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 · 167 Chinese characters · reading time 0.7 min
Gyewon Pilgyeongjip (A Plowing of the Brush in the Cassia Garden) Book 19 — Miscellaneous Letters 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.
I submit this. I have received the kindness of the Grand Commandant, who granted me a change of office by special favor, and I cannot bear my joy and gladness. I am a small scholar of Hyeondo, of the slight stuff of the jiaoming gnat. Early on, because I longed for what is good, I happened to make a name. After that my traveler's road held much sorrow, and the gate where I waited was far off. My hemp robe had just been dyed indigo when the bamboo slips broke off their cassia scent. Since last year I have sent in my card at the Terrace of Yan, and my office was unworthily that of the post house of Zheng. In all this you, Director, pushed forward your heart to praise me and think of me, and you lent your strength to recommend and raise me, so that a lonely root had no fear of being cast upon the ground and short wing feathers had hope of rising above the clouds. Now I have suddenly been favored with an uncommon meeting, and I am deeply ashamed at the reproach that I do not match it. Though I am glad to follow the army, how should I rest easy in a salary I have not earned? Besides, when a quail puts on a falcon's wings, it feels already that this is not fitting, and when a chicken stands among a flock of cranes, it should truly reproach itself. At the time I had already drawn up a letter declining the office, and for that reason I did not dare wait upon you and set out my thanks. Then by your private kindness you sent down a glorious teaching on purpose. As I received and read it, my gladness and applause were more than my humble heart could bear.