Tomb inscription for Lady In, wife of Lord Kim, Grand Master of the Gold and Purple Imperial Favor, Participant in Governance and Senior General金紫光祿大夫參知政事上將軍金公夫人印氏墓誌銘
夫人姓印氏某縣人也某官某之孫。左右衛大將軍諱榮寶之第二女。而今參政相國金諱元義之配也。旣笄。歸于金公。夫人自在家。事父母甚篤。友兄弟甚穆。及嫁。移所以事父母者。事舅姑有禮而加敬焉。移所以穆兄弟。而惇夫之族加厚焉。其御婢妾寬重不苛細。故下雖畏而不厭。參政公起自將官。凡征戍裝齎及隨例酺醵宴飮之費。煩浩不細。夫人皆手親之。無不精辦。略無倦容。公之歷位至宰相。夫人有內助焉。家本饒財。然不以富故手離女工。子姓諫止之。夫人曰。紡績蠶織。婦職也。類若輩之文書筆硯。烏可須吏離也。及公之至相位。然後輟而不親。一委妾侍。晚節奉佛尤精。嘗讀金剛經。生子曰公粹。進士登第。今爲入內侍監門衛錄事參軍事。兼直翰林院。次曰某。爲將官備宿衛。女子適劉昌緖。今爲將軍。公粹以與予同寮內翰。故來乞銘。銘曰。肥其家不係財。秉德之靜專。功於國不必身。有子之才賢。嗚呼。男子之無羡。夫人其有焉。
The lady was of the In (印) clan, a woman of such-and-such district: granddaughter of So-and-so of such-and-such office, second daughter of Yeongbo (榮寶), Senior General of the Left and Right Guards, and wife of Kim Won-ui (金元義), the present Participant in Governance and Chief Minister. When she came of age to wear the hairpin, she married Lord Kim.
From her time in her parents' house the lady served her father and mother most generously and lived with her brothers and sisters most harmoniously. Once married, she transferred her service to her parents-in-law and served them by propriety, with respect added; and she transferred her harmony with brothers and sisters to her husband's kin and treated them generously, with weight added. In her charge over servants and concubines she was lenient and weighty and did not pick at small things, and so those beneath her feared her and yet did not resent her.
The Participant in Governance rose from the military. The outfitting and equipment for going out to battle and standing guard, and the costs of banquets and of the pooling of wine as propriety required, were many and large and no small matter; and the lady did it all with her own hands, and there was nothing she did not provide thriftily, and never the least look of idleness in her. That the lord passed through office and came to be a minister owed something to the lady's help within.
The house had always had ample means, yet she did not let the spinning out of her hands on the ground of being wealthy. When her children and grandchildren tried to stop her, the lady said, "Spinning thread, raising silkworms and weaving cloth are a woman's duty. They are like your writings and brushes and inkstones — how could one leave them even for a moment?" Only after the lord rose to a minister's seat did she give it up and not do it with her own hands, entrusting it all to the concubines and the maidservants. In her later years she served the Buddha the more devoutly and read the Diamond Sutra.
The son she bore is Gongsu (公粹), who passed the examination as a licentiate and is now Palace Attendant, Recorder and Adjutant of the Gammun Guard and concurrently Officer of the Hallim Academy. The next is So-and-so, who became a military officer and is in the palace guard. Her daughter married Yu Changseo (劉昌緖), who is now a general. Gongsu, on the strength of our having served together in the Hallim, came to beg an inscription of me. The inscription is this.
What made that house fat did not lie in wealth, but in her grasp of a still and undivided virtue. To render merit to the state is not necessarily done with one's own person: she had a son both worthy and able. Ah, what even a man would have nothing to envy — this the lady possessed.