Memorial thanking for being given the posts of Grand Master for Court Discussion, Libationer of the National Academy, and Academician Expositor-in-waiting of the Hallim同前謝表
云云。峻級淸資。蓋待不羈之士。謏聞寡見。遽叨非據之榮。靡獲遜辭。徒深驚愧。伏念臣器能淺近。家世平微。少也浮夸。妄有鵬騫之志。晚猶淹滯。久興雌伏之嗟。已過盛年。方霑微祿。以得免顚隮溝壑之爲幸。又安思騰躍風雲之是期。及遇昌朝。得都顯秩。掖垣出國論之要地也。曾補缺於七載。文閣承聖問之祕曹也。凡竊寵者五朞。方憂瘝曠之譏。復躡高華之秩。董靑衿之挑撻。不範何宜。侍赭案而討論。無才可稱。氷銜方掇。雨涕橫流。此蓋云云。爲政若貞觀之初。禮賢自郭隗而始。肆收庸品。與沐異恩。臣敢不益礪初心。勉思舊業。苟有愚夫之一得。小酬洪造於萬分。云云。
And so forth. A high grade and a pure post wait, in the main, upon a scholar unbound by anything, yet one who has heard little and seen narrowly has suddenly and presumptuously received a glory that is no place of his. My words of declining were not accepted, and merely my alarm and shame run deep.
Prostrate I consider that your servant is shallow and near-sighted in vessel and talent, and of a house common and lowly. In youth I was flighty and loud, and presumptuously held the purpose of soaring up like the peng bird; but until late I was still blocked and held back, and long raised the lament of bending the body and awaiting one's season. Already past my prime, I was just then steeped in a small salary. Merely to have escaped falling into ditch and gully I counted good fortune — so how should I have thought to look for a leap up on wind and cloud?
Meeting a flourishing court, I obtained manifest grades all round. The place of a remonstrance official is the essential spot from which the deliberations of the state come forth, and there I filled an empty seat for seven years; the Writings Pavilion is the secret bureau that receives the sovereign's questions, and there in all I stole his grace for five years. I was just then troubled by the rebuke of sickening my post and leaving it empty, and now again I have trodden a high and shining grade.
To oversee and ply the whip upon students in blue collars — how should it be fitting unless one can be their model? And for attending the red desk and taking part in deliberation I have no talent worth naming. Just as I gather up an office-name pure as ice, tears like rain run down in confusion.
This is, in the main, and so forth. Your governing is as at the beginning of the Jeonggwan (貞觀) years, and your courtesy to worthy men begins, as it did, with Guo Wei (郭隗); and so at last you gathered up one of a mean grade and let him bathe in an extraordinary favour.
Shall your servant not dare to whet the keener the mind he had at first and strive to call to mind his old studies, so that if indeed a foolish man has one thing he attains, he may repay in some small part — one ten-thousandth — your great favour? And so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
中謝。
Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.