Letter of thanks on asking for salary money in advance謝探請料錢狀
1Wishing to send a letter home by the ship of an envoy of my own country
某啓。某頃者西笑傾懷。南音著操。蓬飛萬里。迷玉京之要路通津。桂折一名。作金榜之懸疣附贅。乃是常常之事。徒云遠遠而來。海隅未覺於榮家。江徼況勞於佐邑。由是詠南陔而引咎。望東道以知歸。伏蒙太尉念掃德門。許遷代舍。濡毫染牘。深慙雪苑之淸才。頂豸腰魚。遽忝霜臺之峻秩。傳天上披衷之命。榮日邊垂白之親。以宣父見知。則實同陳隼。以遠人多幸。則不讓漢貂。雖乖就養無方。久想宗族稱孝。然而煙波阻絶。難申負米之心。風雨凄涼。空灑梁山之泣。旣疏溫凊。又闕旨甘。但切責躬。敢言養志。況又無鄕使。難附家書。唯吟陟岵之詩。莫遇渡溟之信。今有本國使船過海。某欲買茶藥。寄附家信。伏緣蹄涔易渴。溝壑難盈。不避嚴誅。更陳窮懇。伏惟太尉念以依門館次三千客。別庭闈已十八年。旣免行傭。有希反哺。特賜探給三箇月料錢。所冀祿遂及親。遠分光於異域。志能求己。永投跡於仙鄕。干瀆台階。下情伏增感泣兢悸懇迫之至。其請錢狀別具上呈云云。
I submit this. Some time ago I smiled toward the west and poured out my heart, and I showed my resolve in the songs of the south. Like a tumbleweed I flew ten thousand miles and lost my way among the main roads and open fords of the jade capital. I broke a cassia branch and got a single name, and became a hanging wart and an added lump on the golden roll. This is a common thing. It is only said that I came from far, far away. In a corner of the sea I did not feel that I had brought honor to my house, and on the river frontier I was worn besides with helping a district. So I chanted the song of the southern slope and drew the blame to myself, and I looked toward the eastern road and knew where I should return. I humbly received the Grand Commandant's thought of sweeping his gate of virtue for me, and he allowed me to move to the upper lodging. Wetting the brush and staining the tablets, I am deeply ashamed before the pure talent of the Garden of Snow. With the horned beast on my cap and the fish tally at my waist, I have suddenly and unworthily taken a high grade in the Frost Terrace. It carries down a command from heaven above that lays its heart bare, and it brings honor to my white-haired parents beside the sun. If I take it as being known to Confucius, it is truly the same as the falcon of Chen. If I take it as great good fortune for a man from afar, it yields nothing to the sable of Han. Though I have failed in serving my parents with no fixed place, I have long thought of my clan calling me filial. Yet mist and waves cut me off, and it is hard to unfold the heart that would carry rice on its back. Wind and rain are desolate, and I scatter the tears of Mount Liang in vain. I have already grown distant from warming them and cooling them, and I have failed as well in sweet food. I can only blame myself keenly. How should I dare to say that I nourish their will? Still more, there is no envoy from my home country, and it is hard to send a letter home. I only chant the poem of climbing the hill, and I meet no messenger crossing the deep. Now there is a ship of an envoy of my own country crossing the sea, and I wish to buy tea and medicine and send them with a letter home. But water in a hoofprint dries easily, and a ditch is hard to fill, and so, without shunning stern punishment, I set forth my hard-pressed plea again. I humbly beg the Grand Commandant to consider that I have leaned on his gate and hall as one among three thousand guests, and that it is already eighteen years since I left my parents' courtyard. Having escaped hiring myself out, I hope to feed my parents in return. Grant me as a special favor three months of salary money paid in advance. What I hope is that my stipend may reach my parents at last and share its light with them far off in a strange land, and that my will may find what it seeks in myself, and cast my steps forever in the land of the immortals. In trespassing on your high steps, my humble heart only grows fuller with weeping gratitude, with trembling, and with pressing earnestness. The letter asking for the money I submit separately, and so on.