Second memorial from Vice Chancellor Gi (奇平章) begging leave to withdraw from his post奇平章乞辭位表 第二表
云云。病未有間。敢貢退安之請。仁無遺舊。尙稽開可之音。實鬱下情。更干高鑑。伏念臣憃不更事。椎而少文。本興戴鶡之家。論思非任。謬處問牛之地。燮理無能。方玆滿盈。不早酌損。果被沈痾之作。已瀕垂死之噒。非唯目暗而喪晴。抑亦脚枯而無力。不以此時而辭避。甚於昔日之因循。玆拜囊封。冀廻天聽。何俯頒於芝檢。尙莫頷於芻言。苟迫恩威。復安寵位。人必誚飾詞而罔上。臣亦涉僞讓以釣名。値玆咎責之倂加。重以頓嬰之轉劇。雖欲自久。其何以堪。伏望聖上陛下。諒臣蹇短而不欲妨賢。知臣老鈍而不堪任職。俾釋肩於荷擔。得遂性而優游。臣當退伏里閭。勉加藥餌。苟少延於餘喘。儻可效於後圖。慺慺之懷。吶吶難旣。云云。
And so forth. My illness not abating, I dare to send up the request that begs leave to withdraw into ease. Your benevolence does not cast off an old man, yet the word of consent is still slow; truly the heart of one below is stifled, and so again I trespass upon your lofty regard.
Prostrate, I consider that your servant is foolish and unpracticed in affairs, and coarse and slight in letters. I rose from a house of military men to begin with, so that helping the sovereign and deliberating with him is not mine to take up; yet wrongly I sit in the seat of the minister who asked about the oxen, and in the ordering of yin and yang I have no ability.
Now I am full to overflowing, and I did not take anything away in good time. Sure enough a deep illness has risen, and I have already come to the point of death. Not only have my eyes gone dark and lost their brightness, but my legs are withered and without strength. If at such a time I do not decline and withdraw, it will be worse than my hanging back in days past.
And so I sent up a sealed writing, hoping that your heaven-like hearing would turn toward me. Why then do you only send down a fair rescript bending low, and not yet nod at the words of a grass-cutter? If, truly driven by grace and majesty, I were to sit at ease again in a favored place, others would surely blame me for dressing up my words and deceiving the sovereign, and your servant too would fall into angling for a name by a false declining.
Meeting a time when such faults and reproaches are heaped on together, and the illness that has caught me growing suddenly worse, even if I wished of myself to stay long, with what should I endure?
Prostrate I hope that Your Majesty the Holy Sovereign will weigh how your servant, slow and wanting, does not wish to block the road of worthy men, and will know that your servant, old and dull, cannot bear his charge, and so let the load I carry come off my shoulder and let me roam at leisure according to my nature.
Your servant will withdraw to his village, lie low, and strive to add to his medicines. If truly my remaining breath be lengthened even a little, there may yet be merit in the affairs of days to come. An earnest bosomful is hard to exhaust with stammering words. And so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
中謝。
Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.