A memorial declining office and asking leave to retire讓官請致仕表
1I am old and sick; let me withdraw
臣言。臣伏以聖君御宇。必先塞彼倖門。良士省躬。唯慮妨其賢路。苟速官謗。是辜主恩。況臣關中無定難之勳。閫外乏分憂之效。強欲晏安寵祿。其如玷浼刑章。永言量力而行。固在奉身以退。旣知無隱。寧避有辭。臣某誠慙誠懼。頓首頓首。臣少勵琢磨。晩師擒縱。不以一經介意。粗於三略留心。願紹家勳。免虧堂構。先皇帝念臣孤直。試以諸難。出分大將之威權。坐受上卿之爵秩。故得內稟聿修之訓。外伸式遏之能。北掃虜庭。則胡雛不敢南牧。南淸獠海。則蠻諜無由北窺。及覲彤墀暫司。緹騎俄屬。齊郊聚孼。鉅野興師。臣也不才。謬膺斯任。伏遇皇帝陛下纂臨宸極。警諭戎藩。擧旌鉞以分勞。聽鼓鼙而軫念。謂臣有戢兵之奇略。察臣立降寇之微勞。遂令位假中台。名編外相。夢想旣通於鳳沼。威稜益峻於龍旌。其後瀘水波驚。蜀山霧暗。久念雕題之患。遍流黔首之災。又蒙命臣曰兪。爲帥於彼。爰遵薄伐。得解倒懸。豈敢貪天之功。願銘鍾鼎。祗能因地之利。別建溝隍。伏蒙陛下俯獎忠誠。特行懋賞。開國授周司徒之貴。立家紹漢丞相之榮。臣此時早誡持盈。輒思請老。必願告休錦里。退隱羅浮。不料隴上耕夫。盡解揭竿斬木。草間惡子。競謀蟻聚蜂飛。當荊門失守之時。乃楚塞宿兵之際。忝趨戎旆。兼綰牢盆。僶俛而未能報恩。驅馳而何敢言病。或猰㺄磨牙於原野。或鯨鯢噴毒於江湖。尋提招討之權。來撫句吳之俗。遠憑睿略。深挫群兇。洎解印海門。建牙淮甸。上將軍之劇任。首冠列藩。大司馬之雄資。先沾宥禮。揣頂踵而偏濡雨露。扼咽喉而莫效涓埃。且自黃寇憑陵。翠華巡狩。仰天戮力。竊嘗服王導之言。終日痛心。何止灑袁安之淚。及至成軍已出。又緣奉詔却廻。行藏雖順於綸詞。進退實慙於物論。遂見時溥興北林戎役。周寶致南隣責言。玉每慮於俱焚。金亦憂於衆鑠。幸蒙陛下涵之以海量。炤之以天光。如見肺腸。得保首領。然臣也先軫以直言逞志。曹植以深過責躬。則二年忝都統之名。不能誅奸戮暴。四載主銅鹽之務。不能富國贍軍。是以。兵權則屢見改移。利柄則變爲分割。凡此辱君之命。莫非職臣之由。臣猶自知。況在陛下。擢髮而旣難數罪。乞骸而唯願辭榮。今者大憝奔赴。上京克復。氛祲卽當殄滅。寰區永見廓淸。臣有忝登壇。無能報國。行當期齒。居亦胡顔。兼以頃鎭蠻陬。久棲瘴嶺。蒙犯其妖烟毒霧。剗除其封豕長蛇。當年而靡憚勤劬。晩歲而皆成疾疹。不將筋力爲禮。旣載前經。苟或身心自讎。難逃後患。雖思強飯。實愧素餐。廣陵爲楚澤上游。醝府乃漢朝大任。以臣衰老。當此重難。必恐終無所成。遂希不可則止。伏惟皇帝陛下知人爲哲。多士以寧。選英才而代處是邦。俾微臣而退居散地。鬪於菟之逃富。固是忠貞。王內史之辭官。誠非矯飾。幸遇舜風無外。漢日再中。陛下旣已除旰食之憂。微臣亦希免夜行不息。臣無任望恩戀聖懇迫兢灼之至。謹奉表陳請以聞。臣某誠感誠懼。頓首頓首謹言。
Your servant states. Your servant bows low and considers that when a sage ruler governs the world he must first block the gate of undeserved favor, and that when a good officer examines himself he fears only that he may obstruct the road of worthy men. If a man draws blame upon his office, he betrays his lord's kindness. How much more when your servant has no merit of settling troubles within the passes and lacks the proof of sharing his lord's cares beyond the gate. If he forces himself to rest easy in favor and emolument, what then of the stain he lays upon the statutes of punishment? To speak long of measuring one's strength before acting, it rests surely in taking oneself away and withdrawing. Since he knows there is nothing to hide, how should he avoid having something to say? Your servant, so and so, in all truth is ashamed and in all truth is afraid, and bows his head and bows his head again. Your servant in his youth strove at grinding and polishing himself, and late took as his teacher the art of seizing and releasing. He did not set his mind upon a single classic, and gave his attention roughly to the Three Strategies, wishing to carry on the merit of his house and not to fall short in raising the hall his forebears had planned. The former emperor, thinking of your servant's lonely uprightness, tried him with many hard things. Going out, he shared the awe and authority of a great general; sitting still, he received the rank and stipend of a high minister. So he was able within to take in the teaching that bids a man cultivate his virtue, and without to stretch out the power to curb and to stop. He swept the barbarian court in the north, and the Hu whelps did not dare to pasture in the south. He cleared the Liao sea in the south, and the spies of the Man had no way to peer northward. When he came to an audience at the vermilion steps and took charge for a while, the orange robed horsemen were suddenly put under him. A brood of evildoers gathered in the outskirts of Qi and troops were raised at Juye, and your servant, being without talent, wrongly received this charge. Your servant bows low before His Majesty the Emperor, who came to the throne and warned and instructed the military commands, who raised the banner and the axe to share out the labor and listened to the war drums and was troubled in heart. He said that your servant had a rare plan for laying up weapons, and he looked into the small labor your servant had in bringing bandits to surrender. So he lent him a place among the central offices and set his name among the chief ministers outside the capital, and his dreams reached the phoenix pond and his awe stood the higher upon the dragon banner. After that the waves of the Lu river were startled and the mists on the mountains of Shu grew dark, and he long thought of the trouble of the tattooed foreheads, and calamity flowed everywhere among the black haired people. Again he was pleased to command your servant, saying, "So be it," and made him commander there. Thereupon your servant followed out the campaign and was able to loosen those who hung head downward. How should he dare covet the merit of heaven and wish it graven on bell and cauldron? He could only take advantage of the ground and raise a moat besides. Your Majesty looked down and encouraged his loyalty and granted him rich reward, opening a fief and giving him the honor of the Zhou minister of the masses, and setting up his house to carry on the glory of the Han chancellor. At that time your servant early warned himself against holding a full cup, and at once thought of asking leave for his age, wishing for certain to take his leave at Jinli and withdraw into hiding on Mount Luofu. He did not reckon that the plowmen on the ridges would all know how to