Volume Two卷二

Gwon Ram, Duke Ikpyeong, stood first in all three examinations of the gyeongo year, the provincial, the metropolitan, and the palace. Kim Sugwang, a county magistrate, stood last in all three of them as well. People of that time laughed and said, "First place in three examinations there have been many, in old times and now, but last place in three examinations there will surely be none under heaven."

Sin Sukju of Goryeong stood third in the examination of the gimi year and fourth in the re-examination of the jeongmyo year. I, Geojeong, also stood third in the examination of the gapja year and fourth in the re-examination of the jeongchuk year. When I called on the Duke of Goryeong, he laughed and said to me, "With your talent, how did you bend to fourth place?" I said, "After He Ning there was Fan Zhi. Before Kim Gu, how could there not be a Kim Ingyeong?" Sin laughed aloud. Having no talent, I did not dare to set myself beside He and Fan. I only spoke big. Long ago He Ning, Duke of Lu, passed thirteenth. Later he took charge of the examinations and said to Fan Zhi, Duke of Lu, "Your writing ought to stand first. That it bends for a while to thirteenth is only to hand on this old man's robe and bowl." In Goryeo, Kim Ingyeong, Duke Jeongsuk, took charge of the examinations and chose Kim Gu as second, and he raised the old story of the duke handing on his bowl and spoke of it. Jeongsuk too had been the second man in the reign of King Myeongjong.

In the last years of King Sejong scholars of the Confucian learning were held in still greater weight, and the king set the questions himself and so gained men. The last of these was called the deungjunsi, and thirteen men were gained by it. Your servant Geojeong stood third. King Sejo called your servants to the inner hall and said, "From of old there have been the names of examiner and disciple. At this examination I set the questions myself, so I shall be your eunmun (恩門). You shall call this hall the eunjeon (恩殿)." Your servants bowed low and gave thanks. Some days later the two majesties sat in Sajeongjeon and your servants offered the cup, wholly as in the rite of disciples calling on their examiner. The favor and the grace were rich and full. It was a splendid thing such as our East has never had in all its past.

The envoys who came from the court of China, earlier and later, were all men of letters and of principle. From Lu Yong, Duanmu Xiaosi, and Zhu Mengxian down, they may all be counted. Speaking of those I myself saw, in the last years of King Sejong the expositor Ni Qian and the supervising secretary Sima Xun came together. Ni was penetrating and harmonious, Sima was spare and upright. In talent and in name Sima did not reach Ni, and in integrity and conduct Ni did not reach Sima. Chen Chun of the Ministry of Personnel and Li Guan, an overseer, came next. Chen's conduct and principle were looked up to as men look up to Mount Tai and the Northern Dipper. Li's bearing was fine and bright, and he handled affairs within the bounds Chen set and showed no sharp corners. He too was a fit man. Later came the expositor Chen Jian and Gao Run of the Court of Sacrifices. Chen's writing came next after Ni's, and his conduct was the same as Ni's. Gao's writing did not reach Chen's, and his conduct was lower still. At first, when the two envoys Chen and Gao crossed the Amnok River, the country sent an envoy of comfort with clothes for the season, and Gao would not take them. He made a poem, "Clothes were sent and not received," and its words were very haughty. In the record he wrote for the Seonggyungwan there were the words, "The principle of heaven has never once been blotted out," and in a poem too there were the words, "Even the jackal and the otter repay their root." When he wrote a colophon to the poems of Yangchon made at royal command, he said, "Coming to Joseon, I am sorry that there is nothing here to startle eye or ear." So deeply did he look down upon the East. He wrote a poem on the tower of the Taepyeonggwan and judged it himself, saying, "It exhausts the air of splendor, yet holds throughout to what is pure and high." At the end of the board of poems exchanged at the Seonggyungwan he wrote in his own large hand, "Four men failed to finish their poems. They ought to make them good later." This was to mock the ministers of the country, some of whom had not finished a poem. Once he wrote out several albums in the regular hand and the cursive hand and said, "The writing of Wang Xizhi is hard to get for a thousand pieces of gold. Those who study it should keep this as a treasure." His frivolity went as far as this. At that time I held a post under the guesthouse, and whenever I saw what Gao had made my color changed in anger, and sometimes I tore it with my hands and threw it on the ground, and all my colleagues laughed. One day Gao had Gwak Uigyeong, a doctor of the Office of Diplomatic Correspondence, write out the record of his journey. I looked at it in secret. At the head he wrote one piece, "Song of longing for my parents," then the poem "Clothes were sent and not received," then the poem "Turning away the singing girls," then the poem "Paying respects to the Sage." All the rest, the pieces he made when he saw things and was stirred, he hid and did not write. I said, "This barbarian means to go back to China and make this his bait for a name. Has a man's worthlessness come to this?" One day His Majesty sent a saddled horse. I said to my colleagues, "A saddled horse is not a thing to put in a bag. These men will surely refuse it. If they refuse it, Gao will surely make a poem. Watch and see, gentlemen." Before long Gao made a poem, "Refusing the saddled horse," which said, "Emperor Wen of Han already made light of the horse of a thousand li, and Zu Ti had no mind to lay on a single whip." My colleagues laughed aloud. I was greatly angered and said, "Is Joseon so small and weak that not one man can tell right from wrong, and he dares to deceive us like this?" When they were about to leave, His Majesty gave a fine sword as a parting gift, and Gao Run made a poem of thanks. When the Hwanghwajip was finished, Gao Run was pleased at his first sight of it, but reading it through in order he came to the poem thanking for the sword, and he flushed and lost his color. So did he dress up his deceit and lose the bearing of an envoy. The supervising secretary Chen Jiayou was generous and even, upright and large. Seeing his air, one knew him for a great man and a gentleman, and his writing too was plain and clear. The supervising secretary Zhang Ning had writing that could stand beside Chen's, but in his words and his deeds there was much that was forced. Still he too was a gentleman. The secretary Jin Shi was skilled in seven-word verse of four rhymes, and his brushwork and the grade of his painting were high and fine, but his conduct was swept to the ground. The secretary Zhang Cheng had a warm and elegant air but no rare integrity. The messenger Jiang Hao had a generous and large measure but little grace of letters. Qi Shun of the Ministry of Revenue was sincere and had integrity of conduct, and his writing too was pure and correct. Was he not the match of the two supervising secretaries Chen and Zhang? The messenger Zhang Jin in writing and in conduct did not reach Qi Shun, but he stayed within his bounds.

Of late I have come to see the Liaohai bian. It is what Ni Qian, expositor of the Hanlin, made when he bore his commission to our country, with the pieces our worthies exchanged with him and gave him at parting added to it. Even the name of one as devoid of talent as I stands among them. Lu Yong, assistant administrator of the provincial administration, wrote a preface to it, saying, "When the expositor first reached Joseon, that country chose a minister of letters to be his companion at the guesthouse. The duke lent his countenance and bent down to meet him. The man took up his brush and grew brazen and boastful to his face. Then the duke opened out, and his rare thoughts were like a welling spring. He trusted his brush and finished at once. He gave it no great care, and yet the sense of his words was lofty and free. He glanced aside and drove on as though no one were beside him. The whole country was startled and sighed and looked up to him without end." Now when I examine the poems, the companion at the guesthouse was Jeong Inji, Duke Munseong. To grow brazen and boastful to a man's face, how could the duke have done such a thing? Wu Jie, expositor of the Hanlin, wrote a colophon to it, saying, "When the duke reached that country, the country chose widely among those long able in verse and prose to take charge of the guesthouse. The master's talent and thought were quick, like water welling up and mountains coming forth. He let his brush go and swept it along and finished in a moment. The men of the country gathered their heads and praised him and sighed, and drew back and did not dare bring out what they were best at. Only three men, Jeong Inji, Sin Sukju, and Seong Sammun, knew a little of the sharp stroke and could answer in kind now and then, and the master often encouraged them and drew them on." How sad it is that these two, Lu and Wu, in exalting the expositor, press down the worthies of our East too far. Now I have read the whole Liaohai bian of the expositor, and it is only ordinary verse and prose. I find in it no words that open wide and soar, rare and great and cutting across all others. The expositor's rhapsody, "Climbing the tower when the snow has cleared," is fine indeed, but the rhapsody Sin Sukju, Duke Munchung, made to the same rhymes has words that follow one another and letters that run smooth, and it flutters with the sound of Chu. It too can stand beside the expositor's. How can it be made light of? The words of these two, Lu and Wu, are truly not a fair judgment.

