Yetgeul › Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) › Book 12 — Dispatches

To Wang Xu of Guangzhou — admonishing one who has fled光州王緖

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 12 — Dispatches 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.

1Heaven does not suffer wickedness, and men help only what follows the right

報王緖。天不容奸。人唯助順。苟違至理。必亂常刑。知緖昨因顔璋。久藏禍心。果致衆怒。璋旣誅戮。緖乃奔逃。何不束手戎場。投身義域。而敢更謀嘯聚。尙恣喧張。自招相鼠之譏。莫識牽羊之禮。未知爾意終欲奚爲。此乃先惠後誅。武經所重。好生惡殺。王化斯行。豁開誘善之門。俾躡歸仁之路。遂加誨諭。試問端倪。速仰割捐本情。指陳他望。待詳來狀。卽與指麾。禮云志不可滿。傳曰惡不可長。緖之今日其意若何。勿驅齊甿。枉入罪網。秋冷切好將息。節級各與慰問。悉之。

A notice to Wang Xu. Heaven does not suffer wickedness, and men help only what follows the right. If a man goes against the highest principle, he will surely be thrown into the constant punishments. I learn that you long hid a heart of mischief on account of Yan Zhang, and that in the end you brought the anger of the many upon yourself. Zhang has already been put to death, and you then ran away. Why do you not bind your hands on the field of battle and throw yourself into the ground of righteousness? Instead you dare to plan again to call men together with a whistle, and you still give rein to noise and display, drawing upon yourself the censure of "Xiangshu (相鼠)" and knowing nothing of the rite of leading a sheep. I do not know what you mean to do in the end. Now to show kindness first and to cut down afterward is what the books of war hold weighty, and to love life and hate killing is how the king's transforming rule is carried out. I open wide the gate that draws men to good, so that you may tread the road that returns to benevolence. And so I teach and admonish you, and by way of trial I ask for some first sign. Quickly cut off and cast away your former mind, and set out plainly what else you hope for. When I have looked closely at the letter you send, I shall give my orders at once. The Book of Rites says, "The will must not be filled full." The Zuo zhuan says, "Evil must not be allowed to grow." What is your mind today, Xu? Do not drive the common people into the net of crime for nothing. In the cold of autumn take the best of care, and send word of comfort to each of your officers. Know it all.

Interlinear notes 1

The original says only "the Rites say" and "the Commentary says." The first is from the Quli chapter of the Book of Rites, the second from the first year of Duke Yin in the Zuo Commentary. — translator

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