Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 7 — Enclosures

To his lordship Wang, Commander in Chief at Huazhou — the second滑州都統王令公 第二

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 · 243 Chinese characters · reading time 1.0 min

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 7 — Enclosures 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.

1Congratulations on his taking the command in full title

伏睹制書。伏承榮膺寵命。正鎭雄藩。伏惟感慰。竊以動惟佐聖。靜乃優賢。百穀垂成則暫停霖雨。八紘向泰則貴息兵戈。詎勞有道之人。久練不祥之器。群情旣鬱。帝命斯行。令公獨竭忠誠。克扶厄運。當六師扈從。司南之制度無虧。及十乘啓行。逐北之威稜有裕。但屬王事靡盬。人心不同。祖豫州志在誓江。佇申壯節。蕭相國力謀佐漢。或致游詞。今以小寇必殲。大臣于役。慮失華夷之望。倍興宵旰之憂。遂乃鳳紙傳恩。遠離西蜀。蜂旗卷影。却到南燕。指蹤旣稟於成謀。搏噬佇看於衆旅。坐驅十道。臥理百城。顯爲出入之寵榮。保就始終之勛業。某夙銜深獎。繼奉好音。覽古人賀滿之言。睹君子持盈之節。抃慰攀戀。不任下情。伏惟云云。

I have humbly looked upon the decree. I learn that you have received in glory the favor of the imperial command and now hold a great frontier command in full title. I humbly offer my joy. I consider in private that in action a man aids the sage, and in stillness he gives place to the worthy. When the hundred grains are near to ripening, the long rains stop for a while. When the eight bounds turn toward peace, men prize the laying down of spear and shield. Why should one who has the Way be put to trouble and made to handle the instrument of ill omen so long? The feeling of the many had grown heavy, and so the emperor's command went forth. Your lordship alone gave your loyalty to the full and were able to hold up a fallen fortune. When the six armies escorted the emperor, the rule of the south-pointing chariot was kept without fault, and when the ten chariots opened the road, there was strength to spare in the awe that drove the enemy north. Only, the king's business never rests and men's hearts are not the same. Zu, Governor of Yuzhou, set his mind on swearing an oath at the river and waited to set forth his bold resolve, while Xiao, Chancellor of State, labored to plan help for Han and yet drew idle talk upon himself. Now, since the small bandits must surely be destroyed, it was feared that when a great minister went out on service the hopes of Chinese and barbarian alike would be lost, and the cares of dawn and dusk were doubled. So the phoenix paper carried the grace, and you left Western Shu far behind. The wasp banners gathered in their shadow, and you came instead to Southern Yan. The pointing out of the trail you have from a plan already made, and the striking and the seizing you may wait to see in the troops of the many. Sitting still you drive the ten circuits. Lying at ease you order a hundred walled towns. Plainly this is the favor and glory of going out and coming in, and you will keep and complete a work of merit from beginning to end. I have long carried your deep encouragement, and I have received your kind word again and again. I read the sayings of the men of old who gave joy at fullness, and I see the bearing of a gentleman who holds a full vessel. My clapping and comfort, my looking up and my longing, are more than your servant's heart can bear. I humbly consider, and so on.

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