Memorial of Lord Yu (柳公) thanking Your Majesty for the gift of noble-dendrobium pills (石斛丸)柳公謝賜石斛丸表
臣某言。云云。千金珍藥。特紆善救之私。六尺殘軀。已有更生之望。凌兢何措。奉戴失容。伏念臣昨罹風痺之交侵。乞免官班之非據。雖退適於蛙井。仰感天恩。尙未離於蟻床。臥更歲律。百方莫療。五氣相乖。惟石斛之名丸。實金篇之遺訣。補精益內。旣著於方經。壯骨輕身。又聞於術士。如非內府之祕蓄。誠匪人間之易求。豈意至仁。俯矜舊物。命良醫而騁技。降溫詔而霈恩。未及拜承。更思平昔。顧尙昧養生之術。致此沈嬰。又豈施醫國之言。有所裨益。無功可副。受賜自慙。庶圖飮啜之勤。立獲靈奇之效。行復邯鄲之故步。免爲晏子之躄行。苟保餘生。曷忘後效。云云。
I, your servant so-and-so, report. And so forth. With medicine precious as a thousand pieces of gold you have bent down and bestowed the kindness of a particular rescue. In this worn-out body of six feet a hope of living again has already arisen. Trembling in dread I do not know what to do, and having borne it up upon my head I have lost the colour of my face.
Prostrate, I consider that your servant, meeting the other day the alternating assault of palsy and numbness, begged to be released from an office beyond his station. Though I withdrew and settled my person in a narrow place like a frog in a well, and looked up in gratitude for your heaven-like kindness, I have not yet left my sickbed and have lain through the turn of the year. By every method it is not cured, and the five humours are at odds with one another.
Only the famed pill compounded of noble dendrobium is truly a secret remaining in precious medical books. That it replenishes the vital essence and increases the inward strength is already set out in the medical books; that it firms the bones and lightens the body I have heard besides from the adepts. If it were not stored in the palace repository, it would truly be no easy thing to obtain in the human world.
How should I have thought that in your utmost benevolence you would look down and pity an old servant? You commanded a good physician to exercise his skill and sent down a warm rescript, pouring kindness upon me. Before I had bowed and received it, I thought again of days past. Looking back, I am still in the dark about the art of nourishing the body and have fallen into a chronic illness like this; how then should I have set forth words for curing the state and been of any help? Having no merit to answer to it, I receive your gift and am ashamed before myself.
I shall by all means drink and eat it diligently and contrive to obtain soon its numinous and marvellous effect. I shall recover the old gait of Handan (邯鄲) and escape becoming as lame as Anja (晏子). If I truly preserve the rest of my life, how should I forget to repay it hereafter? And so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
中謝。
Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.