A Letter Sent Up to Minister Choe in Thanks for a Banquet上崔相國謝宴書
右某頓首呈相國左右。某昨蒙寵召。參赴華筵。迨夜方倒載還家。感荷之情。深所銘刻。但不省醉中導何等語也。狂奴舊態復發耶。且自舊京移此已來。凡士大夫家倉卒未暇醞釀。故賢或罕逢。値聖非望。今相國所賜。旣冽且旨。雖十旬九醞。所不敢較也。以未嘗慣飮之口。飮如此之酒。雖欲勿醉。得乎。又若絲竹之聲。非唯此地之未聞也。僕自前年流貶已來。猶不聞一絲一竹孤彈隻弄之音。鬱悒無所陶寫久矣。今忽聞笙歌簫笛之交激。▣▣雖冷淡書生。非木腸石心。能不樂乎。其一絲一竹。品皆奇絶。而所召伶官。皆一時名手。則得不▣於耳而▣於骨耶。況僕之於聲樂。雖未得自工。性本嗜聽。聽之不覺搖肩。可笑哉。相國旣啖以口所未嘗之味。又樂以耳之所嗜之聲。以此侑歡。平生酣暢。想後日莫今日若也。未知何以報之。但朝夕祝壽而已。酒猶未醒。頭重手顫。下筆草草。不任惶懼之至。云云。
As above, So-and-so bows his head and sends this up to the Minister's left and right.
Yesterday So-and-so, receiving your gracious summons, went to the splendid banquet, and only when night came was I carried home. My thankfulness is graven deep; only I cannot make out what I said in my drunkenness. Has this madman's old habit broken out again?
Again, since we moved here from the old capital, the houses of the officials have all been in such haste that there has been no leisure for brewing, so that even unstrained wine has been rarely met with and clear wine was not a thing to hope for. What the Minister has now bestowed is clear and fine in taste, so that not even wine brewed nine times in a hundred days would dare be set beside it. With a mouth unused to drinking I drank such wine as this; though I had wished not to get drunk, could it have been done?
Again, such sounds as those of strings and pipes are not merely a thing unheard in this land. Since I went into exile last year I have not heard so much as one strain of the geomungo or one air of the flute, and for long I have been stifled and low in spirits with nowhere to let it out. Now all at once I heard the mouth organ and the singing and the vertical flute and the transverse flute blending and striking together; and ▣▣ even a cold and bland scholar of letters, not being of wooden bowels and a heart of stone, how could he not be glad? The geomungo and the flute were all of outstanding quality, and the musicians you called were all famed hands of the age; how could it not ▣ the ear and ▣ the bone? Still more, though I am not of myself practiced in music and its graces, my nature has always delighted in listening, and when I listen my shoulders twitch without my knowing it, which is a laughable thing.
The Minister has fed me with a taste my mouth had never known before and has also gladdened me with sounds in which the ear delights, and by this has helped on my joy; so that for drenched drunkenness and refreshment in a whole lifetime, the days to come will likely not match today. I do not know with what I should repay it, and only pray morning and evening that you may live long.
The wine has not yet left me, my head is heavy and my hand trembles, so that the setting down of the brush is rough and halting; I cannot overcome my fear and contrition. And so forth.
Interlinear notes 2
宗峻
This is Jongjun (宗峻).
移都年
It is the year the capital was moved.