Letter for Pei Liao, former inspector in the surveillance office of Hunan前湖南觀察巡官裵璙啓
1Asking a sinecure for more than thirty helpless people
右件人。是某座主侍郞再從弟。某去乾符三年冬。到湖南。起居座主侍郞之時。見於諸院弟兄中。偏所記念。自數年繼遭剽劫。生計蕩盡。骨肉凋零。久在江南。近投常府。願披情懇。泣告尊慈。駐留多時。不幸疾苦。遂且扶持發去云。欲逕往襄陽。迎接侍郞。今得書云行至滁州。前去未得。道途旣阻。溝壑是虞。況乃孤孀三十餘口。更無産業。未卜定居。伏緣某家寄日邊。路踰天外。杳無來信。固絶他圖。旣無寸土以分耕。寧有尺波而假潤。是以不量僭越。輒具薦論。命懸沸鼎之中。目斷台階之下。非不知捋虎鬚之險。非不知探龍頷之難。但緣旣忝門生。豈論賓貢。鴛鸞之與螻蟻。感恩皆同。多士之與遠人。報德何異。伏乞太尉相公念以程窮計盡。愍其柱促聲哀。特賜於廬壽管內場院。或堰埭中。補署散職。所冀月有俸入。便獲安家。裵璙卽自到襄州。令弟璹仰副驅策。不度涯分。浼瀆尊嚴。下情無任感泣兢懼之至。
The above person is a second cousin of my examiner and vice minister. In the winter of the third year of Qianfu I went to Hunan, and when I paid my respects to the examiner and vice minister I saw him among the brothers of the several courts, and I remember him especially. For several years running he has met with plunder. His living is swept away, and his kin have withered and fallen. He was long in Jiangnan, and lately he threw himself on the office at Changzhou, wishing to lay open his earnest feeling and to weep out his plea to your honored kindness. He stayed there many days, and unhappily he fell ill; then he was helped and supported on his way, meaning to go straight to Xiangyang and meet the vice minister. Now I have a letter from him which says, "I have got as far as Chuzhou and cannot go on. The road is already blocked, and I fear the ditch." Still more, there are more than thirty widowed and orphaned mouths with him. They have no property left, and they have not yet fixed on a place to settle. My own house lies beside the sun, and the road to it passes beyond the sky. No word comes from it at all, and any other plan is truly cut off. I have not an inch of ground to share for ploughing. How should I have a foot of water to lend for moistening? So, without weighing how far I overstep, I have drawn up this recommendation. His life hangs in a boiling cauldron. My eyes break off below your high steps. It is not that I do not know the danger of stroking a tiger's whiskers. It is not that I do not know how hard it is to grope under a dragon's chin. But since I have unworthily been made a disciple of his gate, how should I argue that I am only a tribute student? The mandarin duck and the phoenix, the mole cricket and the ant, are all alike in being moved by kindness. Between the many scholars and a man from afar, how does the repaying of virtue differ? I humbly beg his lordship the Grand Commandant to consider that his road is at an end and his plans are spent, and to pity him, whose bridge is pressed close and whose sound is mournful, and to grant him as a special favor a place in some idle post at a government station within the jurisdiction of Luzhou and Shouzhou, or among the weirs and dikes (堰埭). What I hope is that he may have a monthly stipend coming in and be able to settle his household at once. Pei Liao will go on himself to Xiangzhou, and his younger brother Shu looks up to answer whatever you set him to. Without measuring my own bounds I have defiled your high dignity. My humble heart cannot bear the fullness of its weeping gratitude and its dread.
Interlinear notes 1
The original has no 州, so 常府 is taken as this Huainan headquarters. It may also be read as the prefecture of Changzhou. — translator