A Letter Submitted to Minister Choe上崔相國書

On a certain day of a certain month, So-and-so, Libationer of the National Academy, Academician Lecturer of the Hallim and Drafter of Edicts, respectfully submits a letter to His Excellency the Minister.

I am by nature empty and worthless, and yet I have wrongly received Your Excellency's recognition. Not many years after I entered the path of office my rank had already risen to the third grade, and as for the duties of Academician and Drafter of Edicts, there is none I have not held besides. So that even when a man of old met one who knew him and was treated as a scholar of the state (國士), it was never a thing to compare with my case.

Not only has your praise and treatment of me been such; you also once laid on me the warning to cut down my wine. This too was because you knew that I cannot drink well, and that if I exceed my measure even a little I easily grow mad and disordered. Though it were the ten precepts and the five precepts of the Buddhas and bodhisattvas, or a parent's teaching of his children, how could it be more than this?

I ought to have received and followed it and not forgotten it even for a moment, and it was right from the first that I should not dare let the least thing gone wrong through wine come to Your Excellency's ear. And yet, on the contrary, I failed in it.

Yesterday, at the seat where I attended the feast of the Palgwan assembly, His Majesty mistakenly supposed that I drank well, and filled a cup for me apart and then pressed it upon me, earnestly and insistently. At first I put it off this way and that, hoping to be lucky enough not to come to a fall. But looking up and observing His Majesty's words and the color of his face, I could not but be afraid, and so I forced myself and drained the cup. And thus I came to be dazed and unable to collect my wits; it was not my own heart. Yet this too was because I grasped meanly at His Majesty's kindness and did not reckon the smallness of my vessel, so whom else should I blame?

By reason of this I did not go, as custom requires, to the rite at the second seat. And so the officials in charge raised a noisy discussion, which came again to His Majesty's ear and let the talk reach even Your Excellency; and though you were to impose on me the punishment of ten thousand deaths, I would take it sweetly. Yet I have leaned upon Your Excellency's covering of my fault from beginning to end and your forgiving me in every single thing: this is truly an immeasurable kindness like that of heaven and earth, not a thing to be repaid in one lifetime.

And as for what I have done: to have failed in the courtesy of an attending minister is the first crime; to have brought shame on Your Excellency's recognition is the second crime; to have been careless of Your Excellency's warning is the third crime. The flaw and the stain are so heavy that the water of the river cannot wash them away. Though I have had the good fortune of generous forgiveness, with what face shall I hereafter stand again at court and make up the number of the attending ministers?

I prostrate myself and beg that Your Excellency, at this very time, release me from office and let me withdraw and lie low in the countryside: that would truly be a great good fortune. If again you will not do so, but receive me with your large capacity and let me take a place once more in the ranks of the court, then strike from me the office of Drafter of Edicts and let me avoid the rank that attends closely upon His Majesty. This too would be a great bestowal.

These are not words made up at random, but come truly from my sincerity. I prostrate myself and beg you to weigh and decide. And so forth.