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Edict of Investiture Enfeoffing the Crown Prince太子封冊敎書

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 · 197 Chinese characters · reading time 1.8 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。蓋聞太子。天下之大本也。易不云乎。主器莫若長子。其是之謂歟。朕德不類。自一索得汝已來。揣汝有元良之德。知不墜祖宗之基。由是愛之重之。有加無已者。雖出於父子之天性。蓋實爲宗廟社稷之重耳。玆朕汲汲望成人。日俟月俟。以至于今。得見汝之旣冠。則何喜如之。而其於立儲也。有所忽耶。當崇鷄戟之儀。驟正龍樓之位。矧今端月啓三春之始。荐雷驚百里之初。相時卽嘉。象德亦爾。故特遣使某官某。副使某官某等。持節備禮。冊爾爲王太子。汝能居少陽而貳正體。流潤海而福群生。其不曰休哉。

And so forth.

I have heard in the main that the Crown Prince is the great root of the world. Does the Book of Changes not say it? That for taking charge of the vessel there is none like the eldest son — this is what it means.

I am not bright in virtue; yet since I got you for my eldest son, reckoning that you have the virtue of foremost goodness, I knew that you would not let the foundation of my ancestors fall. Hence my loving you and holding you weighty only grew and never stopped; and though it came of the nature given to father and son, it was in truth for the weight of the ancestral temple and the altars of state.

Thereupon I urgently hoped that you would come of age, and waited by days and by months until this day. I have come to see you capped already; what joy is like this? Should there then be any slackness in the business of setting up the heir? It is right to exalt the rites of state and at once make straight the seat of the Eastern Palace.

How much more now, when the first month opens the beginning of the three months of spring and it is the head of the season when the redoubled thunder startles a hundred li. Looking at the time, it is auspicious; and matched against your virtue, it is so as well. Therefore I especially send So-and-so of such an office as envoy and So-and-so of such an office as deputy envoy, and the rest, to bear the tally and furnish the rites and invest you as Royal Crown Prince.

If you, being in the Eastern Palace, bear up as second the body of the state and let your bounty flow like the sea so that it becomes a blessing to all living things, shall it not be called beautiful?

Interlinear notes 1

以宰相奉勅述

Composed as chief minister, bearing the sovereign's command.

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