Yetgeul › Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) › Former Collection, Book 33

Rescript Not Allowing Song Anguk (宋安國) to Decline the Office of Left Assistant Director of the Department of State Affairs宋安國讓尙書左丞不允批答

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) 東國李相國集 · Yi Gyubo · Compiled 1241 (Goryeo, 28th year of King Gojong); revised and enlarged 1251 · 1 passages · 151 Chinese characters · reading time 1.4 min

Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Former Collection, Book 33 The collected writings of Yi Gyubo of Goryeo, gathered and cut in woodblock by his son Yi Ham in 1241 and revised and enlarged by his grandson Yi Ikbae in 1251. It holds poems and rhapsodies, memorials and reports sent up to the king, records written for temples and pagodas, stele and tomb inscriptions, letters and prefaces, and the state letters that passed to and from the Mongols during the invasions. The Lay of King Dongmyeong, which sings the founder of Goguryeo, stands in volume 3 of the first collection, and the daily life of a man who called himself the White Cloud Layman — with his wine, his zither and his verse — fills the later collection. The book closes with the last poem he wrote as his eyes failed and he laid down the brush, and with the dirge and tomb inscription others made for him after his death.

云云。漢制。左右丞助令僕摠理臺事。寢及魏晉。獨左丞得彈奏八座。故稱朝之司直。居是任者。不其難哉。爾莊重寡言而足鎭躁人。剛明果斷而堪濟大事。出從戎幕。久佐軍籌。載惟擐執之勞。宜示甄收之典。是用畀左轄之任。摠中臺之權。夫爵祿。所以報功也。以爾累戰之功。雖越序而遷。不爲不可。況爾之居四品。凡閱累稔而固當轉秩。則玆授也特以例遷。而非以功躐也。爾何疑而讓耶。云云。

And so forth.

By the institutions of Han, the Left and Right Assistant Directors aided the Director and the Vice Director of the Department of State Affairs and governed all the business of that Department. Coming by degrees to Wei and Jin, only the Left Assistant Director could impeach and report upon the Eight Seats, and so it was called the seat that sets the court right; how should it not be hard to hold this charge?

You are weighty and sparing of speech, ample enough to hold down a hasty man; firm, clear, and decisive, fit to cross over great affairs. You went out, followed the army's tent, and long aided the counsels of war. Thinking upon the toil of wearing armour and holding the spear, it is right to show you the law that chooses a man out and gathers him in. Therefore I give you the charge of Left Assistant Director and let you hold the authority of the Department of State Affairs.

Now office and stipend are the repayment of merit. For your merit in many battles, there would be nothing amiss in your being moved up out of turn. How much more, since you have been in the fourth rank now these several years, it is truly time your grade were moved. Therefore this appointment is but a moving in the ordinary course, and no leaping over by merit. What do you doubt, that you decline it?

And so forth.

‹ Rescript Not Allowing Choe Sukpil (崔叔必), Deputy Prefect of Jaju, to Decline the Command to Return to Office while in MourningContentsRescript Not Allowing Bak Sinhu (朴信侯) to Decline the Grant of Grand Master of Comprehensive Counsel and Great General of the Left and Right Guard, Together with the Command That He Thereafter Retire in Ease ›Listen to this piece