Memorial of thanks from the lady of the Wang family to the Queen Dowager's Palace王氏謝大后殿表
云云。女爵疏封。宜待柔嘉之德。慈闈推澤。遽加微薄之軀。遜避靡由。感兢交極。伏念妾生賦庸質。本無淑姿。年甫及於首笄。雖歸侯邸。儀未閑於步玉。動缺婦容。但司巾櫛之勞。粗守閨房之法。豈圖睿眷。曲記孱資。特宣溫厚之辭。寔講褒嘉之典。懿名顯號。粲然刻壐之章。美宅良田。副以實筐之幣。榮生望表。喜溢情涯。此蓋伏遇王大后殿下仁合母臨。德侔坤載。曲費撫憐之惠。如己之生。俾膺甄奬之恩。從夫而貴。妾敢不敦修履行。勉服箴規。益輸孝敬之心。小答生成之化。云云。
And so forth. To set apart and confer a rank upon a woman ought to await a virtue gentle and lovely, yet from your loving hall you extended and bestowed your favor and added it all at once to a body mean and slight. Having no way to decline and get out of the way, feeling and fear are both at their utmost in me.
Prostrate, I consider that your handmaid received a mean stuff at birth and from the first has no clear bearing. My years having barely come to the pinning of the hairpin, I married into the house of a feudal lord; yet my bearing was never practiced in walking to the sound of girdle-jades, and in my movements a wife's bearing is wanting. I only do the labor of taking charge of towel and comb, and roughly keep the law of the women's chamber.
How could I have thought that your bright regard would bend down and remember a frail stuff, unfolding especially warm and thick words and extending a favor that truly praises me? With the fair name and the distinguished title, the writing graven on the jade seal shines; and with a fine house and rich fields came besides gifts of silk that filled the baskets. The glory arises outside what I had hoped for, and the joy overflows the brim of my heart.
This is because, prostrate, I have met with Her Highness the Queen Dowager, whose worth answers to her presiding as a mother and whose virtue is as the earth's bearing of all things, who bends down and bestows the grace of stroking and tender favor as upon a child she bore herself, and who has let me receive the grace of being singled out and praised and so be made noble along with my husband.
How should your handmaid dare not cultivate her conduct thickly and strive to master the admonitions and the measures? Offering up still more a heart of filial piety and respect, I shall answer in some small part the kindness of having been borne and reared. And so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
中謝。
Here the words of 中謝, that is, the words of thanks, are inserted.