Memorial thanking for the posts of Right Rectifier of Omissions and Drafter of Edicts謝右正言知制誥表
臣奎報言。昨奉制命。伏蒙聖慈除授臣右正言知制誥者。拾遺職要。掌制地親。拜命稠重。撫躬戰懼。竊以演紫泥之詔。非典麗無以敷聖謨。立文石之階。非剛正不足陳國論。惟其有淹通之識。然後免瘝曠之譏。如臣者。世系平微。襟靈淺鯫。自童孺唯耽於文字。無須臾暫輟於諷吟。發策決科。方覬通衢之騁。投閑置散。久勞窮轍之呼。然守性直行而不解機宜。故與人寡合而本無介紹。以此奉身而退縮。固甘沒齒以平沈。幸遘昌期。遽玷紅綃之署。榮遊淸禁。擬登白日之仙。入朝未及於七朞。越序旋遷於六品。方懷顚蹶之虞。罔佇甄升之典。敢圖明聖曲記庸虛。特紆渙號於訓書。驟擢淸資於法從。恩榮不次。人言無級以昇天。寵祿暴加。臣恐促鞭而覆乘。涕緣感下。身與命輕。此蓋伏遇聖上陛下至德包含。深仁覆露。雖大陽所炤。不因爝火以增輝。謂廈屋之成。亦集衆材而致廣。故容蹇質。與沐鴻恩。臣敢不磨鈍生鋩。策駑希驥。夙夜匪懈。益堅國耳之心。夷險不渝。恪守臣哉之節。云云。
I, your servant Gyubo (奎報), report. Yesterday I received the royal command, and prostrate, by Your Sage Majesty's loving-kindness, your servant was granted the posts of Right Rectifier of Omissions and Drafter of Edicts. The office of gathering up what is left out (拾遺) is weighty, and the place that has charge of rescripts is close to the sovereign. Bowing to receive the command, weighty and doubled as it is, I stroke my person and tremble in fear.
Quietly I consider that in spreading out and composing the sovereign's rescripts, without refined and fair writing one cannot lay out the sovereign's designs; and that in standing upon the figured stone steps, without firmness and uprightness one is not ample enough to report the deliberations of the state. Only after one has discernment that runs deeply through all things does one escape the rebuke of sickening one's post and leaving it empty.
One such as your servant is of a house-line common and lowly, and shallow and petty in his inward heart. From the time I was a small child I was sunk in letters alone, and never for a moment left off chanting. Having put forth a policy answer and been chosen in the examinations, I was just then watching for a chance to run the broad streets; but I was thrown into idleness and set in scattered posts, and long laboured, crying out at a wheel-rut that led nowhere.
Yet I kept my nature and walked straight, and did not know how to fit myself to opportunity. Therefore I mixed little with others and had of myself none to lead me on. For this reason I guarded my person, withdrew and drew in, and truly held it sweet to live buried until death.
Happily meeting a flourishing age, I suddenly defiled an office of crimson silk, and roamed in glory about the pure palace as though I should rise an immortal in broad daylight. Not seven years after entering the court, I skipped the order of precedence and was presently moved to the sixth grade. I was just then holding the fear of a fall, and was not waiting upon the favour of being picked out and raised.
Should I have dared to reckon that the enlightened sovereign would bend down and remember a mean and empty man, bending down especially to send a rescript as a letter of instruction, and suddenly choose him for a pure post in attendance upon the sovereign? Favour and glory did not tread the order of precedence, so that people say I have climbed to heaven without stairs; grace and salary were suddenly added, so that your servant fears that in hurrying the whip he will overturn the carriage. My tears come down out of gratitude, and my person is light as the life in it.
This is, in the main, that prostrate I have met with Your Sage Majesty's enfolding me in utmost virtue and covering and steeping me in deep benevolence. Though where the great sun shines its light is not increased by a torch, you held that a great house too is brought to completion by gathering many timbers until it attains breadth. Therefore you took in this sluggish stuff and let it bathe in a great favour.
Shall your servant not dare to grind what is blunt until it takes an edge, and whip a dull horse in hope of a thousand-league courser; from early dawn until night not to slacken, so that the heart which thinks of the state alone grows the firmer; and, unchanging whether the road be level or steep, reverently to keep the constancy due from a subject? And so forth.
Interlinear notes 2
中謝。
Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.
超七品受司宰丞。失一句。
Skipping the seventh grade, he received the post of Aide in the Court of Provisions (司宰丞). A clause is missing here.