Memorial Giving Thanks for Being Charged with the Administration of the Examinations同前謝表
云云分桂之權。實關大手。出綸之命。誤及幺軀。退省恩榮。竊深欣悸。伏念臣爲儒腐爛。賦性悾恫。弱冠策名。愧莫書於金榜。中年筮仕。幸得玷於玉堂。雖然。上絶卑學士之班。下不及供奉之屬。鬢幾變鶴。腰未綰犀。及遭聖日之昇。始展天衢之步。久居制職。未嘗斧藻於訓謨。再闢選闈。又莫網羅於英俊。敢圖廓度。不責舊愆。方除宰府之官資。旋委文場之題品。世所許爲儒匠。有未一經。臣獨負何奇才。凡今三忝。此蓋云云。政先籲俊。德尙修文。謂愚臣頗力於讀書。奈今日俾臨於試士。臣謹當研精考藝。儻收抱璞之家。盛飾入朝。有補垂衣之化。云云。
And so forth. The authority to apportion the cassia branch rests truly upon a great hand, yet the royal command has fallen by mistake even upon so slight a person as myself. Withdrawing and looking back upon this favor and this glory, I am secretly glad and secretly afraid.
Prostrate I consider that Your servant's conduct as a scholar is rotted and decayed, and that the nature he was born with is foolish and empty. At twenty he hung up his name, yet is ashamed never to have been written in the high places of the golden roll (金榜); in middle years he first took office, and was fortunate to be improperly numbered in the Jade Hall (玉堂). Yet above he was cut off even from the rank of the lesser academicians, and below he did not reach the company of the attendants-in-waiting (供奉). His temple-hair has gone nearly as white as a crane's, and still his waist has not worn the rhinoceros belt.
Only when the sage sun rose did he at last stretch out his steps upon the avenue of heaven. Long he sat in the place where rescripts are drafted, yet never shaped into writing his ruler's teaching and counsel; twice he opened the examination hall, yet again failed to net and gather in men of outstanding ability.
How should he have dared to think that with so broad a magnanimity You would not rebuke his past faults? Now You bestow upon him the rank of a minister's office, and go on to entrust him with the grading of the seat where writing is contested. There are men whom the world acknowledges as first among the Confucian scholars who have not passed through this even once; what strange talent has Your servant alone, that he has now improperly held it three times in all?
This is all, and so forth, because Your governance puts first the summoning of the outstanding and Your virtue holds high the cultivation of letters; because You deemed that Your foolish servant had labored not a little at the reading of books, and so had him come this day to the seat where scholars are tested.
Your servant will in all reverence look narrowly and measure talent. If he gathers in those who hold a lump of jade in their bosom, and brings them richly adorned into the court, there will be some help to the transforming rule You work with Your robes hanging down. And so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
中謝。
Here the jungsa (中謝), that is, the words of thanks, is inserted.