Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 9 — Enclosures

To his lordship Wang, Commander in Chief都統王令公

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 · 182 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min

Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 9 — 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.

1A purpose to advance in the first ten days of next month

近者專馳賀狀。伏計已覽卑誠。久絶來音。但多景戀。令公始終陶冶。表裏經綸。王商能止於訛言。謝萬暫提其勁卒。奪窮寇姦兇之魄。活疲甿震懾之魂。行旣順天。捷當克日。某比承詔旨。久緩師期。今伏見令公命許君親。身先將校。幸叶彈冠之望。倍驚投袂之心。已閱全師。旣離弊鎭。雖自稱岸上之虎。或謂當仁。而不畏水中之龍。實歸重德。唯期助役。非敢貪功。欲取來月上旬。決謀進退。直衝宋野。先會梁園。謹遣專人。咨探行李。輒覬廻信。聊紓遠懷。伏惟恩私。深賜鑑察云云。

Of late I sent a letter of congratulation by a man of my own, and I reckon that he has already seen my low sincerity. Word from him has long been cut off, and my longing is only the greater. His lordship casts and molds from beginning to end and orders the world within and without. Like Wang Shang he can stop a false rumor; like Xie Wan he leads stout soldiers for a while. He takes away the souls of cornered bandits and wicked men and gives life back to the trembling spirits of the worn people. Since his going follows heaven, the victory may be set for a day. I lately received the imperial word and long held my army's season slack. Now I see that his lordship, taking the command of ruler and parent, goes before his officers in person. Happily it meets my wish to dust off my cap, and it startles the more my heart that would fling back its sleeve. I have already reviewed the whole army and left my worn garrison. Though he may call himself a tiger upon the bank and be said to take up what is right, that he does not fear the dragon in the water is truly owing to his weighty virtue. I look only to help in the labor and do not dare covet merit. I mean to take the first ten days of next month and settle whether to advance or withdraw, to strike straight through the fields of Song and to meet first at the garden of Liang. I respectfully send a man of my own to ask after his journey, and I hope for a reply, that my distant heart may be a little loosed. I humbly ask that in kindness he look deeply upon this, and so on.

Interlinear notes 1

"The worn garrison" is a humble way of speaking of one’s own command, so whose garrison is meant is divided. The received text is kept as it stands. — tr.

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