Preface to the corrected printing of the Gyewon pilgyeong jip — Hong Seokju校印桂苑筆耕集序 洪奭周

The Book of Rites has this in it. "Wine and sweet ale are good to the taste, and yet dark water and bright water are set above them, for this is to hold dear the root of the five tastes. Silk with embroidered figures is beautiful, and yet coarse cloth is set above it, for this is to turn back to the beginning of women's work." The noble men of old held the root and the beginning heavy in just this way.

In our Eastern Country the first to have letters, and to write a book that was handed on to those who came after, was Master Choe Goun, and the first of the scholars of our Eastern Country to go north and study in China and to sound his name through all under heaven by his writing was Master Choe as well. Of Master Choe's books, those handed on to later ages are only the two, the Gyewon pilgyeong and the Jungsan bokgwe jip. These two books are also the root and the beginning of letters in our Eastern Country.

Our Eastern Country holds writing in high regard, and by our own dynasty it had grown brighter still and come to its ripeness. In every house there is a Duke of Yan and a Duke of Xu, at every gate a Cao Zhi and a Liu Zhen, and those who have made a collection of their poems or their prose are past counting and fill the house to the rafters. Yet look about, and there are few who know Master Choe's book.

I once saw the Dongguk seomok, put together by a man of recent times, and the Jungsan bokgwe jip was listed in it. I sought for it everywhere, but in the end I could not get it. Only the Gyewon pilgyeong in twenty volumes was an old holding of the former generations of my house, and from my childhood I knew it for a treasure and took delight in it. Yet now and then, when I spoke of it to others, even men of broad learning who were skilled in writing and fond of the old all said they had never seen it. If that is so, this book came near to being cut off. To let this book not go about in the Eastern Country is to set no dark water in the great chamber, and to drape no coarse cloth over the sacrificial vessel. How could that be the way to teach the people not to forget the root?

Some in the world say, "Master Choe's writings are all parallel prose in fours and sixes, and are not at all like the writers of old." Master Choe entered China in the time of Emperor Yizong and Emperor Xizong of Tang, when the writing of China was giving itself wholly to parallel prose, and there was truly something in the drift of the age that he could not escape. Yet look at the pieces Master Choe made, and again and again they are splendid and yet not frivolous. A piece such as the Proclamation against Huang Chao is firm in its spirit and straight in its intent, and it never took carving and polishing for its skill, and as for his poems, they are plain and close to the refined, and men of the late Tang were far from reaching them. This, then, is to have the substance of bright water and coarse cloth and to hold with it the beauty of wine and embroidered figures. How could it not be a treasure all the more?

In China Master Choe passed the examination and entered a military headquarters, and his name was already sounded in that day, and then in a single morning he left it as a man slips off a worn shoe. When he came back to the Eastern Country he rose to the Hallim Academy and served as vice minister of the Ministry of War, and he reached the rank of achan. Achan is a great office of Silla. His open employment was by no means at an end, yet he turned and set himself once more by the still and lonely waters of the hills and the woods, and he grew old and died there and did not repent of it. It was that he had measured his age and seen that in none of it could anything be done.

For a gentleman, in setting up his person and treading the way, there is nothing greater than the moment of going forward and drawing back, and to go forward and to draw back without missing his time is a thing that none but a worthy man can do. The work of a worthy man must truly not be left without a handing down. How much more when his writing stands out as that does, and is besides the root and the beginning of the letters of the Eastern Country.

Master Seo Junpyeong, the governor of Honam, is the very man I call of broad learning, skilled in writing and fond of the old. Hearing that I kept this book, he took it at once and corrected it, and he cut into his own salary and printed it with movable type, and he got some tens and hundreds of copies to widen its handing down, and he said, "This book must not be let to be cut off in the Eastern Country."

Ah. Not to forget the root and the beginning is to teach the people generously, and to set a worthy man forth is to urge the people to goodness. Master Seo set his heart in this way, and by it one may know as well how he governs in Honam. When the work was finished Master Seo charged me, saying, "You are the one who in truth handed this book down, and now you cannot grudge a single word." I declined, and it was of no use. As for the whole course of Master Choe's deeds, and what in this book may serve for proof and study, Master Seo's own preface sets it out in full, and I have nothing further to add.

In the ninth month of the gabo year, Hong Seokju of Pungsan, daegwang boguk sungnok daebu and Left State Councillor of the State Council, writes this preface.