Preface to the First Scroll帝王韻紀上卷 幷序
1Heading of the first volume
帝王韻紀上卷 幷序
The Jewang ungi, first volume — with the preface.
2Composed by Yi Seunghyu
頭陀山居士臣李承休製進.
Composed and presented by your subject Yi Seunghyu, a lay Buddhist of Dutasan.
3Why it was cast as verse
自古, 帝王相承授受興亡之事, 經世君子, 所不可不明也. 然古今典籍, 浩汗無涯, 而前後相紛如也. 苟能撮要以詩之, 不亦便於覽乎? 謹據纂古圖, 採諸子史而廣焉. 若夫今之未著方策者, 姑以彰彰耳目所熟爲據, 播于諷詠, 其善可爲法, 惡可爲誡者, 輒隨其事而春秋焉. 名之曰帝王韻紀, 凡二千三百七十言. 蓋忠臣孝子, 衛於君父之義也.
From ancient times, how sovereigns received from one another and handed on, and how they rose and fell, is what a gentleman who would govern the world must know clearly. But the books of old and of today are so wide and vast that they have no shore, and what came before and what came after tangle with one another. If one truly gathered the essentials and made them into verse, would that not be easier to read?
I have respectfully relied on the Zuan gu tu (纂古圖) and widened it by drawing on the many philosophers and histories. For matters of today not yet set down in books, I have taken as my ground what is plain and familiar to ear and eye and have carried it into the chanting; and where the good was worth taking as a model and the evil worth taking as a warning, I set it down at once, according to the matter, in the brush method of the Chunqiu.
It is named the Jewang ungi, two thousand three hundred and seventy words in all. This is, in the main, the duty by which a loyal subject and a filial son guard their lord and their father.