Memorial Begging Leave to Retire, in the Jeongyu Year丁酉年乞退表
云云。年當乞退。望解機務者。老而不退。是豈出於夙心。事未必期。乃久恬於巍位。上章稽晚。伏地慞惶。伏念臣動昧機宜。唯守孤拙。曾淹宦路。若推壑以下之。及遘聖朝。類搏風而上者。歷更津要。進詣機衡。身都相位而未聞乎論道經邦。名竊儒臣而所欠者以文華國。糜費廩祿。豢養妻兒。顧自爲謨則殆幾。其於補世也何有。以玆無用。復當告老之期。豈可貪榮。坐積妨賢之誚。故去歲有歸休之請。而上心難遽棄之爲。特遣內臣。曲傳宣語。誠愧賤微之品。仰煩慰諭之勤。命旣莫違。縱不獲已而就職。國有成例。猶恐自今而廢常。有口皆譏。無顔可措。今則老病交劇。步履猶艱。雖欲自強。又可耐處。伏望云云。至仁篤護。大度兼容。察臣懼群議之沸騰。諒臣連兩年而控告。俾還官政。退伏里閭。魚見放而泳游。亦足以樂。鳥知還而棲止。訖可少休。云云。
And so forth. My years have reached the time for begging leave to retire, and I ask to be released from the business of state. To grow old and not retire — how should that be my settled mind? Things do not always fall out as one appoints, and so in the end I have long sat easy in a high place. My submitting of this writing comes late; prostrate upon the ground, I am afraid and abashed.
Prostrate I consider that Your servant is dim in his every move to what is timely and fitting, and has kept nothing but his solitude and his clumsiness. Once, when his way in office was blocked, it was as though he had been pushed down into a ravine; but when he met the sage court, it was as though he mounted upon a beating wind. Passing through all the essential posts, he came at last to hold the balance of government.
Though his person was in a minister's seat, no word of his discoursing on the Way and ordering the state was ever heard; though he stole the name of a Confucian minister (儒臣), what he lacked was the bringing of glory to the state by writing. Wasting the salary of the granaries, he has reared his wife and children; looking back, in the plans that served his own person he has accomplished nearly all, but in what profits the age, what is there? With a body so useless as this he has come again to the time for reporting his old age; how should he covet glory, and heap up the reproach of sitting and blocking worthier men?
Therefore last year he asked leave to go home and rest, but Your royal mind found it hard to cast him off so suddenly, and You sent a palace servant expressly to convey Your instruction in detail. Truly he is ashamed that so mean and slight a rank should put You to the trouble of comforting and admonishing him. Unable to go against Your command, he went to his post against his will. The state has its settled precedent, and he fears that from now on the constant law will be broken down. All who have mouths reproach him, and he has nowhere to put his face.
Now old age and sickness are severe by turns, and even his walking is hard. Though he would exert himself, how again should he endure and remain?
Prostrate I beg, and so forth. Wrap me thickly in Your utmost benevolence and take me in within Your great magnanimity; look upon Your servant's fear of the boiling up of the many voices, weigh his pleading of two years one after another, and let him hand back the cap and tablet of office and withdraw to lie low in his village. When a fish is let loose and swims, that too is a pleasure; when a bird knows to return and roosts, it may at last rest a little. And so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
中謝。
Here the jungsa (中謝), that is, the words of thanks, is inserted.