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Memorial thanking for being given the post of Right Grand Master of Remonstrance同前謝表

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 1 passages · 172 Chinese characters · reading time 2 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 31 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.

云云。諫署選高。誠非曠瘝之地。嚴宸勅厲。莫容遜避之辭。省分非宜。靦顔何措。伏念臣少而拙訥。老益迂疏。拔自孤寒。幸際會於千載。擢登侍從。掌制誥者十年。方懼鵜梁之剌。復參鳳沼之遊。自惟何才。屢涉斯地。顧之一言之補。凡叨三入之榮。官班斗峻於當年。俸祿過豐於今日。情由中激。涕自外零。此蓋云云。得士多於維周。禮賢始於自隗。故令庸品。亦荷優恩。臣敢不鞭策駑資。研磨鈍器。盡傾素蘊。苟可報於上知。何惜微身。有不陳於公論。云云。

And so forth. The selection to the bureau of remonstrance officials is high, and it is truly no post to be left empty and sickened. The stern royal command pressed me hard, and you would not accept my words of declining and withdrawing. Looking at my measure it is unfitting, and where shall I put this face of shame?

Prostrate I consider that your servant in youth was clumsy and halting in speech, and in age is the looser and sparser. Chosen out of solitude and poverty, I happily met a season that comes once in a thousand years. Chosen and raised to a post in attendance upon the sovereign, I have had charge of rescripts for ten years.

I was just then fearing the satire of the pelican perched at the fish weir, and now again I have shared in the roaming of the phoenix pool. Thinking of myself, by what talent have I trodden this place several times? Looking back, without the help of so much as one word of mine, I have presumptuously received the glory of entering in all three times. My rank in office towers above what it was that year, and my salary today is ample beyond measure. Feeling is roused within, and tears fall without.

This is, in the main, and so forth. Your obtaining of scholars is more than Zhou's, and your courtesy to worthy men begins, as it did, with Guo Wei (郭隗); and so even one of a mean grade you have made to bear an ample favour.

If your servant dares to whip this dull stuff and grind and polish this dull vessel, pouring out all that he has laid up from the first, and can indeed repay the recognition given him above — how should he spare his lowly person and not report what the common good requires? And so forth.

Interlinear notes 2

中謝。

Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.

顧之一言之補 — the base text has 顧之, but it is taken as an error for 顧乏, that is, "looking back, there is no …" — Translator

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