正。其若州牧守倅縣令鎭將凡外郡之職。不預京官班秩。然外職要皆滿三年。然後見代。則其與京官遷轉。愈疏闊矣。且人生百歲。七十者稀。男兒當三十。始登一級。猶謂之晚。況僕行年已三十有七矣。緣早衰多病。其在三十四時。已見二毛。鑷之復生。自爾相續不絶。白與黑今已相等矣。譬若木之將枯。葉必先變者。僕之享齒。能復有幾耶。以垂盡之年。尙未補九級外一權務之任。而顧官級之崎嶇旣如彼。僕之輔國之日之短促又如此。若四卜已後。方得一官。則纔涉七六品。髮已盡皓。便了一生矣。況物之自外來者。決不可必。其所謂七六品。又不可必期。況敢到重官鉅職。振經濟之策耶。夫然則輔國之心何所遂。讀書之勞安所償。百世之名安所垂歟。是僕之所以中夜三起。仰天大息者也。今閣下以水鏡之明。當銓衡之任。則士之賢不肖。皆呈于誠懸曲照之內。無敢以纖毫欺蔽者。況奎報之進謁於閣下者非一日。則僕之言行之枉正。皆已詳之矣。凡以文投贄者至再三。則僕之文章之巧拙。皆已辨之矣。其若完山所理之迹。亦皆所聞也。若謂之未滿期限則已。然其所以見罷。爲同寮者所誣。則其邪正曲直廉貪之理。已判然矣。不待僕之自列。想閣下久已悉之矣。然則寧復有所疑而依違不果耶。伏聞翰職有闕員。若暫假其任。用試僕之所學於心者。有不稱副。似玷閣下用人之鑑。則擯之斥之亦可。予無所憾于心矣。夫不試而責其能。不若試之而後已也。僕亦不言而有悔。不若盡言而後有悔。是僕所以譊譊有是言。而亦望閣下先試其可否者也。嗚呼。僕之榮枯生死進退舒卷。盡在閣下之手。俟命而已。毋或如富者之便忘。使僕終至於窮阨也。戰灼惶悚。不宣。某再拜。
On a certain day of the twelfth month, your disciple, so-and-so of such and such an office, reverently bows twice and submits this letter to His Excellency the Chancellor in Government, Grand Academician.
The other day I came into your courtyard and was received, and you granted me a seat, and your comfort and your earnest encouragement came to me in full. You asked how much I had composed of late, and went so far as to speak of having me fill a vacancy in the Jade Hall (玉堂); and I was startled and trembled and in fear bowed and gave thanks and withdrew.
I am truly an unworthy man. My writing is not ample enough to furnish the state's luster, and my talent cannot bear down men's expectations; and yet Your Excellency has heard too much of me and has even looked to me for a post in the composing of letters. Glory beyond my portion is not a thing I dare to meet, and I only felt shame and did not know the reason for it. Only after turning it over again and again and searching it out did I get at the reason you came to speak so. Your Excellency's words came from the first out of reason. And yet this too is still late.
Why is this? In former days Your Excellency did not hold me unworthy, but went in person to the palace and submitted a memorandum (箚子) recommending me, and asked that, having attached me to an outer post according to precedent, I should hereafter be furnished with a post in the composing of letters. It was not that your purpose was not earnest; only the time was unlucky and it did not come about. Afterward, when I had already passed through my trial in the provinces, Your Excellency happened to be holding the state and grasping its handle. I thought in my heart: if it was so even in ordinary times, how should it be that with that handle in your hand you could not use me?
And yet I have been scattered about in loneliness and slowness for several years more, and have not yet been granted the favor you meant to give. Was it that paint laid thick upon an ugly face seemed lovely at first, but the paint fell away and the ground showed through, and there was nowhere to escape the reflection of a bright mirror? If it is truly so, there is an end of it. If it is not, then power can be exercised and kindness can be extended. And yet, now that this time has come, it is less than it was on the day you submitted the memorandum long ago; and this is why I, unable to reckon my talent and my portion, say that Your Excellency's words are late after all.
Looking at the way things now stand, it seems likely that I shall never be used in the world at the last, and there is no better plan than to go back to the fields and plow with all my strength and so contrive to keep wife and children alive. And that I still do not do so is because, looking back, I have something to be confident of in Your Excellency, and there is still something to wait for.
Let me liken it to this. There was one who grieved over another's poverty and, being unable to help him with his own strength, made it earnestly known at a rich man's house and sought to beg even a hair's breadth to relieve his urgency. But the rich man was niggardly and would not give in the end. When that man himself grew rich and came to match the rich man, the poor one thought to himself: "Before, when he had no means to relieve me, he still sought to beg it of another; how should it be that now he is rich he does not extend it to me? Of his gold and jade and coin and goods he will surely divide half and give it to me." Such is the poor man's reckoning; and if that man should happen to forget and not give, must he then flush up and change countenance and depart at once, or should he stay a little and wait? How would Your Excellency bear yourself? As for me, it seems I should bear it a little for a while and divine whether it will be or not, and that it will not be too late to take my leave and go after he has quite forgotten.
