A memorial thanking him for the loan of a house謝借宅狀
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 17 — Reports to the Throne 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.
1When learning is ample one serves, and when service is ample one learns
As to the above: yesterday the office of guests conveyed your order. You lent me an official house and settled me there in comfort. I look up and hear your noble intent, and I look down and examine my own poor talent. It is already an honor that there is a gate where I may cast my traces. My one regret is that there is no road on which to give my life for you. I bow and consider: since I hurried to your dragon banners, I have been spared from weeping under an ox blanket. My salary is not light, and my allowance for books is quite ample. I once read the Analects, where it says, "When learning is ample one serves, and when service is ample one learns." So I look toward the side gate that opens east and swear to lean on benevolence forever. I take a disciple's seat at the window and look only to practice my studies. It is not that I dare to hide away and refuse to be married off. I mean only to be my own matchmaker by the straight road. Now I am fortunate to lodge in this happy country, and still more to nest in a quiet room. With umbrella and straw sandals I have no toil of traveling far. With a bamboo basket and a gourd dipper I have settled forever into a contented poverty. How could I call this a love of idleness? It is truly a place to nourish courage. Advancing in study for three years, I am not without the heart that admired Lin Xiangru. If in a single day I achieve something, I hope to fulfill the aim of the man who leaned on Liu Biao. My humble heart cannot bear the fullness of its gratitude for this favor, its keen feeling, and its awe. I go respectfully to the headquarters gate and wait there to set out my thanks. Respectfully submitted.