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 · 179 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 8 — 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 the merit of holding a city in danger
The Attendant wears the sable cap in glory and drives the bear carriage far. He is able to work a good rule, and he comforts the worn people everywhere. He has shepherded a great province only a little while, and he has brought peace to a happy land already. This is the sweet rain of Zheng Jujun moistening the banks of the Huai once more, and the scholarly wind of Bu Zixia rising again on the banks of the Si. Still more so when Pengmen fell into revolt and the road to Bian was hard. He held the city in danger alone and broke the ramparts of the enemy in the end. He has brought rich merit to pass indeed, and he has proved a whole talent. The many troops rejoiced in the heart that wrapped them in silk floss, and the brood next door drew back the mouth that would swallow a boat. That the humane man has courage is no empty saying. Not long ago I received an edict allowing rewards for the army. In granting ranks I lean only upon the command of the emperor, and in raising up the worthy I meet my own sincerity indeed. Now his favor is changed for the silver ornament and his authority takes the iron pillar as well. I set out a rich courtesy with respect, and so repay his rare merit. The sound of the wind on the shores of Chu has carried word everywhere that the bandits are destroyed. The color of the willows on the embankment of Sui waits year after year only for his progress in spring. I have no set time to bow and offer my congratulations, and my gazing and my thinking of him are keen enough. I send up my official dispatch sealed in the same cover, and so on.