A letter to the chief minister congratulating him on the edict of grace after the eclipse of the moon賀月蝕德音狀
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 · 171 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 6 — Tang 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.
1An edict of grace: release the prisoners and bury the bones
For the above: I humbly saw the edict of grace of the twenty-sixth day of the sixth month, which, because the moon had been eclipsed, granted a special pardon to the prisoners within Sanchuan and charged the several commands to gather and bury the bones lying exposed on the four sides of the capital region. I humbly consider that when the essence of metal hid its brightness, the jade screen let its mercy down. He answered Heaven's warning with alarm, and looked into the songs of the people and pitied them with care. At the prison gate guilt is forgiven, and the comet is swept away and grievance undone. Near at hand he despises the Northern Qi, who mastered prisoners and worked cruelty on them; far off he follows the Lord of the West, who buried the dry bones and so bestowed grace. The grass and trees of the hills of Shu come first to spring, and the smoke and dust of the Qin domain are stilled for ever. All this is Your Excellency, whose merit is perfected in the harmonizing of rule and whose way is at home in meeting change, helping on the brightness of the sun and the moon and shaking out the commands of cloud and thunder. The eight quarters lift their heads, and all living things are glad at heart. My steps are bound to the war banners, and my heart races to the hall of state. Kept from following in the ranks, I cannot join in the glad shouting. A lowly servant cannot contain his clapping and leaping. With respect I present this statement of congratulation. I respectfully set it down and send it up.