A Discussion of Carrying On an Error as It Stands承誤事議
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 · 121 Chinese characters · reading time 1.2 min
Dongguk Isangguk Jip (Collected Works of Minister Yi of the Eastern Country) Latter Collection, Book 11 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.
There are cases where a man of old used an old matter wrongly and those who came after carried it on, and where those who came after, while saying that an error had been carried on, yet did not reproach it severely: such are Li Bai's (李白) Yellow Court (黃庭) and Du Mu's (杜牧) one banner (一麾).
I hold it wrong. Why? A man cannot be without fault, and even one of great gifts may have faults now and then. If there is a fault, it is enough to take it for a mirror and be warned by it. Yet men go on to carry it on and use it; and how does this differ from calling a thing a fault and then taking it for a model? This is only a small fault; but if there were something a little larger than this, would they carry on that error too, saying that a worthy of old had used it? Though among men of old there were some who held the saying about carrying on an error to be right, I do not take it up.