Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 3 — Reports

A statement of thanks for the edict praising the tribute sent up謝詔獎飾進奉狀

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 · 172 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 3 — Reports 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.

1Praised for offering silver

進奏院遞到恩賜手詔一封右臣伏奉詔旨。以臣先差供軍應接使駱潛等進奉銀事。特賜獎飾者。伏以收功示賞。乃聖主之異恩。寓物輸誠。固藩臣之常事。但屬敵滋隣境。寇阻道途。運綱而旣闕先登。贄禮而僅侔錫貢。早成稽滯。況涉尠微。是以。雖憑孱水之珍。難逭塗山之罪。豈料鴻毛比價。方申懇悃之心。鳳口銜書。遠降褒稱之旨。感激而懷榮爲懼。揣脩而報德何期。臣限守藩條。不獲稱謝行在。無任荷恩戀聖屛營之至。謹奉狀陳謝以聞。謹奏。

One sealed edict of gracious gift, in the emperor's own hand, delivered by the Bureau of Memorials. The above. Your servant respectfully received the edict, in which Your Majesty granted special praise for the silver sent up as tribute by Luo Qian and the others, whom your servant had earlier sent out as commissioners to supply and meet the army. Your servant bows low and considers that to gather up merit and show reward is the rare kindness of a sage ruler, and that to entrust one's sincerity to goods is the ordinary business of a servant of the marches. But the enemy grew thick along the neighboring borders and the bandits blocked the roads, so that the transport boats could not be the first to go up, and the offering barely matched what is due as tribute, and it was late in coming besides. How much more when it was so small a thing. And so, though he leaned upon the treasure of a feeble stream, he could hardly escape the crime of Tushan. How should he have reckoned that while he was setting forth his earnest heart, whose worth may be matched against a wild goose's feather, a writing held in a phoenix's beak would come down from afar with a word of praise? He is moved, and to carry such honor is a fear to him; measure as he will, what hope has he of repaying such goodness? Your servant is bound to the duties of his command and cannot give his thanks at the traveling court. He cannot bear the utmost of his sense of the kindness received, of his yearning for the sage ruler, and of his awe. He respectfully sends up this statement to set forth his thanks and make it heard. Respectfully submitted.

Interlinear notes 1

Chanshui (孱水) may also be taken as the name of a river paired with Tushan, giving the reading "the treasure of the Chan river." — translator

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