Letter of thanks to the candidate Zhou Fan for showing me the Xiaoshan ji謝周繁秀才以小山集見示書
1Reading the nine pieces, I know that a sage has come out of Lu
昨日早謁玄成。晚歸弊止。覺戶庭之發光彩。聞机案之散馨香。遂因驚訊僕夫。果得捧承留示。温辭一幅。粲然受益之規。雅什九篇。蔚矣患多之思。莫不振紀綱於六義。飾冠冕於七言。旣崇大雅之基。實播中和之響。伏以諸從事鴻儔鵠侶。鳳翥鸞翔。集桂苑之名都。占蓮池之雅望。二十三官卽先輩。備觀周樂。深閱楚材。各陳贊詠之詞。能展縱橫之作。筆皆實錄。機不虛張。始窺八首之前。只謂衞多君子。終覽九華之後。方知魯出聖人。某今所以禱望者。翠輦早遇東巡。白環免勞西獻。二十三官百步穿葉。一飛沖天。姮娥則迎入桂宮。王母則引歸蓬島。然後輟勝遊於御氣。展長策於濟時。來登郭隗之臺。坐弄陳琳之筆。則乃今朝麗藻。已掩八仙公之名。他日賓筵。必盈七才子之數。見丘門之請禱。待陳榻之解懸。某使欲銜璧乞降。摳衣請益。但以志勤詞戰。雖將築室反耕。道拙世塗。僅類杜門却掃。未獲面申感謝。謹專修狀啓陳云云。
Yesterday morning I paid an early visit to Xuancheng, and in the evening I came back to my poor lodging. I found that the door and the courtyard gave off a shining color and that a fragrance was scattered over my desk. Startled, I asked my servant, and indeed I received what you had left to show me. One sheet of warm words was a bright rule for receiving benefit. Nine elegant poems were a luxuriant thought of one who grieves that there is too much. There is nothing in them that does not shake out the cords of the six principles and adorn the cap and crown of the seven-word line. They raise up the ground of the Greater Ya, and they truly spread the sound of the mean and the harmony. I humbly consider that the officers of the staff are a flock of wild geese and a company of swans, phoenixes soaring and simurghs in flight. They gather in the famed capital of the cassia garden and hold the elegant repute of the lotus pond. The twenty-third officer, my elder in the service, has looked over the music of Zhou in full and has read deeply in the timber of Chu. Each of them set out words of praise, and he could unfold work that runs across and along. Every brush was a true record, and nothing was set out in vain. When I first peeped at the eight poems at the front, I said only that Wei has many gentlemen. When I had looked at the last of the nine flowers, I knew at last that a sage has come out of Lu. What I pray for now is that the kingfisher carriage may soon meet its eastern progress and the white ring be spared the labor of being offered in the west, that the twenty-third officer may pierce the leaf at a hundred paces and rise at a single flight into the sky, that Chang'e may welcome him into the cassia palace and the Queen Mother lead him back to the isle of Penglai. After that, let him break off the fine wandering of riding on the air (御氣) and unfold his long plan for saving the age. Let him come and climb the terrace of Guo Wei, and sit and ply the brush of Chen Lin. Then this morning's fair writing has already covered the names of the eight immortal lords, and at a later feast of guests he will surely fill out the number of the seven talented men. He will see the prayers offered at the gate of Confucius, and wait for the couch of Chen Fan to be let down from where it hangs. I would hold jade in my mouth and beg to surrender, and I would tuck up my robe and ask to be taught more. But my purpose is diligent while my words do battle, and though I would build a house and turn back to the plow, my way is clumsy on the road of the world, and I am little better than one who shuts his gate and stops sweeping. I could not set out my thanks face to face, so I have respectfully written a letter on purpose and set it out, and so on.