Men of old, in the vessels of measure and rule, always used the Zhou foot to check them and fix them. The pattern of the foot rule has been hard to settle since old times. Master Zhu took the rule of the foot cut in stone in the house of Duke Sima Wenzheng and set it in the Jiali. But the printed blocks of the Jiali that go about the world are not of one kind, and the length of the Zhou foot in them is not the same, so they too are hard to take for a ground. In the time of King Sejong, Heo Jo, Duke Mungyeong, sought out and got the pattern for the spirit tablets in the family shrine of Chen Li, son of Chen Youliang, and from it made a provisional pattern of the foot. He also got at the house of Gang Cheonju, a director, a Zhou foot taken on paper. It had come down from an ivory foot rule kept by Jin Gang, a commissioner of the Yuan, in the house of Gang Cheonju's father Gang Seok, superintendent of the Three Offices. On its face was written, "The fixed pattern of the foot for spirit tablets," and, "From the present official foot take away two inches and five parts and use seven inches and five parts." This was the same as the words of Pan Shiju in the notes appended to the Jiali, that the Zhou foot falls a little short of seven inches and five parts of the present provincial foot. The two patterns were compared and did not differ. Then at last the system of the foot was fixed. The spirit tablets in the family shrines of the gentry, the water vessels of the observatory, the distance of the roads in li, and the pacing of the archery grounds were all grounded on this and made the fixed pattern. Later Jo Chungjwa, director of the Office of Interpreters, went to the capital of China and bought a newly made spirit tablet and brought it back, and when it was measured again by this foot the inches and the parts agreed. There is no doubt that the Zhou foot now used in Joseon is the same as China's.

The Mengxi bitan says, "In the Xining years Goryeo came to bring tribute, and at every prefecture and county it passed through it asked for maps, and wherever it came they were all made and sent. The mountains and the rivers, the roads, and the steepness or ease of the ground were all set down in full. When they reached Yangzhou they sent a dispatch to the prefecture to get its map. At that time Chen, Duke Xiu, the chancellor, was holding Yangzhou. He put the envoys off, saying that he wished to see all the maps offered by the two Zhe circuits and have one made to their scale to give them. When the maps came he gathered them all and burned them, and he reported the matter in full." I note that Goryeo had long been blocked by the Liao and had not been in touch with the Song. In the fourth year of Xining under Emperor Shenzong, that is the twenty-fifth year of King Munjong of Goryeo, the year sinhae, Kim Je, vice minister of the Ministry of Population, was sent by way of Dengzhou to bring tribute to the Song. This was perhaps the affair of that time.

In the time of Goryeo the royal secretary on duty went to the Purple Gate at the fifth watch, and when the palace attendant came out the secretary asked after the health of the king and then asked for the keys, and all the gates of the Purple Wall and all the gates of the outer wall were opened. After the founding of this dynasty, when the dawn bell was struck at the third point of the fifth watch, the gates of the palace wall and the gates of the outer wall were all opened. From the reign of King Yejong the palace gates began to be opened at daybreak.

By the old rule, at every court assembly, great or small, the two files, the civil and the military, entered divided to the east and to the west, and one inspector for each stood behind the file and watched for anything in the rite of the assembly not done by the law. In this dynasty each rank of the eastern file and the western file has its own censor, and they stand facing one another to the east and to the west. This follows the system of the court of China. Also, by the old system, when the censors and the remonstrators entered the file, one clerk for each, carrying his robe and his tablet, went out after him and came in after him. When they withdrew from the file, the censors and remonstrators stood in order south of the Yeongjegyo bridge outside Geunjeongmun, facing north with the west for the higher place, and waited until all the officials had gone out, and only then went out. This was because they did not wish to be mixed with the lesser officers.

In Tang and in Song, when affairs were reported to the throne, the short memorial was always used. When I was made head of the Censorate, I first raised the matter and set up the rule of the short memorial. This was because I feared that something would be lost while words passed back and forth, and also to block the beginnings by which the attendants close to the throne might take charge of affairs in later ages. When the rule was first set up, all men called it a good law that could be followed for ten thousand generations. Of late those who become censors and remonstrators do not know the great body of a matter. Let there be a small fault, and they weave the writing deep and heap up charges and rail with all their mouth until the man is broken, so that the setting up of the short memorial has served only to harm men. Under heaven there has never been a law that was set up and had no abuse.

The sangi and the ranks below him belonged in old times to the Chancellery. Duke Jeong Huigye became superintendent of the Chancellery, and he once gambled with someone at the Hall of Ministers, and the junior officers of the several offices did not perform the rite of meeting him and waiting on him. The duke did not sit down but went back. At that time Jo Jun, Duke Munchung, was chief minister, and as he was about to go out to his office a clerk told him that the duke had not sat down. Munchung laughed and said, "There are men in my chancery, one may say."

By the old custom among the men of the Confucian learning (斯文), at a gathering of letters and wine the scholars of the three halls would take a great cup, fill it full, and call a man "master," and it was so from high office down to low. Of those who came to the gathering, even a high officer or a man of rank, if his name had not been written on the red paper, was not called "master" but "great man." That custom began in Goryeo. Even now, if there is one whose name is not on the red paper, he will keep away from the gathering of the learned on purpose, for he hates to hear the word "great man."

Since the founding of the dynasty, one of the men of letters who would in time preside over letters was chosen as Yemun eunggyo, and he held the post together with another office, so that he might give himself wholly to the writing of the court. After the Hall of Worthies was set up, one member of that hall bore the title. When the Hall of Worthies was abolished and the Office of Royal Decrees was set up, the one eunggyo became a substantive officer of that office as well, moving from post to post by the usual course, and it was no longer given to a chosen man. So the charge of the court's writing was not held by one man alone, and the learning too was not fine. I once heard that Duke Min Je, Prince of Yeoheung, when he served in Goryeo, sent a poem to the Ministry of Personnel which said, "The Yemun eunggyo is not my portion, yet those three letters of fine title do no harm." Then the Yemun eunggyo did not begin with the founding of this dynasty. It was there from Goryeo. The three letters are jijegyo.

The law of posthumous names was held weighty by the men of old, but now it is simply left to the Court of Sacrifices, and the newly risen students of a later day do not know the body of the matter, so names are added without rule. Take Hong Sunson. He came in at the tail of the merit subjects of the Jeongnan and his merit was the lowest, and when he died his office was assistant of the Privy Council and his grade too was low. Yet for his merit a posthumous name was specially added, and the Court of Sacrifices named him Yangmu (襄武). This was taken from the words, "To have merit through an affair is called yang, and to overcome and settle disorder is called mu." Alas, how deeply they failed to know the body of the matter. The mu of overcoming and settling disorder is the mu of a ruler. Can it be laid upon a subject? Still more, once it is said that he had merit through an affair, his merit is known well enough. Why add to it that he overcame and settled disorder? Again, to Choe Hang of Yeongseong the Court of Sacrifices gave the name Munjeong (文靖). This was taken from the words, "To have virtue and to hear widely is called mun, and to keep the person reverent and be sparing of words is called jeong." Once it is said that he had virtue and heard widely, then keeping the person reverent and being sparing of words is only the last thing within virtue. To say mun and then jeong, is this not upside down? Again, to Yi Sungji of the Privy Council the Court of Sacrifices gave the name Maengnyeo (麥厲). Now the law of posthumous names has no letter maek (麥), so it must be a mistake for the letter gwa (夸). Cases of this kind are very many, more than can be written down.

Yi Saek, Duke Munjeong, in his Jeonggwaneum said, "They thought him only one thing in a bag. Who knew that the black flower would fall to the white feather?" The black flower speaks of the eye, and the white feather speaks of the arrow. It is handed down in the world that Emperor Taizong of Tang, attacking Goguryeo, came to Ansi Fortress, and an arrow struck his eye, and he went back. I have examined the Tang shu and the Zizhi tongjian, and neither has it. Only the jottings of Liu Gongquan say that Taizong, when he first saw Yeonsu and Hyejin lead the army of Balhae and spread their ranks over forty li, had a look of fear. Even there is no word of his being struck and hurt. I think this. Even if the thing did happen at that time, the historians would surely have hidden it for the sake of China, so it is no wonder they did not write it. Yet the Samguk sagi of Kim Busik does not have it either, and I do not know where the old man Mogeun got it.

In the reign of King Gongyang of Goryeo, in the affair of Yun I and Yi Cho, Yi Saek, Duke Munjeong, called Mogeun, and Gwon Geun, Duke Munchung, called Yangchon, were both seized and shut in the prison of Cheongju. The questioning was very harsh, and no one could tell how the matter would end. One day at dawn heaven sent rain, and before midday the hills fell and the water welled up and broke the gate of the walled town and poured in, and the houses were all sunk. The officer who conducted the questioning was swept away and was drowning, and he caught hold of a ginkgo tree and barely escaped. When the matter was made known, the two were released and questioned no further, and by this Munjeong and Munchung came through whole. At first, when Yu Chang, Lord of Okcheon, heard that the two dukes had been falsely accused and shut in prison, he said to people, "The two masters are men whom heaven brought forth above others. There will surely be a portent from heaven." His words were proved in the end. Someone made a poem which said, "Floating words unhappily reached the Duke of Zhou, and of a sudden a great wind rose over the fine grain. I hear that at Seowon the floodwater rose. By this I know that the way of heaven is the same now as of old."

