Memorial from Choe Jongbeon (崔宗蕃) begging leave to sit for the Eastern Hall examination (東堂)崔宗蕃乞赴東堂表
云云。右文明代。公選群英。新學小生。猥求自試。敢披精懇。仰冒聰聞。伏念臣性本悾恫。材惟拳曲。學雕蟲之伎。早有志於科名。無磔鼠之能。素未便於刀筆。偶緣門蔭。一被吏名。若不由儒學而立身。亦將何面目而從仕。況祖先皆從此途而顯迹。在子孫可將他路以干時。今伏遇國家急泛駕之求。下如渴之詔。用精鑿而剖石。遍索殊珍。張巨紘以掛雲。大搜逸翮。得人猶漢之爲盛。多士若周之思皇。是用不揆謏聞。庶償宿志。得數峯之警句。雖未通神。奉孤竹之巨題。粗堪下字。伏望聖上陛下。法道善貸。體天曲成。俾容鉛鈍之資。同詣衡懸之試。則作賦於叉手。縱謝庭筠之才。收科若摘髭。儻繼立奇之迹。臣無任云云。
And so forth. In a bright age that exalts letters you choose the many talents with fairness, and here a young student newly at his learning presumes to ask of himself to be examined. I dare to unfold my earnest heart and make bold to look up to your hearing.
Prostrate, I consider that your servant is foolish by nature and crooked in his timber. Learning the petty skill of carving insects, I set my purpose early upon a name at the examinations; and having no skill at tearing rats, I was never practiced in the clerk's work done with brush and knife.
By chance, leaning upon hereditary privilege (門蔭), I once obtained a clerk's name. If I do not establish myself by a scholar's learning, with what face should I follow office? How much more when my forebears all made their traces plain along this road — shall one who is their descendant seek his time by another road?
Now, prostrate, I have met with the state's holding the search for outstanding talent urgent and sending down a rescript as of one athirst. With a fine chisel you split the stone to seek out uncommon treasures everywhere, and spreading a great net you hang it in the clouds to range widely after the high-flying wings. The gaining of men is as the abundance of Han, and the multitude of scholars as the fairness of Zhou.
And so, taking no reckoning of my narrow hearing, I would repay my long-held purpose. The startling lines that sang of a few peaks do not, it is true, reach through to the marvelous; yet taking up a great theme such as Gojuk (孤竹), I am roughly fit to set down characters.
Prostrate I hope that Your Majesty the Holy Sovereign will take the Way for his model and lend himself well, and taking heaven for his body will bend down and bring it about, suffering a stuff dull as lead to go forward along with the rest into the examination that is weighed in the balance. If you do so, then as for composing a rhapsody in the time it takes to fold one's arms, I do not reach the talent of Wen Tingyun (溫庭筠); but as for rising in the examinations as one plucks out a whisker, I may perhaps carry on the old traces of those who set up something extraordinary. Your servant, unable to contain himself, and so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
中謝。
Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.