A Letter Sent to the Attending Censor Bak Seo (朴犀)與朴侍御犀書
月日。太僕少卿寶文閣待制知制誥李某。謹致書于侍御君閣下。夫人之相知。貴相知心。僕平生有所受知於人。名雖爲知。其實未相知者有之。其惟轉風斤去鼻墁。精神暗契者。獨嚴君尙書而已。公生時公友人有李杞者。亦一段奇人也。尤善寫眞。嘗爲公畫像甚肖。公再三持以示予。意若欲予標誌。予讓不敢當焉。一昨。偶詣侍御家。覩向之遺像。方拜而望之。也則宛若平時燕居申申。而予方造謁。未及升階。望見光彩之日也。其卽而對之也。則面色之充然。眉目之肆然。若將語笑者。俛仰之間。不覺墮淚。是日蒙見借。奉以歸于家。掛廳壁凡幾日。朝夕敬拜。如禮佛菩薩像。感念疇昔。或嗚咽不自止者多矣。且文者。緣情而發。有激於中。必形于外而不可遏止者也。是用緣感之所發。乃拾實摭芳。聊爲之贊詞。其始也貪公事業。爲文頗繁。及書。緣幀子上甚窄。要計字然後可書。則删之又删。其省若此。噫。尙書。天下英偉人也。其雄才大度。寬和豁達。文虎智略。英風爽氣。磊磊焉落落焉。雖盡南山之竹。猶不足書。況於一幅區區之地。豈得馳騁文辭覼縷之周耶。第恐百世之後。日月寢悠。丹靑漫暗。則雖雲孫有不識誰像者。況他人哉。予所以贊之而略存標的者。凡以是也。文雖不厭閣下之意。蓋所自而作者。本期以不朽。而屬意非淺淺也。伏惟時或觀覽。有以慰罔極之思。不爲不可矣。未知閣下諒之何如也。不宣。某再拜。
On a certain day of a certain month, So-and-so, Junior Minister of the Court of the Imperial Stud, Academician of the Bomun Pavilion and Drafter of Edicts, respectfully presents a letter to His Excellency the Attending Censor.
Now in men's knowing one another, it is the knowing of one another's hearts that is precious. In my life I have had men who recognized me, but there were those who knew me in name while in truth we did not know one another. The only one whose spirit met mine in silence, as when the axe is swung till the wind whistles and the clay is pared from the tip of the nose, was your late father the Minister (尙書), and he alone.
While he was alive there was among his friends one Yi Gi (李杞), who was likewise a man of some strangeness. He was moreover skilled at portraits, and once painted the Duke's likeness, and it was very like him. Two or three times he brought it and showed it to me, seeming to wish that I would write something upon it, but I declined and did not dare take it on.
The day before yesterday I happened to go to the Attending Censor's house and saw that surviving portrait of former days. I bowed and looked up at it: there, plain before me, was the easy manner in which he used to sit at leisure, as on the day when I had just come to wait on him and, before I had climbed the steps, gazed upon his shining form. Drawing near and facing it, I saw the color of his face full and his brows and eyes clear, as though he were about to speak and laugh. Bowing my head and raising it, before I knew it I let my tears fall.
That day I was allowed to borrow it, and bore it home and hung it on the wall of my hall for some days, and morning and evening bowed to it in reverence as one pays rites to the images of the Buddha and the bodhisattvas. Thinking back with feeling upon former days, there were many times when my throat closed and I could not stop myself.
Moreover, writing is a thing that comes out following the feelings, and if something surges within, it must show itself without and cannot be dammed. So, following what rose in me from this feeling, I gathered the facts and collected what was fine in him, and made this encomium (贊) for what little it is worth. At first I was greedy to hold all the Duke's work in it, and the piece was quite long. But when I came to write it, the top of the scroll was exceedingly narrow and I could only write after counting the characters, and so I pared it and pared it again. Such was the cutting down.
Ah, the Minister was an outstanding and great man of the world. His heroic talent and large capacity, his nature at once generous and harmonious, clear and open, his wisdom and strategy in both letters and arms, his outstanding bearing and bracing spirit, stood tall and wide, so that were all the bamboo of the Southern Mountain used it would still fall short of being enough. How much less, upon the trifling space of a single scroll, can writing be given free rein and set out everything one by one and in full?
My only fear is this: that after a hundred generations, when the years have grown ever more distant and the colors of the painting are dim, there will be those, even among his far descendants, who do not know whose portrait it is. How much more others. That I made the encomium and left a mark of him in outline was, in sum, for this reason.
Though the writing may not content Your Excellency's wish, in sum the intent with which this piece was made was from the first to pledge it against decay, and what my heart set upon it was not shallow. I prostrate myself and beg that if you look at it from time to time and so comfort your endless longing, there could be nothing amiss in that. I do not know how Your Excellency may weigh it. Here I break off. So-and-so bows twice.