In the year mujin at the end of Goryeo, the false king Sin U withdrew to Ganghwa. The counsel of the court wished to set up one of the Wang house. But the chancellor Jo Minsu held it a kindness that Yi Inim had picked him out and raised him, and he wished to set up Chang, the son of Queen Geunbi, who was the daughter of Yi Rim, a clan grandson of Yi Inim. Fearing that the generals would go against him, and because Yi Saek was a famed scholar of the Confucian learning, he wished to borrow his word, and he asked Yi Saek in secret. Yi Saek too said, "The son of the former king ought to be set up." So the counsel was settled and Chang was set up. Later the censors and remonstrators argued Yi Saek's guilt, saying, "He did not set up one of the Wang house but set up Chang. This is the head of all disloyal crime for ten thousand generations." Later the historian Jo Bak argued, saying, "Emperor Yuan of Jin was plainly born of a petty clerk named Niu Jin, and Wang Dao and his fellows in truth helped and upheld him. Though Emperor Yuan borrowed the name, without him they could not have pressed down the hearts of men and made them yield, nor accomplished the work of restoration. Yi Saek's counsel to set up Chang was much of this kind, and one cannot on this ground lay the whole guilt on Yi Saek." Whether Jo Bak's words are right or wrong I do not know. But the former history took them in, and now they have been cut away, so the scholars of later days who weigh the past ought to know it.

Of late, when the envoy of the Ryukyus was going home, he said to people, "I came to Joseon and saw three grand things." One was this. "At Gyeonghoeru the stone pillars are wound about with the figures of dragons. It is strange and fine beyond the common. This is the first grand thing." One was this. "The minister who leads the files has a long beard white as snow, and his bearing is gathered and noble, and he has the virtue of ripe age. This is the second grand thing." This pointed to Jeong Changson, chief state councillor, Prince of Bongwon. One was this. "The officer who receives guests takes deep cups and great bowls and passes them back and forth without count, and he could drink a whole seok. This is the third grand thing." This pointed to Yi Sukmun, director of studies at the Seonggyungwan.

A court officer whose surname was O was to die for taking what was not his. The office charged with the review of sentences (讞) had reported three times, the judgment was already given, and the next day he was to be put to death. His wife, a lady of the Heo family, brought out a secret plan. She had one house servant put on a woman's clothes and wrap his head in a hat and go to the jailer and say, "I am the wife of the criminal O, a woman of the Heo family. I have heard that my husband dies tomorrow, and I wish to take leave of him once." The jailer pitied her and allowed it. They went to an empty place, and the servant wept and made the show of a husband and wife parting forever. The servant had carried in a knife and a saw beforehand, and as his hand went he cut away the lock and the fetters and put them on his own body, and then he put the wife's clothes on his master and pushed him out of the prison gate, saying, "The woman of the Heo family takes her leave and goes." A fast horse had been set outside, and the master mounted at once and fled. After a while the jailer went in and looked, and it was not the criminal but the servant. They gave chase but did not catch him. King Sejong held the servant's act righteous and let him go.

A daughter of the Sin family, of gentle birth, had newly become a widow, and a merit subject whose surname was Jo, past seventy, asked for her in marriage. She wavered like a rat at its hole and could not decide. Jo had a nephew who had become a royal son-in-law and was newly risen in rank, and he sent a man to talk her round, saying, "The men of old said, 'If in the morning one hears the Way, one may die in the evening.' Now if you are the wife of a minister in the morning and a widow in the evening, that too does no harm to a good name." She knew a little of the sense of letters and thought it right. When the evening of the wedding came, Jo was suddenly taken with an illness of the bladder and went twice to the privy, and a shortness of breath came upon him besides. Through a crack in the window she watched how worn and old he was, and she ran away. The next day she appealed to the Censorate. The censors impeached Jo, saying, "As a minister and a merit subject he took a woman of gentle birth by force and lost the dignity of the court." Jo said, "She first heard the words, 'If in the morning one hears the Way, one may die in the evening,' and gave her consent. I did not take her by force." The censors impeached her, and she said, "The royal son-in-law did indeed say such words, and I heard them at the first. A woman keeps her honor and does not serve two. How should I have meant to let the words of the great sage take my honor from me?" The censors held her right and Jo wrong, and Jo lost his office. The next year she married an old man of the Privy Council, and the talk of the world was loud. I once read of Choe Gwan, a chancellor in the reign of King Injong of Goryeo, who at past eighty took out the fortune cast for him in his youth and sighed and said, "All I have passed through in my life is just as it was set beforehand. Only this, that in my old age I should have a noble son, is empty words." Not long after, a household of high office nearby was about to take a son-in-law, but the bridegroom died suddenly and it came to nothing. Choe Gwan sent a maidservant to ask for the daughter in marriage, and her parents could not decide. One day in the inner room the mother quietly said to the daughter, "For a daughter of a house of standing, which is better, to marry a petty official and grow old with him, or to be the wife of a chancellor even for one day?" The daughter said at once, "The second is good." So they were married, and she conceived, and in the seventh month Choe Gwan died. She bore a son, and he was Choe Hongyun. She kept her honor to the end of her life. Hongyun was chosen first in the second class in the gyesa year of King Myeongjong, and his office reached chancellor. Once he took charge of the licentiate examination and four times he opened the examination hall of rites. The lady his mother was strong and hale and enjoyed her blessings. One like the lady Sin is a criminal before the lady Choe.

Of late there was a house servant whose face and form were very like a woman's. From childhood the servant wore a woman's clothes, and past the age of forty he went in and out at the gates of the houses of the gentry, and the matter came rather to light. The censors and remonstrators asked that he be dealt with by the law, but King Sejo held that the matter touched upon what was unclear and pardoned him. He looked round at your servant Geojeong and asked, "What is in your mind on this?" Geojeong answered, "When your servant was young he read the records and tales of the rivers and lakes. Between the Jiang and the Huai there was a nun skilled in sewing and embroidery. A good family sent their daughter to serve her as her teacher, and of a sudden the girl was found to be with child. Her father and mother questioned her sharply, and the girl said, 'I slept and lived with the nun day after day, and there was something like the feeling of the way of man and woman, and it has come to this.' The good family appealed to the magistrate of the county to look into it, and when the nun was examined closely, both ways, the yin and the yang, were wanting. The magistrate was about to let her go, when an old widow said, 'The law has a use for salt water. Wet the place of the male root with it and have a yellow dog lick it, and the male way comes out backward.' The magistrate tried it, and it was so indeed. The magistrate gave judgment, saying, 'The way in heaven is called yin and yang. The way in man is called man and woman. Now this one is neither man nor woman and has thrown into confusion the rightness of the way of man.' So the nun was put to death, and the people between the Jiang and the Huai all thought it well done. The principles of things under heaven are without end, even so." King Sejo laughed and said, "You must not force yourself to seem to know things."

In the prefecture of Gyeongju a village woman lived alone in her old age. One night there was suddenly a great thunder, and soon it cleared. In the middle of the yard there was a thing, and its glittering light shone in her eyes. She went up and looked, and it was a bright bead, round, as large as a hen's egg. She put it in her room, and every night its light was like a lamp, so that even a fine hair could be seen by it. The old woman knew it was no common thing. There was a bad young man in the neighborhood who coaxed her hard and put it in his sleeve and carried it off, and then lied to her, saying that he had given it up to the prefecture. Six years later the old woman appealed to the prefecture, and the court sent an officer to look into it. The bad young man said, "It was given up to the prefecture in the time of Jeong Bal, the former prefect." Jeong did not admit it, and in the end it was not got back. The people of the district said, "The bad young man was poor and in want before, but after he got the bead he grew richer day by day. It must be because of this bead."

Of late a monk was going about the villages and begging, and he came to a country house in Chungju and made the cry of one begging in the cold, but it was still and there was no trace of anyone. After a long while he heard a woman weeping aloud, and while he stood there uncertain an old widow came out and said to him, "This old widow lived with her husband and her daughter, the three of us together, and today, in the time it takes to eat a meal, my husband and my daughter died at once. I am struck helpless and fallen down and do not know what to do. I beg you, master, to have pity." The monk went in and looked, and within the one room the old father, the young daughter, the cat, and the snake, the four of them, lay dead together in disorder. The monk asked how it had come about, and the widow said, "My daughter suddenly suffered a swelling of her finger, and in a moment it was as thick as a shin, and her waist and her belly too were like a jar, and at once she died. It seems the cat caught the snake and ate its tail and left the head, and the snake stung the girl and it came to this. The father was angry with the cat and would have killed it, and the cat was afraid and hid on the shelf. The father's anger was not spent and he made as if to seize it, and the cat suddenly flew down and gripped the father's throat, and then it could not get free and was cut down and died, and the father died as well." Before her words were done she wept aloud until she was near to losing her breath. The monk said, "The guilt of these four from three lives is such as this. If blessings for the dead are not made ready, they will hardly get free through age after age." The two bodies were burned to ashes, and the cat and the snake were gathered and one grave was made for them, and people called it the grave of the cat and the snake.

