Memorial Declining the Office of Administrator of the Examinations讓知貢擧表
云云。批詞芝檢。假手棘圍。在明主汲汲之求。所欲得者賢耳。以愚臣區區之識。詎可汰其選歟。非所承當。急於辭避。伏念臣性資蒙弊。記問空疏。少尙寡聰。不能擧一而三反。老益加鈍。無奈在十而九忘。端遇盛時。驟躋華秩。凡以文章而爲任。無不歷叨。至如場屋之主盟。亦嘗再忝。此已溢平生之望。尙足酬篤學之勞。豈意至明曲收殘質。俾復當於重責。而不考於僉言。昔也取才。已不辨紫朱之混。今雖努力。豈遽廻水鏡之明。決必失賢。祗目速誚。伏望云云。俯矜哀懇。遄降兪音。改命有孚。苟擇懸衡之鑑。得人爲盛。盡收蘊櫝之倫。云云。
And so forth. With words set down in a rescript You have lent a hand to the thorn-hedged examination yard. What a bright ruler seeks in his urgent search is worthy men and nothing else; how then should Your servant, foolish and of trifling discernment, sift that choosing? It is not a thing I can bear up under, and so I am urgent to decline and withdraw.
Prostrate I consider that Your servant's nature and substance are dull and blocked, and that his remembering and his asking are empty and coarse. Even in youth he had little quickness, and could not take up one thing and turn it over three times; now in age his dullness has grown the more, and there is nothing he can do about forgetting nine things out of ten.
Meeting at last a flourishing age, he rose of a sudden to a shining rank. Of all the charges that are held by the writing of documents there is not one he has not rashly received, and the seat of master of the examination yard he has twice defiled besides. This alone overflows the hope of a lifetime and is enough to repay the toil of his devoted study.
How should he have thought that One of the utmost brightness would stoop to gather up so worn a substance, make him bear a heavy charge once more, and not weigh the words of the many? In the old days, when he chose men of talent, he could already not tell apart the true from the false where the two were mingled; now, though he exert himself, how should he of a sudden recover the brightness of a water-mirror? He will surely lose the worthy, and only hasten reproach.
Prostrate I beg, and so forth. Look down in pity upon my grief and my earnestness, and quickly let fall the word "Let it be so." If there be good faith in the altering of a command, and You truly choose eyes that look as a balance weighs, then the gaining of men will flourish, and You will gather in all those who lie buried like jade in a casket. And so forth.
Interlinear notes 2
甲午年
This was the gabo year.
中謝。
Here the jungsa (中謝), that is, the words of thanks, is inserted.