Edict Not Allowing Choe Jeongbin (崔正份) to Decline the Office of Grand Academician of the Bomun Pavilion崔正份讓寶文閣大學士不允敎書
云云。署閣曰寶文。蓋宋所制。而我朝亦置之。選當代名儒。以充學士。其以宰相處之。則加大以別之也。苟有贍識宿望者。樞密亦得兼焉。是爲特異之恩。而求之近古。無有幾人矣。卿文能華國。德足經邦。以輪翮之長才。處樞機之重地。身已綰於金紫。手不釋於縑緗。其晝夜讀書之勤。若少壯隷業之始。達位之篤學如此。寡人於今日見焉。詞句之勁峭也。何止作五言城。記識之淹通也。實可謂九經庫。然文章之任猶闕。在眷注之意何如。是用特崇書殿之資。蓋示詞臣之貴。以此答稽古之力。又何必抗章而辭。云云。
And so forth.
That a pavilion was set up and called Bomun was in the main an institution made by Song, and our court too has set it up. Famous scholars of the time are chosen to fill it as academicians, and when a chief minister is placed in that seat the character for 'grand' is added to mark him out. Truly, if a man have ample discernment and long renown, he could hold the Privy Council as well; this is an uncommon favour, and even seeking in the near past there are but few such men.
You, my lord, are able by your letters to make the state shine, and ample in virtue to govern the state. With an outstanding talent like wheel and wing-feather you are in the weighty seat of the secret councils. Your person has already tied the golden purple seal-cord, yet your hand does not let go the book, and your diligence in reading by day and by night is as at the beginning, when you were young and learning your lessons. That one who has reached a high seat should be thus thorough in learning I have seen this day.
Your lines are firm and steep; how should they stop at being called the foremost among poems of five words? And your remembering and knowing are deep and far-running, so that you may truly be called a storehouse of the Nine Classics. Yet the charge of composition stood empty, and how should that be toward my regarding purpose? Therefore I especially raise your grade in the Bomun Pavilion and show the honour due to a minister who writes. By this I repay the strength with which you have searched out the old; why then do you stubbornly send up a letter of refusal?
And so forth.