I once looked at the Yingchong lu, which says, "The people of Goryeo love white clothes. Doseon said, 'The East belongs to wood, so it ought to honor blue, yet it honors white. This is metal overcoming wood, and it is not right.'" I, Geojeong, think this. Within the yang there is yin, and within the yin there is yang. The East belongs to blue and yet honors white, and this is the yin within the yang. Reasoning from this, the West belongs to metal and honors white, and the faces of the men of the Western Regions are all blue. The North belongs to water and honors black, and the faces of the men there are all purple. The South belongs to fire and honors red, and the faces of the men there are all black. This is the meaning of yin and yang.

There was a woman shaman who could speak the words of the spirits. When she was asked, by way of trial, about things past, she hit the mark a hundred times in a hundred. When she was asked about things to come, she did not hit it once in a hundred. Once some scores of wild and reckless fellows went straight to the shaman's house and called her out to be tried, and her mouth was shut and would not open. Now a man is yang and the spirits are yin, and that yin lies down before yang is what must be so by principle. And that men shamans are few and women shamans many is the proof of it.

The lord of Ouchi in Japan, holding that his forebears came out of our country, showed a devotion in looking toward us beyond the common. I once examined the former histories through and through and could not learn where they came from. Only the Silla suijeon says this. By the shore of the Eastern Sea there were people, the husband called Yeono (迎烏) and the wife Seo-o (細烏). One day Yeono was gathering seaweed by the shore and was suddenly carried off to Japan, and there he became lord of a small island. Seo-o went looking for her husband and was also carried off to that country, and she was set up as queen. At that time the sun and the moon of Silla lost their light, and the officer of the heavens reported, "Yeono and Seo-o are the essence of the sun and the moon, and now they have gone to Japan, and so there is this strange thing." The king sent an envoy to seek the two of them, and Yeono said, "That I have come here is the will of heaven." He sent by the envoy the silk that Seo-o had woven and said, "Make sacrifice to heaven with this, and it will be well." So the place of the sacrifice to heaven was named Yeongil (迎日), and a county was set up there. This was in the fourth year of King Adal of Sara. Among the men of our country these are the only ones who became rulers in Japan. Only I do not know whether the tale is right or wrong. The forebears of the Ouchi may perhaps have come from this.

In the reign of King Sejong the Song shi had not come to Joseon. The king asked for it several times but did not receive it as an imperial gift. One day the masters of the Hall of Worthies were discussing the men of the Song court, and I, Geojeong, was in the lowest seat. Someone said, "If one were making the Song shi, in which account should Wang Anshi stand?" All the masters said, "He should stand in the accounts of the treacherous ministers." One or two spoke against this and said, "Wang Anshi made new laws and threw the world into disorder, and he was truly a small man. Yet in his writing and in his integrity there is much that can be praised, and if one searches out his heart, it was never anywhere but in grieving for the country and grieving for the people. That he brought the world to wrong was only that he was far from the ways of the world and stubborn. He cannot be set in a rank with the likes of Qin Hui and Cai Jing. He should stand in the ordinary accounts." Yu Seongwon urged this view with all his strength. Before long the Song shi came, and Wang Anshi stood indeed in the ordinary accounts. Yu Seongwon was glad and said, "Long ago, when the Gangmu of Master Zhu had not yet reached our country, Master Yi of Ikjae in Goryeo read the annals of Empress Wu in the Zizhi tongjian and sighed sadly and made a couplet which said, 'How shall one take the leftover portion of Zhou and join it to the sun and moon of our Tang?' Later the Gangmu was obtained, and Master Zhu had indeed cast out Zhou and honored Tang. Master Ikjae was rather proud of himself for it. I dare not set myself beside the old man Ikjae, and yet I ought to receive the flags of surrender from you gentlemen."

In the Xining years of the Song, Goryeo sent an envoy into the Song. Emperor Shenzong ordered Zeng Gong to write the record of the generations of Goryeo, and he joined the Goryeo of the Wang house upward to Jumong, so that Goguryeo had already lost its line of descent. Zeng Gong asked the emperor to have his servant Bi Zhongxing, in the course of talking with the envoy, quietly ask him about the generations of Goryeo, and, if he could not answer, to have him look for the records when he returned to his country, so that envoys coming later might bring the answer with them. So the envoy was asked, and the envoy of Goryeo could not tell apart the lines of Goguryeo and of Goryeo and report them. This is much to be regretted. Now I examine the history of Goryeo, and in the third year of Xining Goryeo sent Kim Je, minister of the Ministry of Personnel, as envoy to bring tribute to the Song. This envoy, then, was perhaps Kim Je.

The stele of Geonwolleung, the tomb of King Taejo, was composed by Gwon Geun, Duke Munchung. The stele of Heolleung, the tomb of King Taejong, was composed by Byeon Gyeryang, Duke Munsuk. The stele of Yeongneung, the tomb of King Sejong, was composed by Jeong Inji, Duke Munseong. When it came to Hyeolleung, the tomb of King Munjong, a stele was to be set up after the manner of the three tombs, and the work had already been begun, when one who offered counsel said, "From of old the traces of what a ruler has done are fully set down in the history of the country. There is no need to set up a stele on the spirit path as the gentry do." He asked that it be stopped, and the king followed him. Later, when Yeongneung was moved to Yeoju, its stele too was buried and not used. That no stele is set up at the royal tombs of this dynasty began with Hyeolleung.

The Gyewon pilgyeong written by Choe Chiwon is set down in the Wenxian tongkao. Looking at it now, Choe Chiwon's writing is odd and strange, rough and out of the way, and not enough to move the world. Of late someone got a collection in a Tang printing and brought it back, and it was the work of Naong, a monk of our country. Naong had no learning at first, but later he had the merit of hard striving and came to know letters. The verses in the record of his sayings are unpracticed too. Yet now the whole of it is cut on blocks and goes about in China. What the men of China cut on blocks is not always good. I went to the capital of China lately, and there was a student named Shao Zhen who lived by copying writing for hire, and he recited several poems of Yi Sungin of Doeun. I asked where he had got them, and he said, "They were given me by Yi Byeon, a minister of your country." Jeong Inji, Duke Munseong, once told how, when he went to the capital, he met a scholar of the Confucian learning who said, "The Mogeun collection of your country is the best of all, and it can stand against Huang Tingjian and Su Shi." He asked where he had got it, and the man said, "It was given me by Kim Jaan, an interpreter of your country."

Ever since Gija received his fief from Zhou, the East raised up the teaching of the eight articles and practiced the law of the well-field. How should there have been no historians in that time? But the books they wrote are not handed down. Silla, Goguryeo, and Baekje stood like the three legs of a cauldron, yet here too there is no history that can be handed down. Kim Busik, in making the Samguk sagi, gathered up the Zizhi tongjian, the Sanguo zhi, the histories of the Southern and Northern dynasties, the Sui shu, and the Tang shu, and made of them his accounts, his tables, and his treatises, so that it is already not a book that hands down what can be trusted. When he comes to setting down events, he always cites the book he drew them from, which is still less the manner of making a history. And for such matters as invasions and sworn meetings, he writes one and the same event over again in the records of all three kingdoms, without changing the wording in the least, so this too is not to be taken.

What Kim Gwanui and Min Ji said in discussing the line of Goryeo, that they were the seed of a dragon, and that they were of a noble surname of Tang, is all wild and without substance. In the reign of King Hyeonjong, Hwang Juryang made the veritable records of seven generations from Taejo down, and there is not one word in them that touches on this. Kim Gwanui and Min Ji were born some hundreds of years later, and yet they were able to know what Hwang Juryang did not set down in his book. This is the more to be doubted. If it were as they say, then the founder of Goryeo did not take his great-grandfather for his grandfather but took the father of his great-grandmother for his grandfather, and further a father is made the ancestral father and that man's daughter the ancestral mother. How can there be such a principle under heaven? I know the tale is false. Yet those who made the history of Goryeo later took it in and attached it to the outer records (外紀). Why was that?

The long compilation of the Goryeo bonsa was completed under this dynasty by Kim Jongseo and Jeong Inji. I once saw the preface of Jeong Chong, which said, "In the reign of King Gongmin, Yi Jehyeon made the Saryak, and it stopped at King Sukjong. Yi Inbok and Yi Saek made the Geumgyeongnok, and it stopped at King Jeongjong." Of the Saryak I have not seen the whole book, but the judgments of Yi Jehyeon go about the world. Of the Geumgyeongnok I have not seen the book at all, and I doubt that the book was ever finished. At the beginning of the founding of Joseon, Jeong Dojeon and Jeong Chong were ordered to make the Goryeosa, and Jeong Chong made the preface to it, but I have not seen the book, and I doubt that the book was ever finished. Or else it was finished and yet had places not fully done, and so was not handed down.