And yet this too is only my reckoning too early, out of an urgent purpose to be in time. If I reckon Your Excellency's heart, how should it come to your making me a poor man at the last? How do I reckon that it is so? I once sent up a poem matching Your Excellency's poem thanking Pyeongjang Gi (奇平章) for the ironing-stone he had sent. Your Excellency happened to be at your meal, and you at once laid down your spoon and put aside the dishes and did not cease from praising and chanting it, so that it came to the lady of the house scolding the servant who had brought my poem in. This was not passed on to me by another at second hand; your youngest son himself drew it out and told it to me. By this I take it to be surely so, and reckon that Your Excellency will not forget me in the end. The one thing I regret is only that these dog-and-horse years of mine are already about to pass the half.
Again, that a scholar first sets out upon office is not merely a contriving of a glorious post for his own single body. It is to spread what he has learned in his heart into government and so shake out the devices by which the age is ordered, and to offer his strength to the royal house and leave a name for a hundred generations and look to be unrotting. And yet, reckoning the grades of office, they are nine even when cut short, and the details of them cannot be told. What is called provisional service (權務) is besides not counted in this reckoning. And within the nine grades there are the provisional (權) and the acting (假) and the probationary (試) and the full (眞); and within a single rank there are the subordinate (從) and the proper (正). Outer district posts such as prefect and magistrate and their assistants, the district headman and the garrison commander (鎭將), are not counted in the ranks of capital office. Moreover, outer posts are all changed only after three full years, so that they are further and wider still from the transfers of capital office.
Again, though men are said to live a hundred years, even seventy is rare. For a man to mount a first grade at thirty is still called late; how much more when I am already thirty-seven years old. I withered early and am much in sickness, and at thirty-four already had white hairs mixed in. Though I pull them out they grow again, and from that time on they have come without ceasing, so that white and black are already a match for each other. It is as when a tree is about to dry out and the leaves must change first; how many years have I left to enjoy?
With my years all but spent I have not yet been attached even to one provisional post outside the nine grades. Looking back, the steepness of the grades of office is already such as that, and the shortness and haste of the days in which I might help the state is such as this. If I get one post only after passing through four rounds of appointments, then by the time I barely touch the seventh or sixth rank my head will already be wholly white and I shall straightway finish out a life. How much more, since what comes from outside can never be said to be surely so, that even the seventh or sixth rank cannot be counted upon. How much less dare I reach a weighty office and a great place and shake out the devices by which the age is ordered. If so, where shall I accomplish my heart to help the state, where repay the labor of my reading, and where leave a name for a hundred generations? This is why I rise three times in the middle of the night and look at the sky and sigh aloud.
Now Your Excellency, with the clarity of water and of a mirror, holds the office of choosing men, so that whether a scholar is worthy or unworthy is all shown within an unerring balance and a light that shines everywhere, and not so much as a fine hair's breadth can dare to deceive and hide. How much more when I, Gyubo (奎報), have come forward to be received by Your Excellency on more than one day, so that whether my words and conduct are crooked or straight must already be known to you in detail. The writings I have sent up as my offering have come to two or three, so that whether my writing is well or ill made you must already have discerned. The traces of my governing at Wansan (完山) are all things you have heard. If you say that I did not fill out my term, there is an end of it. But the reason I was dismissed was that I was slandered by one who worked beside me, and the principle of its wrong and right, its crookedness and straightness, its probity and greed, is already plain. Without waiting for me to set it out myself, Your Excellency must long since have known it all. If so, what should there be again to doubt and hesitate over and leave undecided?
I hear that there is a vacancy in a post for the composing of letters. If you would lend me that post for a little and so test what I have learned in my heart, and if I prove unsuited and seem likely to cloud Your Excellency's eye for men, then you may push me out and cast me away. I shall have nothing to resent in my heart. To weigh a man's ability without testing him is less good than to test him and then have done with him. And for me too, to repent without having spoken is less good than to repent after having spoken it all. This is why I make this clamor of words, and why I hope that Your Excellency will first test whether it will do or not.
Ah — my blooming and my withering, my living and my dying, my advancing and my retreating, my spreading out and my drawing in, are all in Your Excellency's hands, and I only await your orders. Pray do not be as that rich man who quite forgot, and bring me at the last to poverty and obstruction. I tremble and am afraid as though burning. Here I stop. So-and-so bows twice.