Memorial Begging Leave to Retire乞退表
臣某言。臣本生年。已當告退。又纏疾恙。乞解機務者。久妨賢路。已虞任責之非輕。更迫耄年。寧有藉辭而敢處。罄披愚懇。乞解繁機。伏念臣業本未精。才無可採。遭稀闊難逢之嘉會。雪淹延久屈之宿。心目未熟於紫樞。身已登於黃閣。在臣之分。爲榮莫加。但國家多難之時。居宰相非據之地。旣不得出奇制勝掃戎醜之腥涎。又未能贊化調元協陰陽之和氣。無功可錄。維祿是糜。退也猶遲。留之何益。知臣心者謂宜高謝。媚臣意者徒有慰言。然或祕其生年。卽已誣於上鑑。豈幸其案籍縮書之歲。而廢却朝廷告老之期。矧衰病之交攻。顧昏蒙之大甚。步欹側而幾至踣地。體淸羸而僅能勝衣。假若強顔而冒居。孰非指目而相笑。伏望云云。大明委炤。剛斷無疑。特垂開可之音。俾遂優遊之樂。則如釋負擔。餘生自力於攝身。雖伏里閭。一日何忘於徇國。云云。
Your servant So-and-so reports. Your servant, by the year of his birth, has already come to the age at which retirement is to be reported, and he is bound by sickness besides; he begs to be released from the business of state. Long has he blocked the road of worthier men, and he has been troubled already that the charge he bears is no light one; now old age has come upon him as well, and with what borrowed words should he dare to remain in that place? Pouring out all his foolish earnestness, he begs to be released from the vexing business of state.
Prostrate I consider that Your servant's studies were never precise and that his talent holds nothing worth taking. Meeting a fair age such as is seldom met, he washed away the old purpose that had long been blocked and bent. Before his eyes had grown used to the seat of the Privy Council, his person had already risen to the seat of a minister; for one of Your servant's measure, glory could go no further than this.
Only, in a time when the state has many troubles, holding a minister's place that is not his to occupy, he has neither brought forth some rare stratagem and prevailed and swept away the rank spittle of the barbarians, nor helped the transforming rule and ordered the primal breath so as to meet the harmony of yin and yang. With no merit worth the recording, he merely wastes his salary. His retiring is late already; what good would come of his staying?
Those who know Your servant's heart say he ought to decline from his high place; those who flatter his wishes offer nothing but words of comfort. Yet were he to hide the year of his birth, that would be to deceive what is seen from above. How should he count it good fortune that his age stands written short in the registers, and so betray the term at which old age is to be reported at court?
Still more, decay and sickness strike by turns, and his dimness and dullness are far gone. His walk is so unsteady that he is near to falling flat upon the ground, and his body is so dried and wasted that it scarcely bears the weight of his clothes. Were he to thicken his face and remain by force, who would not point and glance and laugh with one another?
Prostrate I beg, and so forth. Look down and shine upon me with Your great brightness, and do not doubt, but decide firmly; let fall Your particular word of leave, and let me attain the pleasure of wandering at ease. Then, as one whose load is lifted, I shall give what strength is left me to the keeping of my own body; and though I lie low in my village, how should I for one single day forget the thought of giving my life for the state? And so forth.
Interlinear notes 3
丙申十月十六日。上表。二十一日。內侍某至。奉傳聖旨。所上表留中。仍敦諭起視事。
The memorial was submitted on the sixteenth day of the tenth month of the byeongsin year. On the twenty-first day a palace attendant, So-and-so, came bearing the royal will and earnestly admonished him that the memorial he had submitted would be kept within the palace, and that he was to return to his duties.
中謝。
Here the jungsa (中謝), that is, the words of thanks, is inserted.
久屈之宿心 — The base text punctuates this as 「久屈之宿。心目未熟於紫樞。」, but read so, 心 would be used twice; the break was therefore taken at 「宿心」, and 「目未熟於紫樞。身已登於黃閣。」 was read as a parallel of eye and body. — Translator