Eo Hyocheom, Duke Munhyo, once weighed and argued against the doctrines of the geomancers of the mountains, and he set the matter out fully in a memorial, clear and upright and large. King Sejong asked Jeong Inji, Duke Munseong, "Hyocheom's argument is so. But in the burial of his own father and mother, could he do without this method?" Inji said, "I once bore a commission to Haman and saw that Hyocheom had buried his father beside the garden of his house. He does not seem to be one taken in by geomancy. Yet the spirits of the blue dragon and the white tiger, of the dark warrior and the red bird, on the left and on the right, before and behind, are absent from no place." Munseong's argument, though it spoke of what Hyocheom had got right, cannot be said to have been free of the rules of the geomancers either. Later, when Munhyo buried his mother, he laid her in the same ground as his late father, and when Munhyo died, his sons Segyeom and Segong buried him by the water at Gwangjin and did not choose the ground either. Such was the rule of that house.

In my young days I went with two or three fellow students to play at a mountain temple, and we saw a painting of the Buddha with this written above it: "Eulogy by Confucius, painting by Wu Daozi, writing by Su Shi." One of them said, "It is an old painting and must be a fine one. Why not put it in our sleeve and take it away?" There was one among us who forced his reckoning of things, and he said, "Confucius was a man of Zhou. The law of the Buddha first came into China in the time of Emperor Ming of Han, so to say that Confucius made a eulogy of the Buddha has no reason in it. And Wu Daozi was a man of Tang. How could a painting by Wu Daozi carry a eulogy by Confucius? Su Shi was born a thousand years and more after, so how could he be of the same time as Confucius and write out a eulogy that Confucius made? This must be the work of some meddler of a later age." We were all young and could not reckon such things, and we believed him. Later I saw this painting at the house of a young man of rank, and it was called the first of all paintings old and new and stood at the head of his album. I looked at it closely, and what was called the eulogy of Confucius was the saying set down in the Liezi, that Confucius said, "In the West there is a great sage. His name is Buddha. He does not speak, and yet he is trusted. He does nothing, and yet he transforms." Su Shi had taken this and written it out. The words of the man who forced his reckoning that day may be given over to a laugh. Those of later ages who do not know the head or the tail of a thing and force themselves to seem to know are all of this kind.

Nam Ji and Hwang Susin, both state councillors, each became chief minister, and in merit and fame, in wealth and rank, no one of their age could be compared with them. They used always to say, "If a man does not have his name written on the red paper, the rest is not worth looking at." They held this to be their own want, and nothing more.

Seol Sun, a proctor of the academy, was simple and upright in nature, and his learning was deep. Seol Sun's grandfather Seol Son was a famed graduate at the court of the Yuan, and at the end of the Yuan he fled the disorder and came to Goryeo. He had three sons, called Jangsu, Misu, and Gyeongsu, and all were known for their writing. When Seol Sun came in to attend the royal lecture, King Sejong asked, "How many uncles have you?" Seol Sun said, "Uncle Jangsu, uncle Misu, and uncle Gyeongsu." The king said, "Is not Gyeongsu your father?" Seol Sun lowered his voice and said, "Yes, yes." The king laughed and said, "Sun is truly an upright man left us from the old days."

Heo Seong, Duke Gonggan, was stubborn in nature. He was once minister of the Ministry of Personnel, and he served the public good and kept to what was right, so that no private request could reach him. He hated it when men asked favors, and when a request came he always did the opposite of what was asked. A court officer whose turn had come to be moved, and who was to be given a post outside the capital, asked for an office in the southern provinces, and he was given a border county in Pyeongan Province. A man of letters asked for a fine post among the civil officials, and he was given a teaching post outside the capital. Irun, a monk of Heungdeoksa, was full of tricks and deceits and had many schemes, and he wished to live at Dansoksa. He made a false plea, saying, "I hear that the hills and streams of Yeongmyeongsa in the western province are fine, and I wish to go and live there once. If I am made to live at Dansoksa, my affairs are finished." Some days later the answer came down that Irun was to live at Dansoksa, and Irun laughed aloud and said, "The old thief has fallen into my trick already."

Gwon Jin, Duke Mungyeong, had a child who used much paper in learning to write. His wife said, "The price of paper is very high, and I fear we cannot keep him supplied." Mungyeong said, "Ah, what words are these? There are worthless sons who buy wine in the green towers and spend ten thousand coins in a day, and there are very many who sink into gambling and hunting, into dogs and horses and flowers, and break up the household. What does the paper for learning to write cost beside that? You talk too much, madam."

Yang Seongji, Duke Munyang, while he was in the Hall of Worthies, argued the affairs of the time again and again in sealed memorials. Several men said, "If a thing is not urgent for the business of the day, there is no need to trouble the throne like this." Munyang said, "Master Zhu of Hoeam, in the time of Emperor Guangzong of Song, stood at court forty-six days and sent up scores of memorials. I have attended the throne more than ten years, and my memorials do not come to scores. How can you speak so?"

Sin Yujeong, Duke Mujeol, once met with Japanese raiders, and they made him kneel and were about to cut off his head. Mujeol saw that the raider's scrotum hung down between his two legs, and he suddenly seized it with his hand and pulled, and the raider fell to the ground. He drew a sword and cut him down, and men called him a fierce general from that time. Later he held the axe of command and guarded the border, and he was known for his valor and his hardness. But his nature was very quick, and when he saw what was wrong in a man he never stopped until he had railed at him in anger with all his mouth. His grandson Sin Seokjo, Duke Munhui, used always to say, "My nature is quick," and he wore a strip of leather to warn himself. Once, while he was compiling the history in the Office of Annals, he shared brush and inkstone with a lesser officer. In his haste the lesser officer looked round toward a clerk and said in a loud voice, "Sin Seokjo, bring the water for the inkstone." At once he was ashamed and flushed red and hung his head and could not look up. Munhui went to him quickly and took his hand and said, "When we were young, was this the only slip of the tongue we made before our teachers and our elders?" He called for wine at once and filled the cups and drank with him face to face, and men bowed to the largeness of his heart.

When Hwang Hyowon, Duke Yangpyeong, was superintendent of the State Tribunal, someone laid a complaint that the wife of a man of letters had had dealings with a house servant and borne a child, and the matter was being looked into. The scholar's wife would not admit it. A commander of the guard whose surname was Gu had charge of the questioning, and he told Yangpyeong, "The scholar's wife hides it stubbornly, but from the look of the thing it seems to be the child of Hwang Hyowon." Yangpyeong said, "If it were my child, what more should I have to worry about?" And the whole room laughed aloud.

I was once in the Hall of Worthies, sitting with Yi Seungso, Duke Mungan. A colleague, Yu Seongwon, asked us to make a funeral banner for Yi, the magistrate of Haeju, and said, "He is a descendant of the academician Ssangmae." Mungan said, "If this man is a descendant of Ssangmae, how is it that he has no fragrant virtue?" Yu answered on the instant, "If a man lives in the district of Gojuk (孤竹), is his integrity surely pure?" Now the other name of Haeju is Gojuk, and the parents of Mungan lived at Haeju.

Yi Byeon, Duke Jeongjeong, was steep and upright in nature. He was assistant minister of the Ministry of Personnel, and whenever offices were graded he objected much to what his chief did, and so they were not on good terms. One day among the officers outside the capital there was one who sent fresh fish and good meat, and he would not take it. Hearing that his chief had taken it, he went that day to call on his chief, and he was served with the good meat. Jeongjeong lifted his chopsticks and said, "Is this what they call the flesh that honks?" His chief bore it deep in his heart.

Yi Seungso, Duke Mungan, was minister of the Ministry of Rites, and one of his junior officers drank every day without stopping and left much of the public business undone. One of his colleagues wished to have the man put out, and Mungan laughed and said, "The aide Xu was deaf for a long time and heard badly, yet his chief could not bear to cut him off. Now this junior officer is drunk for long stretches, but there are many hours when he is sober too. Why then should he be put out?"

Jo Unheul of Seokgan was from his youth strange and great and outstanding, and he did not rise and fall together with the world. At the end of Goryeo, seeing that the world was in disorder, he gave out that he was blind and would not take office. Under this dynasty he was prefect of the two prefectures of Gyerim and Gangneung, and before long he gave out that he was ill and chose a place to live at Gowonchon in Gwangju, and he hid his traces and did not show himself. One day Kim Sahyeong, Duke of Sangnak, the left state councillor, called on him as he passed and meant to urge him to take office once more. Seokgan wore a hemp jacket with wide sleeves and a reed hat, and he made a long bow and did not exchange a single word with him. Sangnak said, "What is to be done with the old ways of this stiff-necked old man?" and he called for his carriage and went back. Seokgan rode an ox every day and went back and forth between the two rest houses of Jeonggeumwon and Gwangjinwon and helped travelers on their way. He once chanted to himself, "Riding a yellow ox with the green hills beside me, how rough and rough is the color of this body of mine. It is not worth one bolt of hemp."

