Afterword後題

A piece added at the end (後題).

The master's writing was fine and broad, and he understood past and present clearly. In office he rose to right remonstrator and drafter of royal edicts, and then he withdrew to Gwandong to grow old there. His traces were those of a man who had left the court, but his purpose lay in setting his ruler right. At length, in the time left over from reading the Buddhist canon, he composed this Jewang ungi and offered it for the royal reading, the eullam (乙覽). Its words are spare and its meaning flows clear. It is like pearls strung on one thread, like a net held by its cord. The order and the disorder of ten thousand generations handed down one after another, from first to last, does not fall outside this book. It may be called the essence of the Tongjian.

Only this is a pity. In the record of Injong of this dynasty he speaks only of the king being pressed hard, and does not speak of how in the end he recovered the seat of Heaven and left a plan for his descendants forever. This is one thing lacking, that is all. Why did he not add the one line, "The quelling of disorder leaned on loyal subjects, and the seed of the dragon went on and did not cease," and so fill it out? It is not that the master did not know it. He kept it short, and that is the reason.

I, your servant, have by good fortune and with no talent of my own received this anxious charge. By the time I reached the prefecture the cutting of the blocks was all but finished. So there was nothing for me to add, and I merely place my name at the end of the blocks. Respectfully written by the vice-commissioner, your servant Yi Won.

The Yeokdae jewang ungi, composed and presented by the late lay scholar, your servant Dongan, that is Yi Seunghyu, was cut into blocks at the prefectural office of Jinju by royal command in the Yuanzhen years. The years grew long, the blocks rotted, and the characters wore away. His youngest son, Lord Yi, former commissioner of the Security Council, had long meant to cut them again, but his strength did not reach so far. Geugin, the husband of his niece, was fortunate enough to become surveillance commissioner of this province, and finding a space of leisure he carried out that purpose at the office of Donggyeong, that is Gyeongju. This was not merely to continue what an earlier generation had done and make a private matter of his own family gate. It was rather to pass down the main threads of the book so that they should not perish, and to help those who come after in their study and their reading. Written by the surveillance commissioner, holding the rank of jungsan daebu, vice-minister of war, your servant An Geugin.

On a day in the fifth month of the gyeongja year, the twentieth year of Zhizheng, 1360, the blocks were carved and the book issued at Donggyeong, that is Gyeongju.

The writing was done by the presented scholar, your servant Kim Hui.

Surveillance commissioner, holding the rank of jungsan daebu, vice-minister of war, your servant An Geugin.

The blocks of the Jewang ungi had been cut long ago, and here and there a block had gone blurred, so that no one came any longer to take an impression from them. The provincial governor, Lord Yi of Gwangneung, heard of it and was moved, and formed the purpose of mending what had decayed. The prefect, Lord Yi, and the judge, Ban, sought this book from me. He ordered craftsmen to cut the blocks and oversaw the work himself, and in a few days the whole book appeared again. How could this fail to profit the gentleman who governs the age? This is worth setting down. On the day after the full moon of the fifth month of the jeongyu year of Yongle, 1417, colophon by Yi Ji, holding the rank of josan daebu, instructor of Confucian studies at Gyeongju.