A statement presenting bolts of cloth for the imperial robes進御衣段狀
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) · 2 passages · 155 Chinese characters · reading time 0.6 min
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 5 — Memorials to the Throne 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.
1Nine thousand six hundred and seventy-eight bolts of gauze, damask and brocade for the imperial robes
When this circuit earlier held the office of Salt and Iron Commissioner as well, it wove gauze for the imperial robes, cloth made in its stead, and damask and brocade, for the years up to the fourth year of Zhonghe. Besides what was presented earlier, nine thousand six hundred and seventy-eight bolts were woven after that, and they are respectfully set out below. The items.
2Silk from the phoenix shuttle for the dragon robes
For the above: your servant has long held the charge of coin and goods in trust, but I have always lacked for plan and counsel. I have wasted much of the wealth of the hills and the sea, and I have not repaid the bounty of the clouds and the sky. The cloth for the imperial robes named above, with the damask, the brocade and the figured silk, is put to shame in thinness by the cicada's wing and in lightness by the wild goose's down. Yet when it is spread out, frozen snow mingles its light with it, and when it is piled up, the last of the sunset vies with its colors. Since it has come to its making on the phoenix shuttle, I hope it may be put to use for the dragon robes. As the virtue of thrift grows ever plainer, the making of beauty should come before the ceremonial robe and cap; and as the imperial grace shines from afar, the offering of sincerity will surely be looked into down to a single thread. These bolts and goods your servant respectfully sends a certain officer to take charge of and to present with this statement. Respectfully presented.