Yi Maenggyun, Duke Munhye, was fine and deep in learning, and his brushwork was high and subtle, and he had the manner of Mogeun of Hansan. His place rose to igong (貳公), but late in life he stumbled though he had done no wrong, and he had no son to come after him. He once made a poem: "Since the way of man arose among men, father and son have handed it on and it has come down to this body of mine. What is my crime, that heaven does not care for me, and I am not the father of a man, while the hairs at my temples turn newly white?" There is in it the sense of a life crossed and unfulfilled. Everyone said, "Bodao had no son. The saying that the way of heaven cannot be known holds for Munhye too."

Yi Jongseon, Duke Mungyeong, was the son of Mogeun, and Gwon Cheon, a military commissioner, was the son of Yangchon. Mungyeong was the husband of the commissioner's sister. The commissioner once said to Mungyeong in his cups, "You are the son of Mogeun, and your writing falls short. I am the child of Yangchon, and my name in letters falls short as well. You and I, brothers, ought to form a society of 'It is dark under the lamp.'" All who heard it laughed.

Han Gyehui, Duke Munjeong, went fine and far in learning, and his understanding and his sight were high and lofty, and King Sejo valued him greatly as a vessel. When he was minister of the Ministry of Personnel he said quietly to the throne, "Your servant waits for punishment in the seat of selection. I keep my door open and receive the gentry and weigh the qualities of men, and still I fear that I cannot sift the worthy from the foolish. How much more now, when the rule of advancement by years of service is set up and the ban on scrambling for office is made strict. This is to make the deaf and the blind tell sounds and colors apart. I beg that it be done away with." The king said, "If all who come after you were like you, it might be. But without you it will not do." The duke, in grading men, went wholly by the utmost fairness and never spared an old friend for a private kindness. When some of the gentry asked an office for a pupil, he did not refuse them harshly but said, "The men of old said, 'When one recommends from within, one does not leave out one's own sons and younger brothers.' He who speaks in honor of worth goes not too far, and he who uses such a man does not act from private favor." If a man, only because a youth came of a rich house, were to leave even a trace of holding back, he would not be one who knows the great body of using men.

Yi Ye, Duke Munjil, said, "The duty of one who attends close at the royal lectures lies in discussing and thinking, in offering what is right and changing what is wrong, and in setting straight what is crooked in the ruler's heart. That is all. When it comes to arguing the right and wrong of the great government of the state and weighing men, his thought has gone outside his place and it is not his duty. Of late the newly risen men who attend the throne do not know the great body of things and love to argue the gains and losses of the government of the day. Some pick out the small faults of ministers and of the gentry and spread them abroad at court and set their hearts on having them driven out, and so they sell themselves and show themselves off. This is very wrong. The men of old thought it wrong even that government should lie with the censors and the academies. How much more when it comes out of the attendants? I do not know that this can be right."

Kim Suon, Duke Munpyeong, loved learning from his youth and was never idle in it. He read widely and remembered much, and in the classics, the histories, the philosophers and the schools, and in the books of Liezi and Zhuangzi and Laozi and of the Buddha, there was nothing so hidden that he did not light it and nothing so deep that he did not search it out. His writing too was strange and great, steep and vigorous. Though his office rose to the highest grade, he lived plainly, like a poor scholar. He always rode a horse, and his thin bones stood out sharp, and within a month he lost several horses one after another. Someone said, "Why do you not have the groom feed them and tend them well, and beat him hard when he fails?" Munpyeong said, "How can I let guilt fall on a man for the sake of a beast?" Such was his kindness and his mercy.

Kang Huimaeng, Duke Mullyang, said, "The trouble of factions at the court of Song arose from Duke Kou of Lai (寇萊公) striking at men. The abuse that flowed from it left even Cheng and Zhu unable to escape faction. Now I see the scholars newly risen, young in years and keen in spirit, making it their daily business to strike at men. What will the abuse of it be?"

The four pillars of the birth of Jeong Inji, Duke Munseong, are byeongja, sinchuk, musul, and eulmyo. The four pillars of Su Dongpo are byeongja, sinchuk, muo, and eulmyo. Their fates are nearly the same, and their writing and their fame are nearly the same as well. When I once composed the stele of Munseong, I put in the words that the four pillars of his making were the same as those of Su, the academician. Someone laughed and said, "In composing a stele one should set forth virtue. It is not fitting to discuss divination and fate." I said, "Master Yi of Ikjae once composed the stele of Gwon Bu, Duke Munjeong of Gukjae, and wrote, 'Muja and gimi hold empty the stipend of im and sa, and they strike against each other and bring it forth.' I, Geojeong, take Ikjae for my model, and that is why these words are there." And the man laughed.

Kim Sunyeong, Duke Mundo, was twice a royal secretary, and both times he was dismissed from the post. Kang Huimaeng, Duke Mullyang, said, "How is it that you become a royal secretary twice and are driven out twice?" Mundo said, "Is being able to be dismissed twice not better than never being one at all?" This was to mock Mullyang for never having been a royal secretary.

Mundo was first in the examination of the gyeyu year. When the second examination was to be opened in the jeongchuk year, Mundo said to people, "After Jeong Inji, why should there be no other Jeong Inji?" This was because Jeong had been first both in the first examination and in the second, and Kim had a mind to look toward first place, but in the end he failed. I teased Kim and said, "Li Guang was a general and trusted that he had no match, and Liu Fen answered the questions and yet did not pass. How was that?" Kim said, "If one cannot be the first man of the first class, what is there to take in being the first man of the second class?" This was to mock me for having been the first man of the second class.

When Hwang Hui, Duke Ikseong, was state councillor, Kang Maenggyeong, Duke Mungyeong, was one of his assistants. Ikseong said, "This old thing has seen many men. The junior officer Kang is a great vessel, and before ten years are out he will take my seat." Later it was just as he said.

The treatise on geography in the Goryeosa says, "Chunju was originally the country of Maek." Chunju is the Chuncheon of today. I once examined the "Wucheng" chapter of the Shu jing, which says, "Among the Hua and the Xia, the Man and the Maek, there were none who did not follow and submit." The Mengzi says, "the lesser Maek and the greater Maek," and the letter 貉 is sounded maek, the same as 貊. The note says, "Maek is a country of the barbarians of the north. In the north the land is cold and the five grains do not grow. Only millet grows there, and it ripens early." In the time of King Wu, Gija had not yet been given Joseon as his fief, and yet the country of Maek was there already. In the time of Mengzi the descendants of Gija still held Joseon, so how could the country of Maek have lain in between? The treatise on geography in the Goryeosa also says, "Myeongju was originally the country of Ye. Some call it the country of Seon. Some call it the country of Ye." Myeongju is the prefecture of Gangneung today. I once examined the Yunhui, which says, "Yemaek is the name of a country of the Eastern Yi." And in the annals of Emperor Wu in the Han shu, on the words "Nam Yeo, lord of Ye among the Eastern Yi," the note says, "Yemaek lies north of Jinhan and south of Goguryeo and Okjeo, and eastward it reaches the great sea." I quietly suspect that Ye and Maek were one country from the first, called by two names. Still more, Chuncheon is not far from Gangneung. Chuncheon lies west of the pass and Gangneung east of it. The treatise on geography also says, "In the time of Goryeo, Chuncheon belonged to Gyoju Province and Gangneung to the Eastern Border, and Hwaju and Myeongju were divided off to make Sakbang Province." That Myeongju was made part of Sakbang is the more to be doubted.

The annals of the Later Liang in the Zizhi tongjian say, "Gungye, the one-eyed monk of Seokgulsa in Goryeo, gathered a following and took Gaeju and called himself king, and named the country Daebong (大封). He sent Kim Ipgi, an aide commandant, to bring tribute to Wu." Now Gungye (躬乂) is the same as Gungye (弓裔), and Gaeju is the prefecture of Gaeseong, and Daebong is Taebong, which is the Cheorwon of today. Seokgulsa is Sedalsa, and where it stands now is not known.

The Exalted Emperor Taizu issued a table of letters to be avoided in memorials and in letters to the throne. Such letters as "to lean and topple over," "to crumble and be defeated," "to be cut off and vanish," and "to die young" have an ill sense, and they may well be avoided. But such letters as "a hundred million years without end," "to have the Way," "to know at birth," and "bright and clear," how are these to be avoided? Of late Qi Shun of the Ministry of Revenue came bearing his commission, and I showed him the table of letters to be avoided and asked, "Is this used at the court of China as well?" He said, "There is no such thing. The memorials and letters of all the lords within the seas do not use it either. This must be in force in your country alone." My own thought is this. In the Hongwu years the emperor was angry that Kim Ui had killed an envoy and gone over to the Yuan of the barbarians, and in the end he turned the blame upon the words of a memorial for not being earnest, and he summoned the civil officers Jeong Chong and Kim Yakhang and others and brought them to punishment, and then issued the table of letters to be avoided. This came out of a command of the emperor at one moment, and it is not a thing to be followed in later ages.

