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

To Minister Pei Zan of the Ministry of Personnel — the second吏部裵瓚尙書 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 · 192 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 the brothers both receiving favor

伏以禮稱選士。實資秀孝之科。書貴知人。允屬銓衡之職。君命旣將歷試。物情固得僉諧。而況侍郞雲鶴性情。天驥行止。璅窓近日。高批帝語於筆端。絳帳生風。妙選群才於門下。洎湖湘察俗。瀍洛尹都。便宜入秉化權。坐匡聖略。直以手能持滿。心切避榮。唯求勇退之謀。久阻急徵之詔。萬乘夢思於隱霧。四方渴望於爲霖。今者移黜陟之司。託淸通之鑒。何假山濤之密啓。能遵李重之良箴。永期涇渭分流。必使輪轅適用。某每思玉昆金季。皆辱眷知。松茂竹苞。深敦交契。禱祝瞻戀。並同衆誠。伏惟云云。

I humbly consider that where the Rites speak of choosing officers, it rests truly upon the classes of the cultivated talent and of the filial and pure, and that where the Book of Documents holds the knowing of men dear, it belongs truly to the office that weighs and measures. The ruler's command is already about to test him through and through, and the feeling of all things has surely come to full agreement. Still more so since the Vice Minister has the nature of a cloud crane and the bearing of a heavenly courser. At the carved window of late he set the emperor's words high upon the tip of his brush. At the crimson curtain he raised a wind and chose the many talents beneath his gate with rare skill. After he watched the customs in Hu and Xiang and governed the capital by the Chan and the Luo, it was fitting that he come in and take the power of transforming rule and set the sage plans right where he sat. Only, his hand knew how to hold what was full without spilling it, and his heart was keen to shun honor. He sought nothing but a plan for brave withdrawal, and for long he turned back the writs that summoned him in haste. The ruler of ten thousand chariots dreamed of the man hidden in the mist, and the four quarters thirsted for him to become their long rain. Now the office of demotion and promotion is moved to him and entrusted to a clear and open mirror. What need is there to borrow the secret memorials of Shan Tao? He can follow the good counsel of Li Zhong. He will make sure for long that the Jing and the Wei flow apart, and he will surely see that wheel and shaft are put to their fit use. I always think how the elder brother like jade and the younger like gold have both stooped to know me and care for me. As the pines grow thick and the bamboos grow in clumps, our bond is deep and firm. In my prayers and in my longing gaze I am one with the sincerity of the many. I humbly beg, and so on.

‹ To Minister Pei Qianyu of XuansheContentsTo Minister Pei Zan of the Ministry of Personnel ›Listen to this piece