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

To Chief Minister Pei Che of the Revenue Office度支裵徹相公

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 · 202 Chinese characters · reading time 0.8 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.

1On his treading the seat of state again and evening the levies of the land

伏睹除書。伏承相公再履台席。榮均賦輿。凡在生靈。莫非欣躍。某今之所賀者。眞以天上之福。與大國之幸。不欲更牽俗禮。強飾繁詞。然而歡心有餘。祝史無愧。敢陳贊詠。冀豁懇誠。伏以相公德襲淸通。道資恭儉。歷遊華貫。高陟台衡。當聖君巡幸之初。見賢相燮諧之業。而乃鴒原陷難。鳳閣辭榮。暫屈跡於外藩。尋秉權於大計。今者天將悔禍。日待升平。果請英才。却歸舊位。躡周司馬統兵之秩。騁晉尙書較運之謀。四方所傳。一意相賀。某每慙薄伎。偏荷殊私。再逢調鼎之期。實切彈冠之望。末由陳賀。但增攀戀聳抃之至云云。

I bow and look upon the writ of appointment. I learn that the Chief Minister treads the seat of state once more and in honor evens the levies of the land. Of all living souls there is none that does not leap for joy. What I congratulate now is truly the blessing of heaven above and the good fortune of a great state. I do not wish to be drawn again by common courtesy and force out crowded and ornate words. Yet my glad heart has more to give, and the words of one who prays hold no shame, and so I dare to set out my praise and my song, hoping to open my earnest sincerity. I humbly consider that the Chief Minister's virtue carries on a clear and open nature, and that his way rests upon reverence and thrift. He has passed through brilliant offices and climbed high to the scales of state. At the beginning of the sage ruler's progress, the work of a worthy chancellor bringing all into harmony was seen. Then trouble fell upon his brothers, and he gave up the honor of the Phoenix Pavilion. For a time he bent his steps to an outer province, and soon he took the power over the great accounts. Now heaven is about to repent of its calamity and the days await peace and order. The court has indeed called for a man of talent, and he returns to his old place. He treads the rank of the Minister of War of Zhou who led the troops, and he gallops with the plans of the Minister of Jin who reckoned the transport. What the four quarters pass on, they congratulate with one mind. I am always ashamed of my thin skill, yet I have received his special and particular favor. Meeting again the time when he seasons the cauldron, my hope of dusting off my cap is truly keen. I have no way to offer my congratulations. I only add my utmost of clinging longing and leaping applause, and so on.

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