Nokjin祿眞

Nokjin's surname and courtesy name are not known. His father was Subong, an ilgilchan. Nokjin first took office at the age of twenty-three, held several posts in the capital and in the provinces, and by the tenth year of King Heondeok the Great, a musul year, he had become sirang of the Jipsa.

In the fourteenth year the king had no son to follow him, so he made his younger brother by the same mother, Sujong, crown prince, and had him enter Woljigung. At that time Chunggong the gakgan was sangdaedeung, and he sat in the Jeongsadang settling the appointments of officials in the capital and the provinces. He withdrew from his duties, fell ill, and called in the state physician to feel his pulse, and the physician said, "The sickness is in the heart. You must take the dragon-tooth broth."

So he asked leave for twenty-one days, shut his gate, and saw no visitors.

Then Nokjin came and asked to be seen, and the gatekeeper turned him away. Nokjin said, "It is not that this lesser officer does not know that his lordship has taken to his sickbed and is excusing himself from callers. I wish to offer a word to those about him and open up the thoughts that are weighing on him, and that is the only reason I have come. If I am not received, I will not dare to withdraw."

The gatekeeper carried word in two or three times, and then he was led in.

Nokjin came forward and said, "I have heard that your noble body is out of sorts. Can it be that you have gone early to court and left late, and braved the wind and the dew, and so harmed the harmony of blood and breath and lost the ease of your limbs?"

He said, "It has not come to that. I am only dull and heavy and silent, and my spirits are not easy."

Nokjin said, "Then your lordship's sickness needs no medicine, and needs no needle or moxa. A right word and a high argument can break it open at a single stroke. Will your lordship hear it?"

He said, "You have not cast me off at a distance, but have come and graced my house. I should like to hear your fine words and wash out my breast.

Nokjin said, "When a carpenter builds a house, he makes beams and pillars of the large timbers and rafters of the small ones, and uses what lies flat and what stands upright each in its fitting place, and only then is the great hall finished. When the worthy chief ministers of old carried on the government, what was there different in it?

Men of great ability are set in high places, and lesser men are given lighter charges. Within there are the six offices and the hundred functionaries, and without there are the provincial governors, the regional commanders, the governors of commanderies and the county magistrates. There is no empty place at court and no place with the wrong man in it. High and low are settled and the worthy are parted from the unworthy, and only then is the king's government complete.

Now it is not so. Private interest is followed and the common good is destroyed. Office is chosen to fit the man. If a man is liked, then even though he is not fit timber they would send him up into the clouds, and if he is disliked, then though he has ability they plot to throw him down into a ditch. Taking and rejecting confuse their hearts, and right and wrong throw their minds into disorder, so that not only do the affairs of state grow muddy, but those who carry them on are worn out and made sick as well.

Be pure and clean in holding office and careful and respectful in handling business. Shut the door against bribes and keep far from the entanglements of private requests. Demote and promote only by whether a man is able or not, and give and take away not out of liking or dislike. Be like a balance, which cannot be bent by light or heavy, and like an inked line, which cannot be deceived by crooked or straight. If it is so, then punishments and government will be truly in accord and the country at peace, and even if you were to open the side gate of Sun Hong and set out the wine of Cao Shen, and take your pleasure talking and laughing with friends and old companions, it would do no harm.

And why must you be tied to the small business of taking medicine, wasting your days for nothing and letting your work fall away?"

The gakgan then thanked the physician and sent him off, called for his carriage, and went to court at the palace.

The king said, "You said you had set a term of days for taking your medicine. How is it that you have come to court?"

He answered, "Your servant heard Nokjin's words, and they were like medicine and the needle. How should they stop at drinking dragon-tooth broth?" And with that he laid out everything for the king, point by point.

The king said, "I am the ruler and you are my chief minister, and there is a man who speaks as honestly as this. What joy is like it? The crown prince must not be left in ignorance of it. You should go to Woljigung."

The crown prince heard it and came in to offer his congratulations, saying, "I have heard it said that when the ruler is clear-sighted his ministers are honest. This too is a fine thing for the country."

Later, when Heonchang, the dodok of Ungcheonju, rebelled, the king raised troops and struck at him, and Nokjin went on the business and earned merit, and the king gave him the rank of daeachan, but he refused it and would not take it.