Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 29

Memorial from Vice Chancellor Gi (奇平章) begging leave to withdraw from his post奇平章乞辭位表

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 1 passages · 186 Chinese characters · reading time 2 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 29 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.

云云。月盈則虧。物忌大滿。日入而息。人不常勞。況冒寵而久居。雖有悔而何及。敢敷危悃。乞解重權。伏念臣謬以庸虛。早登華要。自明廟而至聖代。片事三朝。由樞府而踐宰衡。又踰一紀。無功可記。尸祿則多。在平時猶懼其不支。況弱質早衰於多病。目昏翳而幾不辨物。體淸瘦而尙未勝衣。若此不辭。又將何待。雖君上有包含之德。而宰想非曠素之官。伏望聖上陛下。推哀矜惻隱之心。憫老朽尫殘之物。特垂兪詔。許遂退藏。則漱和氣於聖時。餘生足養。掛丹心於帝闕。一日何忘。云云。

And so forth. The moon, once full, wanes, and things shrink from being too full. When the sun sets one rests, for a man cannot toil forever. How much more, if one presumes upon favor and stays long, what good is repentance then? I dare to unfold my fearful inward heart and beg that the weighty authority be loosed from me.

Prostrate, I consider that your servant, wrongly, with a body mean and empty, rose early to brilliant and essential posts. From the time of Myeongjong (明宗) down to this holy age I have served through three courts, and since passing by way of the Privy Council (樞府) and setting foot in the seat of a minister, twelve years and more have gone by.

There is no merit worth setting down, and the stipend I have drawn while merely keeping my place is much. Even in ordinary times I feared I could not hold up; how much more now that a weak body has early decayed with frequent illness. My eyes are clouded and veiled and can scarcely tell one thing from another; my body is so wasted that it cannot yet bear its clothes. If even so I do not decline, what more am I to wait for? Though the sovereign has the virtue of taking men to his bosom, the minister's is not an office in which one may leave the place empty and eat the stipend.

Prostrate I hope that Your Majesty the Holy Sovereign will extend his pitying heart and have compassion on a body old and gaunt, and will send down especially a rescript of consent, letting me accomplish my withdrawal into hiding. If you do so, it will be ample for me to drink the harmonious air of this holy time and nourish what life remains; and hanging my crimson heart upon the palace, how could I forget it for even a day? And so forth.

Interlinear notes 1

中謝。

Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.

‹ Second memorial from Vice Chancellor Gi (奇平章) begging leave to withdraw from his post Contents Memorial from Im Yeongnyeong (任永齡), Director of the Palace Library (祕書監), declining the command to resume office while in mourning ›Listen to this piece