In the time of King Sukjong of Goryeo, Kim Wije, an assistant of the Guard Office, relied on the secret records of Doseon and asked that the capital be moved to Namgyeong, saying, "In Yangju there is the plain of Mongmyeok, and a capital may be set up there." The king went himself and looked at it, and he also sent Choe Sachu and Yun Gwan and others to examine it. They came back and reported, "At Nowon, Haechon, Yongsan and such places the hills and the waters do not suit the setting up of a capital. Only south of Myeonak on Samgaksan do the form of the hills and the run of the waters agree with old times and new. We ask that the capital be set up on the great vein in the middle of the main ridge, seated at im and facing byeong, following the lay of the land." The king followed this. Later a dragon and phoenix canopy was buried at the ridge seated at im and facing byeong. If this is so, then Goryeo already knew that Hanyang would be the capital of the house of Yi. When our King Taejo was about to move the capital, he first examined the ground south of Gyeryongsan in Gongju and set the work going there, and only then divined for Hanyang. Why was that? When I was nine and ten years old I lived in the same village as Yi Yangdal, an officer of the heavens from the first years of the dynasty. Yi was eighty-five or eighty-six, and his mind had not weakened, and he used to say, "When the capital at Hanyang was first being fixed, Ha Ryun said, 'In the records of Doseon there are the words that the Han River enters the hall of light, so it ought to be set up south of Moak,' and that must be the ground of the present Yeonhuigung. I said, 'South of Hwaak is truly a great ground, and it does no harm to the saying that the Han River enters the hall of light either.' The many counsels could not be settled, and I said, 'The secret records of Doseon say that to the west there is Gongam, and also a rock wall with red writing on it. Gongam lies west of both grounds, so we must find the red writing before we can decide.' We found the red writing on a stone at Inwangdong, but the strokes of the letters were worn away and blurred and could not be made out. Still, having found it, the counsel was settled and the capital was set up. Only I do not know which hill Myeonak points to. If it is not Hwasan, it must be Buaak."

Someone asked me, "In China the teaching of the Buddha and the teaching of the Dao go on together, and the teaching of the Dao is the stronger. In our country the teaching of the Buddha is strong, but of the teaching of the Dao there is none at all. If the two laws went on together, the country is small and the people poor, so how could it be borne?" I said, "Our country has the Office of Sogyeok and the sacrifice at the Chamseong altar on Manisan and the like, and these are one part of the business of the Dao. In the capital and in the provinces, in the villages and the hamlets, there may be no men who wear the robe of the Dao and speak its words, yet the houses of the gentry pray for blessings at the beginning of every year, and when there is a house to be repaired or built they always use blind men to drive off calamity. Five or six or seven blind men read the scriptures, and those they pray to are all of the company of the star lords and the perfected ones, and the cost of the offerings is no small thing. To say that the teaching of the Dao is not practiced in our country is not to reckon the matter." That blind men should pray for blessings and drive off calamity is not seen among the men of old and is not practiced in China. It is only an old usage handed down in the customs of our country.

The doctrine of hills and waters began with Qingwuzi of the Later Han, and Tao Kan and Guo Pu followed after and completed it. In Tang there was Yang Yunsong, and in Song there was Hu Shunshen, and all of them were common and small scholars, not fit to speak of principle. They loved to make the geomancers' doctrine of fortune and misfortune, and by the quarter of the compass and the fairness or foulness of hill and water alone they fixed the good and ill luck of a man's descendants, dragging things together and forcing them to fit, petty and cluttered, wild and false in the extreme. And yet the men who came after are all taken in by the doctrine as a matter of course. Some do not bury their father and mother for several years, and some open the graves of their forebears again and again and move them elsewhere. They do not get the blessing, and harm follows after. Now the company of the geomancers say, "When King Tai moved to Qi, there are the words that he looked at its hills and rivers, its high ground and its wet ground. When the Duke of Zhou moved to Luo, there is the writing about the east of the Jian and the west of the Chan. So even before the three dynasties the doctrine of the earth was not lacking." They take hold of this and call it right. But the move to Qi and the move to Luo took only what was convenient for the dwelling of the people, for the roads, and for the carriage of goods. They were not shut within the doctrine of the blue dragon and the white tiger, the dark warrior and the red bird. Now within this country the resting places of the rulers all lie together within one compass, and through the five hundred years of the former dynasty the tombs of the rulers lay together in one ground as well. The high ministers and the gentry are always buried three months after death, and it is very plain that they do not choose the ground. And yet in every age there have been dukes and marquises, generals and ministers, and the years they have passed through are long and far. The doctrine of hills and waters is not enough to be believed.

From the first years of the dynasty there was one rhinoceros horn belt that the three high ministers handed on from one to another. In handing it on, a man always gave it to a disciple of his own. If he found the right man, well and good, but if he chose wrongly the world would mock him, so it was not given lightly. It came down to Ha Yeon, Duke Munhyo, and he handed it to Sin Seokjo, Duke Munhui, and Munhui died when his place had reached only the senior second grade, and so the belt was handed on no further.

In the handing on of the robe and bowl of letters there is an old way of its own. Gwon Je, Duke Mungyeong, held the office of chief of letters, and when his illness grew heavy the talk of the world pointed to Jeong Inji, Duke Munseong. Yet Mungyeong entrusted it to An Ji, Duke Munjeong, and died, and Munjeong took his place. Before long Munjeong was dismissed, and Munseong held it.

Kim Mun, a senior academician, was clever beyond other men and widely versed in the classics and the histories, and he was best of all in history. The Zizhi tongjian gangmu and the Zizhi tongjian lay all clear within him, and when a man asked about the old affairs of any age he answered on the instant, "It is in such a volume, on such a leaf," and he was not wrong once in a hundred times. When the Hunui was compiled in the time of King Sejong, much of the work was his. Since the founding of the dynasty he is counted the first of those versed in history. The care King Sejong had for him grew higher day by day, but he died early and could not make his gifts great. He was able with wine by nature. Once in the Hall of Worthies he was talking with his colleagues, and one of them said, "The academicians of the Song court, discussing the grades of tea, put the soup of purple perilla first, and among the good tastes of the palace in the Shilin guangji steamed chicken is put first." The duke smiled a little and said, "How should the soup of purple perilla match new wine at the top of the jar, and how should steamed chicken match roast ox heart?" The whole company laughed.

Yun Hoe, Duke Mundo, was first of his age in writing. In the reign of King Sejong he alone faced the king at the royal lectures. But by nature he loved wine and drank beyond his measure. One day he was at home lying dead drunk when King Sejong sent a palace messenger to call him in haste. Those about him held him up and set him on a horse, and the wine of the day before was not yet out of him, and everyone was afraid for him. But when he came before the king he set out his answers quietly, and there was not the least sign of drink in him. The king ordered him to draft a proclamation, and he swept his brush as though it flew, and all of it met the king's mind. The king said, "He is a true genius." People of that time said, "The star of letters (文星) and the star of wine (酒星) gathered their essence and brought forth this one worthy."

Seong Im, Duke Munan, was fine in all three hands, the regular, the cursive, and the clerical. The late Duke Gonghye said, "Your uncle Dokgok, Duke Mungyeong, was known throughout his age for fine writing. Looking at your brushwork, it seems you will not let the calling of the house fall." His way of writing went on improving in his later years. He once wrote the stele of Wongaksa, and King Sejo admired it and praised it. Among the hands of our day, the duke's is the finest.

Yu Hyotong, a proctor of the academy, was able in writing and good at raising a laugh. Once in the Hall of Worthies he was discussing with others the work of making poems, and Yu said, "The men of old said that one can best set one's thoughts on a poem in the three ons 〔三上〕, which are on a horse, on a pillow, and on the privy. For me it is not so. It is in the three withins 〔三中〕." The others asked, "What are they?" He said, "Within leisure, within drink, and within moonlight." The others laughed and said, "Your three withins are better indeed than the three ons."

Hong Yunseong, Duke Wipyeong, became a minister while still young in years, and his house was rich and lavish in the extreme. Every day he called fine guests and opened a feast, and the fare of the feast was ample and clean and cost no less than ten thousand coins. Even He Zeng could not have gone beyond it. Wipyeong's measure for wine was very great. At that time Hwang Susin, Duke Yeolseong, and Kim Ha, Duke Jeongseon, had a measure for wine that matched Wipyeong's, and though they drank hard all day there was not the least sign of drink in them.

