Second Memorial Begging Leave to Retire二度乞退表
云云。昨具表乞還官政。蒙降敎書不允者。匹夫告勞。許釋兩肩之負。老馬方倦。可停千里之行。臣欲退安。義與此類。卑情自訴。兪詔尙稽。伏念臣學本空疏。性惟褊躁。歷四朝而至我代。始參奉引之聯。登兩制者無幾年。驟擢論思之地。以章句浮虛之伎。居朝廷機要之司。其在平時。尙難堪處。方國家厭虜之際。是廟堂料敵之時。書檄不能曉無知之戎。智略不得施制勝之策。虛提寸管。何益前籌。況復過歸老之齡。夫豈欠冒居之恥。然無功而妄食則甘受衆責。其滿限而未去則亦非本情。蓋陛下前以臣政簿誤年勅留。而臣不得違忤故爾。今伏奉詔旨。又如前諭。而申以不病不老及之。病豈僞稱。臥已更於百日。老非自飾。年正屆於七旬。雖聖度有所示寬。顧人言亦豈無懼。其已聞者足矣。又可使之多歟。退也已遲。雖或廢本朝之成例。今而得謝。猶不違禮典之明。文勢誠迫於玆時。詔何淹於曰可。前旣未遂其請。今又不解而歸。非獨一時之譏。亦爲萬世之笑。伏望云云。憫耄衰之甚。憐號訴之勤。俾脫牽拘。得從頤養。皇恩所庇。苟延塡壑之期。天鑑斯臨。曷怠戀軒之念。云云。
And so forth. Yesterday I made ready a memorial and begged to hand back the cap and tablet of office, but You sent down a rescript and did not grant it. When a common man reports his toil, he is allowed to lay the load down from both shoulders; when an old horse is spent, it may halt upon a road of a thousand li. Your servant's wish to retire and be at ease is of the same intent. In lowly feeling he has pleaded for himself, yet the rescript of consent is still slow in coming.
Prostrate I consider that Your servant's learning was from the first empty and coarse, and his nature narrow and hasty. Through four reigns, and only in our own, was he numbered at last in the ranks that attend upon the ruler; and not many years after he rose to the two posts where rescripts are drafted, he was suddenly chosen for the seat where matters are discussed and considered. With the floating, hollow talent of one who merely handles phrases, he sits in the essential offices of the court; even in a time of peace it would be hard to bear.
Now is the juncture when the state would drive back the barbarians, and the time when the court takes the measure of the enemy. With writings and proclamations he cannot bring the unknowing barbarians to understanding; with wit and stratagem he cannot set out a plan to prevail. Idly he grips an inch of brush-handle; what help is that to the reckoning that goes before? Still more, he has passed the age at which an old man goes home; how should he be free of the shame of remaining by force?
Yet to eat rashly without merit is to take gladly the reproach of the many, and not to depart when the term is full is likewise not his own mind. It was all because Your Majesty, citing the age wrongly written in Your servant's warrant of office, commanded him to remain, and Your servant dared not go against it. Now, receiving Your rescript in reverence, it is again as Your former instruction was, and reaches further to the words that he is neither sick nor old. How should sickness be falsely claimed? He has lain abed more than a hundred days already. His old age is no thing of his own contriving. His years have come exactly to seventy.
Though Your sage magnanimity has shown its indulgence, yet, looking back, how should the words of men not be feared as well? What has been heard already is enough; is it to be made more? His retiring is late already; and though it should break down the settled precedent of our dynasty, if he obtain his retirement now it will still not go against the plain text of the rites. The case is truly pressing at this very time; why then is the rescript so slow in saying "Let it be so"? Before this he already failed to have his request granted; if now again he be not loosed and allowed to go home, it will be not the reproach of one age only but the laughingstock of ten thousand generations.
Prostrate I beg, and so forth. Have pity on the severity of his age and his decay, and look kindly on the earnestness of his crying and pleading; let him be freed from what binds him and follow after the nourishing of his body. If Your royal grace wrap him about, he will keep his life until he is buried in the ditch; and since Your heaven-like regard is upon him, how should he grow slack in his longing toward the palace? And so forth.
Interlinear notes 1
中謝。
Here the jungsa (中謝), that is, the words of thanks, is inserted.