Memorial of the Marquis of Jingang (晉康侯) thanking His Majesty for visiting the thatched pavilion, holding a banquet there, and bestowing a composition from his own hand晉康侯謝駕幸茅亭曲宴次。賜御製表。
臣某言。昨蒙聖慈御臣所構茅亭曲宴次宣示御製者。玉色示慈。曲賜宴遨之好。雲章摛藻。特宣典麗之詞。奉戴感兢。神魂飛越。伏念臣本無遠識。生幸盛時。五等叨封。久荷蚊山之重。一區卜宅。粗期蛭井之跳。惟此小亭。頗宜遠眺。萬景莫逃於眼界。四方堪撫於掌中。負暄欲獻於至尊。計雖疏矣。禊水幸當於嘉節。忍可負旃。故忘僭越之誅。敢貢游觀之請。過蒙宸眷。許枉天臨。妙舞淸歌。悉徵來於國。色宗親邇輔。惟參侍於賓筵。舜樂方諧。高鍾屢罄。緣聖情而播詠。灑御墨以成篇。縟鳳詞華。回鸞筆勢。顧尙榮於聳覩。敢妄意於賡歌。勒以黃金。掛諸華閣。二十八字。宛同列宿之騰光。百千萬年。烏有靈珠之韜彩。姑藏眞蹟。傳示來孫。云云。
I, your servant so-and-so, report. I report concerning yesterday, when by Your Sage Majesty's loving-kindness you came to the thatched pavilion your servant had built, and at the banquet you spread there showed me a composition from your own hand. With a countenance like jade you showed your affection and bent down to grant us the delight of feasting and roaming; with writing like cloud-figures you spread out your brilliance and bestowed on us words especially refined and fair. Bearing them upon my head I am moved and afraid, and my spirit takes wing.
Prostrate I consider that your servant is of himself without far-seeing discernment, yet was happily born in a flourishing age. Presumptuously receiving enfeoffment of the five grades, I have long borne a weight like a mosquito carrying a mountain; and taking a house-site in one quarter, I have roughly hoped for no more than the measure of a leech leaping in a well.
Only this small pavilion is fairly fit for gazing afar, so that no scene whatever escapes the eye and the four quarters may be stroked within the palm. I wished to offer up to the Most High the sunlight that warms my back — the thought, though, was a coarse one; and the water-revel of the purification rite (禊) happily fell in a fine season, so how could I bear to let it go? Therefore, forgetting that I should be rebuked as presumptuous, I dared to beg that you come and roam and look.
Beyond measure I received the royal regard, and you consented to bend your carriage and come. For wondrous dance and clear song you summoned all the famed beauties of the realm; and only the royal kinsmen and the close councillors took part in attendance at the banquet. The music of Emperor Shun was just then in concert, and the high cup was drained again and again.
Moved by Your Majesty's own feeling you unfolded a chant, and scattering the royal ink you completed a piece. The flowering of the words is as though phoenixes were embroidered; the force of the brush is as though a simurgh wheeled in flight. Looking back, merely to gaze up at it is glory enough — how should I presume to think of a song answering it in turn?
I have had it carved in gold and hung in the ornate gallery. The twenty-eight characters are plainly as a ranged array of stars sending up their light; in a hundred thousand ten-thousand years, how should a numinous pearl ever hide that light? For now I shall keep the true writing of your hand and pass it down for later descendants to see. And so forth.
Interlinear notes 3
中謝。
Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.
悉徵來於國色 — the base text punctuates this 「悉徵來於國。色宗親邇輔。」, but kept so it yields 「色宗親邇輔」, which does not make sense; it is therefore read 「悉徵來於國色。宗親邇輔。」 — Translator
蛭井之跳 — a place of fable paired with 蚊山 in the preceding clause; there is also a way of reading it as the 埳井之蛙 (the frog in the well) of Zhuangzi. Since it has not been confirmed whether 蛭 is an error in the base text, it is rendered as the character stands. — Translator