King Sejo once called Wipyeong Gyeongeumdang (鯨飮堂), the hall of whale drinking, and had it cut on a seal and gave it to him. In the neighborhood there was a scholar of the Confucian learning who also loved wine. He once sent in his card and asked to be received within, saying, "A whale-drinking host and a whale-drinking guest. The host drinks like a whale, so how should the guest decline?" It was passed about and laughed over at the time.

Gwon Chae, a royal secretary, made a name in the world early for his writing, but he died young. Kim Jaung, a general, grieved for him deeply, and Bak Ichang, a secretary, said, "Do not worry that there is no man to hold the office of letters. When Mogeun went, Yangchon held it. When Yangchon went, Chunjeong held it. When Chunjeong went, Yun, the chief academician, held it. When the proctor of the academy went, Gwon of Jijae held it. If Jijae goes, Nam Sumun will surely hold it. If Sumun goes, I am here as well. If I go, the general is here too. Why grieve that Chae died young?" His meaning, that writing sank lower day by day, lay hidden beneath his words.

By the old rule, the assistant minister of the Ministry of Personnel was always raised to the second grade. As assistant minister of the Ministry of Personnel I was made envoy of thanks and went to the capital of China, and I borrowed a gold belt and wore it on the way. Everyone said that I would surely be raised to the second grade, and I too looked for it by the old rule. When the business of the embassy was done and I came back as far as the Amnok River, the assistant magistrate of Uiju came out onto the boat to meet me and said, "You have been moved to be assistant minister of the Ministry of Rites." So I took off the gold belt and put the silver belt on again, and my host and I caught each other's eye and laughed. In my cups I made a quatrain which said, "I have heard that the orange, crossing the Huai, becomes a bitter orange, but I have never seen gold pass over water and turn into silver." The whole company laughed aloud.

Jo Su, a director of studies, went to the end of many books and there was nothing he did not know, and he was best of all in the study of poetry. In the middle of his life he met with disaster in his family and was barred from office for more than thirty years. King Sejong valued his talent and brought him forward late and gave him the post of director of studies. He ordered the scholars of the Hall of Worthies to go to him turn about, day by day, and put questions to him, and the duke answered like an echo, and all bowed to the breadth of his learning. He was finest of all in the writings of Han Yu. When a man came to learn from him, the duke did not take up the book but closed his eyes and bent his head and taught by reciting from his mouth. He once said, "Cleverness is not the equal of reading much. I have read every one of my books a hundred times. That is why I do not forget them even in old age." His poems were bold and ample, noble and free. There are several volumes of the Manchwijeong collection. When I was young I too gathered my skirts before the master and was allowed to see his drafts and taste one morsel of them, and I remember a little of them still. But the master left no heir, and the drafts were never obtained in the end. In the same time there was Yu Bangseon, a registrar, who was also barred from office and not used. In learning and in writing he stood level with Jo, and in the clearness and fineness of his verses he went beyond him. King Sejong likewise ordered the scholars of the Hall of Worthies to go to him and put questions, and much was brought to light. Before I put on the robe of office, I studied under the master for four or five years together with Duke Gwon Ram of Gilchang and Duke Han Myeonghoe of Sangdang. That I have stolen a name in letters and have come to this day is all the gift of the master.

After the founding of this dynasty the study of composition (詞學) fell wholly away. In the year muo the examination for licentiates was first set up, and rhymed prose was used in the middle session, and from that time the study of poetry came to its full growth. It was all by the force of what the two masters taught. Yu has the Taejae collection, which goes about the world.

Kim Gugyeong, an academician of the hall, was known for his skill in poetry. At that time Byeon Gyeryang, Duke Munsuk, presided over letters, and Kim spoke ill of him often, and Munsuk was much displeased. He once made a poem to mock Kim, saying, "The writing of Jia Dao was the business of his young days. The learning of Hengqu came in his later years." Now Kim had been a monk in his youth, and Jia Dao too had been a monk in his youth, and Hengqu in his later years got clear of the Buddha and of Laozi and Zhuangzi, and so he spoke thus. It was passed about and laughed over at the time. The academician died young.

Seong Gan, a compiler, from childhood read widely and remembered much, and there was no book he did not read. In the classics and the histories, the hundred schools and the philosophers, in astronomy and geography, medicine and divination, the scriptures of the Dao and the teaching of the Buddha, in arithmetic and in the speech of other countries, he went down every by-path. When he heard that the house of one of the gentry or of a friend had a hidden classic or an out-of-the-way book, he would not rest until he had sought it out and seen it. When I was in the Hall of Worthies, Gan asked to see the secret books in the library. I said, "The secret books within should not be lightly shown to those outside," and I made a difficulty of it. One day, when I was on night duty alone, I suddenly heard the sound of a cough, and it was Gan. He begged the more earnestly to see the secret books, and so I allowed it. All night he kept the lamp lit and did not close an eyelid, and he read through nearly the whole of them. Later he spoke of the form and the binding and the number of volumes of the books in the library, and he was not out in the least. Ten years later Gan too passed the examination and entered the Hall of Worthies, and he sat long in the library with the books at his right and left, and through whole days and whole nights he read every book there, and his colleagues mocked him for a lust for books and a mania for records. But he wore himself thin with too much reading, and Seong died at the age of thirty. It is a grief.

The Office of Remonstrance had remonstrance for its duty and no other business of hearing suits and deciding cases, so day by day it made a business of drinking wine. The poem of Jo Unheul of Seokgan says, "One cup, one cup, and then another cup. The great remonstrator falls down drunk before the spring wind." That is just what this means. By the old ways within the office, if the officer on duty had not yet risen from his bed, a clerk of the office would call through the window, "The clerks bow and greet you." If he was already up, he sat with his cap and belt in order, and the clerks lifted up a table of honey cakes and set it before him. The dishes too were most ample and clean. They passed round a cup as large as a goose egg two or three times and then stopped. On the days of the full sitting a table of fruit was set out as well, and they drank merrily all day. Of such things there were very many. By the time I was made great remonstrator, such things as the table of fruit had already been done away with, but the clerks bowed and greeted as before. There was also the drinking party of the society of the Miwon (薇垣), and all the scholars longed for it. The Censorate keeps watch on all the officials, and its public business is heavy and pressing, and every task is done strictly and correctly, with care and with gravity. Yet the manners within the Censorate were rather out of the common and not the same as in other offices. There was what was called the tea hour (茶時) and what was called the full sitting (齊坐), and the manner of each was different. When the executive officer went in and out, the clerks of the Censorate walked holding him under the arms, following the old way of the aged executive officers of the former dynasty. I was twice chief censor, and I cut back and held down the small details of these manners a good deal. Yet one thing has not been done away with even now. When the head of the Censorate is about to leave his office, one of the clerks bows low and calls out in a loud voice, "The hour of sin (申時)," three times, and a little later calls again, "The chief clerk has sealed the chest, and the head of the Censorate may go out," and only then do the heads go out in their order. When a ban on wine happened to be in force, the censors did not drink, while the remonstrators drank merrily as ever. The remonstrators have men in red coats to go before them, and the censors have men in black coats to go before them. Once, during a ban on wine, a man in red, being very drunk, railed at a man in black and said, "I drink till the sun and the moon go down, and my drunken face is red, and so my coat is red too. You are sour and cold like your censors and do not drink wine, and your face is long and has a black cast, and so your coat is black too." All who heard it laughed.

In the time of Goryeo the Secretariat had five privy councillors and seven ministers, and as the numbers were small they gave out offices by turns. So half of those who held high office lived at leisure. At seventy a man always retired, and one who hid his age and did not retire was looked down on by the talk of the world, so many, even before they were full seventy, loosed the cord of their seal and begged to withdraw. Since the founding of this dynasty, though there is a law of retirement, the officers of the court, great and small, are greedy of their salary, and those who push past their years and stay on in office are everywhere. Of late the Censorate hated those who were very old and yet forced themselves to follow office, and it sent a letter to the board concerned to look up their ages and impeach them. I said, "When Duke Han of Wei held the government in Song, there was an officer of the court past seventy who had not retired, and his colleagues wished to impeach him. Duke Wei said, 'That he pushes past his years and does not retire, the fault of that is his. But to pick harshly at what a man hides and to set him in the net of the law, how should we call that well done either?' Before long the officer flushed with shame and retired and went away. The wide measure and the great heart of Duke Wei ought to be our model." So the proposal was dropped. From that time those of high age retired little by little.

Among the privy councillors there was one whose name was Ma Seung (馬勝), and among the officers of the court one whose name was Cha Yu (車有). Yi Seokhyeong, Duke Munan, and Kim Yemong, Duke Mungyeong, lived in the same village. One day they sat facing each other over a game of chess, and I, Geojeong, came in later with Song Cheogwan of the Privy Council, and the game was already far gone. I saw that Yi had two horses and stood strong, and that Kim had one chariot and stood weak. I said, "Then surely it is Ma Seung." Kim answered on the instant, "And am I not Cha Yu?" And we all laughed aloud.