Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 1 — Memorials

A memorial of congratulation on the ban on song and music on the day of the return賀回駕日不許進歌樂表

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) 桂苑筆耕集 · Choe Chiwon · 886 (Tang, 6th year of the Zhonghe era · Silla, 12th year of King Heongang) · 1 passages · 267 Chinese characters · reading time 1.1 min

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 1 — Memorials A collection Choe Chiwon made by choosing out of the writings of his four years in the headquarters of Gao Pian, military commissioner of Huainan under the Tang, binding them into twenty volumes and presenting them to King Heongang of Silla in 886. It holds 366 pieces — memorials and reports sent up to the emperor, the proclamation denouncing Huang Chao, letters to the several military commissioners, orders and dispatches issued to those under him, Daoist and Buddhist texts for services, funeral offerings, records written for the outer wall of Chengdu and for a painting of Annam, and the reports and poems he sent up to Gao Pian. Here is the first report, which begins "I am a man of Silla," and the proclamation against Huang Chao with its line, "Not only do all the men of the world think to kill you openly; the ghosts under the earth have already discussed cutting you down in secret." The last volume holds the poems he made on the voyage home to the country he had left at twelve. It is the oldest collection by a Korean that survives, and when Hong Seokju and Seo Yugu printed it with movable type in 1834 they called it "the root and the beginning of the writing of our Eastern Country." Their two prefaces are translated with it.

1Music and slaughter forbidden along the road home

臣某言：臣得進奏院狀報，伏審敕旨回駕日，應沿路州縣切不得輒進歌樂及屠殺者。聲除飾喜，味減薦珍，遠遵罪已之言，深播好生之德，凡於蠢動，孰不歡呼？臣某誠忭誠躍、頓首頓首。伏惟皇帝陛下日月運行，雷雨作解，體堯舜之理能咸若，法禹湯之興必勃焉，退庭舞而撤宮懸，惡衣服而菲飲食。一慈二儉，守玄祖之格言；沐雨櫛風，禀太宗之丕訓。今則冕旒東顧，梐枑西移。師乙收心，無以逞鏗鍧之曲；庖丁斂手，何由挫觳觫之形。義感六牲，恩加萬姓。則乃蜀山力士，既無煩役之虞；漢水老人，豈有深譏之事？帝業永資於下武，物情皆慶於中興。臣方擁戎旃，阻隨仙蹕，遙思盛禮，空馳拱北之誠；願報深恩，但勵鎮南之志。無任忭躍屏營之至。謹奉表陳賀以聞，臣某誠歡誠喜、頓首頓首。謹言。

Your servant So-and-so speaks. Your servant received a report from the court liaison office, and looked with respect into the imperial order: on the day the imperial carriage returns, the prefectures and counties along the road are strictly forbidden to offer song and music or to slaughter animals. In sound you cut away what adorns joy, and in taste you lessen the offering of rare things. From afar you follow the words that lay blame on yourself, and deeply you spread the virtue that loves living things. Among all the creatures that creep and stir, who would not shout for joy? Your servant So-and-so truly claps his hands and truly leaps for joy, bowing his head to the ground, bowing his head to the ground. Your servant humbly considers that Your Majesty moves as the sun and moon move, and looses the bonds as thunder and rain do. Embodying the rule of Yao and Shun, you can make all things compliant. Taking the rise of Yu and Tang as your model, you are sure to be vigorous. You send the dancers back from the courtyard and take down the hanging bells; you wear poor clothing and eat plain food. First kindness, second thrift: you keep the maxim of Xuanzu. Washed by rain and combed by wind, you receive the great teaching of Taizong. Now the imperial crown looks back to the east, and the barriers of the traveling palace move to the west. Shi Yi draws in his heart and has no way to play his clanging tunes. Cook Ding folds his hands, and by what means would he strike down the trembling beast? Your sense of right moves the six kinds of sacrificial beasts, and your grace is added to the ten thousand families. So the strong men of the Shu mountains have no fear of troublesome labor, and what deep reproach could the old man of the Han River find to make? The imperial work rests forever on treading in the forebears' steps, and the feeling of all things is one in rejoicing at the restoration. Your servant holds his war banner and is kept from following the imperial procession. From afar he thinks of the great rites, and sends out in vain his loyalty that faces north. Wishing to repay your deep grace, he only strengthens his purpose to hold the south. He cannot bear the utmost of clapping and leaping and trembling. He respectfully presents this memorial of congratulation for Your Majesty's hearing. Your servant So-and-so is truly glad and truly joyful, bowing his head to the ground, bowing his head to the ground. Respectfully spoken.

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