Memorial thanking for being given the post of Associate Director of the Examinations同前謝表
云云。棘院試能。本屬衡懸之鑑。楓宸降命。誤加墻面之軀。靜省顓蒙。伏深兢愧。竊以知人不易。自古非今。娟媸長短則見之可知。枉直賢愚則意所難度。豈以才藏於貌。智隱於心者歟。故張詞律之科。欲試胸襟之蘊。然文是而質非者有矣。或才虧而行備者在焉。不惟臨紙之時終日反覆而自惑。抑亦放榜之後畏人毀譽之何如。如臣者。附贅朝聯。索塗文苑。學無根據而浮虛不實。命與時來而騰躍敢前。每越資階。歷更淸要。制誥學士之重任。無不荷肩。場屋座主之劇權。亦粗梁指。然其時不能無失士之譏。臣之無所措顔者。至今宛如昨日矣。豈圖明聖悉滌瑕疵。復加掌選之權。更重遺賢之誚。讓不獲可。退莫寧心。此蓋云云。政尙右文。仁能護短。至使衰遲之物。得叨僭越之榮。臣敢不力所可當。心不暫弛。入山而擇衆木。非大匠雖難判分。過市而見奇珍。在常人猶知愛悅。苟有可觀之作者。亦何終昧而棄焉。得一英材。少益明代。云云。
And so forth. To test talent in an examination yard hedged about with thorns belongs of itself to an eye that weighs as with a balance, yet the command came down from the palace and was wrongly laid upon one who stands as though facing a wall. Quietly looking at my own folly and darkness, prostrate I find my trembling and shame run deep.
Quietly I consider that the knowing of men has not been easy from of old, and not in our time alone. Fair and ugly, long and short, may be known by looking; but crooked and straight, worthy and foolish, are hard to measure by intent. Is this not because talent is hidden in the appearance and wisdom concealed in the mind? Therefore one sets out the subjects of composition and metre, meaning to test what a man has laid up in his breast.
Yet there are those whose writing is right while their stuff is wrong, and some whose talent is broken while their conduct is complete. Facing the paper, going over it all day long, it is not only that one loses one's own way; one also fears what the slander and the praise of others will be after the lists are posted.
One such as your servant clings like a wen to the ranks of the court and gropes for the road in the garden of letters. My learning has no root or ground and floats, empty and without substance; yet fortune came along with the times, and I leapt up and dared to go in front. Always skipping grades, I have passed all round through pure and essential posts. There is no part of the weighty charge of an academician who composes rescripts that I have not borne upon my shoulders, and the great authority of a presiding master (座主) of the examination yard I have also, roughly, hung upon my finger.
Yet even then there could not but be the rebuke that scholars had been lost, and your servant's having nowhere to put his face is plainly, to this day, as though it were yesterday. How should I have reckoned that the enlightened sovereign would wash away every flaw and fault and add to me again the authority of choosing scholars, making doubly heavy the rebuke that worthy men were let slip? My declining obtained no consent, and even in withdrawing my mind is not at ease.
This is, in the main, and so forth. In your governing you exalt letters, and with benevolence you cover over what is wanting; and so you have let even a worn and sluggish thing presumptuously receive a glory beyond its measure.
Shall your servant not dare to bend himself to what he can bear, and not slacken his mind for a moment? To go into the mountains and sift among the many trees is hard to divide and discern unless one is a great carpenter; but when one passes through the market and sees a strange treasure, even an ordinary man still knows how to prize it and rejoice. If indeed there is one who has written something worth seeing, how should I in the end remain blind to it? I would obtain one outstanding timber and be of some small help to this enlightened age. And so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
中謝。
Here the words of thanks (中謝) are inserted.