lift a pole and cut down trees, and that the wicked sons among the grass would vie in plotting, gathering like ants and flying like bees. It was the time when Jingmen was lost and the season when troops were quartered at the Chu frontier, and unworthy as he was he hurried after the war banners and held the salt pans besides. He toiled and could not repay that kindness; he galloped about, and how should he dare to speak of sickness? Now the yayu ground its teeth in the open fields, now the whale and the she whale spouted poison in the rivers and lakes, and soon he took up the power of pacification and came to soothe the customs of Gouwu, and leaning from afar upon the sage plans he deeply broke the crowd of evildoers. When he loosed his seal at Haimen and set up his standard in the Huai country, the heavy charge of supreme general stood first among all the commands, and the grand estate of the minister of war was the first to be touched by the rite of pardon. Measured from the crown of his head to his heels he is soaked all over with rain and dew; he holds the throat of the land, and he has given back no return the size of a drop or a mote. Moreover, since the bandit Huang overbore the land and the kingfisher plumes went out on their progress, he has looked up to heaven and put out his whole strength, and in private has taken to heart the words of Wang Dao. All day long his heart aches, and it does not stop at shedding the tears of Yuan An. When the army was made ready and had already gone out, he received an edict and turned back, and though in going forward or staying hidden he followed the imperial word, in advancing and withdrawing he is truly ashamed before what men say. So he saw Shi Pu raise a campaign in the northern woods, and Zhou Bao send words of reproach from the neighbor to the south. The jade always fears to burn along with the stone, and the metal too fears to be melted by the many. Happily Your Majesty held him within a sea's measure and shone upon him with the light of heaven, and as though you saw his lungs and bowels he has kept his head and neck. Yet Xian Zhen made his purpose plain by speaking straight, and Cao Zhi blamed himself for a deep fault. For two years your servant unworthily bore the name of commander in chief, and he could not cut down the crafty or kill the violent. For four years he had charge of the affairs of copper and salt, and he could not enrich the state or supply the army. And so the military power has been shifted again and again, and the handle of profit has been split apart. All this disgrace to his lord's command comes from none but your servant. Your servant knows it of himself; how much more does Your Majesty. Though a man pulled out his hairs one by one he could hardly number the crimes, and begging his bones your servant wishes only to decline this glory. Now the great villain has fled, the capital has been recovered, the baleful vapors will soon be wiped out, and the whole world will be cleared forever. Your servant unworthily mounted the altar and has not been able to repay the state. He ought to set a term by his years, and if he stays, with what face? Besides, he lately guarded a corner of the Man and long lodged on the fever ridges, braving their baleful smoke and poisonous fog and clearing away their great boars and long snakes, and in those years he did not shrink from toil, and in his later years it has all turned to sickness. That a man should not make sinew and strength his measure of ritual is already written in the old classic, and if body and mind become each other's enemies, the trouble to come is hard to escape. Though he thinks to force himself to eat, he is truly ashamed to eat without earning it. Guangling lies upstream of the marshes of Chu, and the salt office was a great charge of the Han court. For your servant, worn and old, to meet a thing so heavy and hard must end in nothing accomplished, he fears, and so he hopes for the rule that a man stops when he cannot go on. Your servant bows low and considers that His Majesty the Emperor takes the knowing of men for wisdom and is at peace through his many officers. Choose a man of brilliance to stand in his place in this region, and let your lowly servant withdraw to an idle post. Dou Wutu's flight from riches was surely loyalty and constancy, and the administrator Wang's declining of office was truly no pretense. Happily he has met a time when the wind of Shun reaches past all bounds and the sun of Han stands at noon a second time. Your Majesty has already put away the cares that kept you from your meals, and your lowly servant hopes too to be spared from walking by night without rest. Your servant cannot bear the utmost of his longing for kindness, his yearning for the sage ruler, his urgency and his trembling. He respectfully sends up this memorial to set forth his request and make it heard. Your servant, so and so, in all truth is moved and in all truth is afraid, and bows his head and bows his head again. Respectfully stated.