A Letter Sent to the Instructor Choe Jongyu (崔宗裕)與崔宗裕學諭書
月日。某頓首。崔君足下。僕聞足下詩名久矣。然未曾有一日柸酒之雅。有以親襲芳馨。加之年老寡友。又無好事者肯以足下所著詩文見及。故未詳爲人何若也。噫。僕之老鈍一至此。聵聵焉眊眊焉。殊不類業文者之態矣。日者。始蒙足下垂和老生與兪侍郞唱酬之什。辭淸語警。助之以妍麗。皎然若氷壺之映月。曄然如春林之敷花。雖未得其全。亦髣髴得其爲人。想英風爽氣。瀏然襲人。予然後益慙僕之知足下大晚。顔厚不能無赭色。時大學韓，尹，皇甫三君子。亦和此詩。予欲奉酬足下與三君子所貺。腹藁已成。緣眼暗不能自書。方倩人代手。尋被負薪之疾。其後復爲官箴所迫。因循姑息。不得奉答。大失禮常。甘俟罪責。今月某日。復承手敎。驚惶聳覩。則和古許彥國虞美人草詩凡七首也。足下所以和此詩者。蓋有芸閣讎校金台臣者。嘗以所著詩一卷贄予。李史館允甫適來見之。借其本而去。足下於史館家得見之。和卷首所著此作。因以貺予也。昔者李允甫嘗和此詩。稍淸絶。督予同作。予知必不能吐一妙語。挨倣彼作。故辭而不爲。今已二十餘年矣。近見台臣所著。嘆伏良多。益知無所措手。今復蒙足下所著。多至七首。押韻旣得優閑。吐辭又復警絶。末章雜以楚詞。足以繼古體。甚善甚善。予又不以時奉答者。凡僕之意所未到者。已不可言。其間儻可得導者。足下之七首。皆已道之矣。予於此時。方以涸波乾韻。強欲仰繼。則滴未周器而源已竭。聲未到耳而曲卽窮。必爲作者之所大笑。安敢有屬和之意耶。雖然。當閑吟寓興之際。萬一有得。則書以奉寄。猶未晚也。惟大度寬之。但和前所貺赤字韻詩。兼和三君子摠四首。聯寫以寄。季春所荷。季夏方答。何予疏緩若是耶。酷熱自愛。不宣。某再拜。
On a certain day of a certain month, So-and-so bows his head to the ground. Master Choe, Your Honor. It is long since I heard of Your Honor's name as a poet. Yet I have never had the acquaintance of sharing a single day's cup with you, and so have not met your flowerlike fragrance in my own person. Besides, I have grown old and have few friends, and there has been no lover of such business to bring me the poems and writings Your Honor has made and show them to me. And so I did not know in detail what manner of man you are.
Ah, my age and dullness have come to this. My ears are stopped and my eyes are clouded, and I am quite unlike the figure of a man of letters.
The other day I received for the first time Your Honor's answering poem, sent in reply to the verses exchanged between old me and the Vice Director Yu. The words were clear and the lines outstanding, and to this was added a loveliness and beauty, so that their whiteness was as the moon shining in a jar of ice and their brightness as flowers opening in a spring grove. Though I was not able to obtain and see the whole of them, I could yet dimly know the man. It is as though an outstanding bearing and bracing spirit came blowing coolly upon me. Only then was I the more ashamed that I had come to know Your Honor so late, and even I, with my thick face, could not be without a flush of red.
At that time the three gentlemen Han, Yun and Hwangbo of the National Academy also answered this poem. I had already made the draft in my belly, meaning to answer with respect what Your Honor and the three gentlemen had given me; but my eyes being dark I could not write it myself, and I was on the point of borrowing a man to write it in my stead. Then I fell ill, and after that I was again driven by official service and put it off and let the time slip, so that I did not answer you with respect. I have greatly failed in the constancy of courtesy, and I await your reproof and take it sweetly.
On a certain day of this month I received again a letter written in your own hand, and in startled awe raised my eyes to it: they were answering poems to the old 「Lady Yu's Grass (虞美人草)」 of Heo Eonguk (許彦國), seven pieces in all.
The reason Your Honor answered this poem is this. One Kim Taesin (金台臣), a Collator of the Herbal Pavilion (芸閣), once presented me with a volume of poems of his own making, and the historian Yi Yunbo (李允甫) happened to come and see it and borrowed the book. Your Honor saw it at the historian's house, and answered this piece, which stands at the head of the volume, and sent it to me.
In old days Yi Yunbo once answered this poem, and it was quite clear and outstanding. He pressed me to compose along with him, but I knew that I should certainly not spit out even one fine phrase, and would do no more than push after that piece and copy it; and so I declined and did not compose. That is now more than twenty years ago. Of late, seeing what Taesin had made, I sighed in admiration and bowed before it in good earnest, and knew the better that there was no place for my hand.
Now again I receive what Your Honor has made, and they are many, reaching seven pieces. The hanging of the rhymes is already ample and unhurried, and the spitting out of the words is again outstanding. The last piece mixes in the Songs of Chu (楚辭) and is ample enough to carry on the old manner: very good, very good.
The reason I again cannot answer you with respect in good time is this. What my own thought does not reach, of that I cannot speak at all; and even were there among it something worth saying, Your Honor's seven pieces have already said it all. If at such a time I were to try by force to follow after you with a dried-up wave and a withered rhyme, the source would already be dry before the drops had filled the vessel, and the tune would be at its end before the sound had reached the ear. I should certainly become a great laughingstock to the author — how then should I dare entertain the thought of answering?
Even so, if in the course of chanting at leisure and lodging my pleasure in it I should get one thing in ten thousand, it will not yet be too late to write it out and send it to you with respect. Only look on me indulgently out of your large capacity.
I send only my answer to the poem on the rhyme 「jeok (赤)」 that you gave me before, and with it answers to the three gentlemen, four pieces in all, written out together. What I received in late spring I answer only in late summer. How can I be so careless and so slow? In this fierce heat, take care of yourself. Here I break off. So-and-so bows twice.