Twice ToldTaejong Sillok, year 2, month 12, day 2: Taejo at Pyongyang
- Language
- Chinese
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 10 October 2026
Six days before Taejo came back to Seoul, the Veritable Records of King Taejong give him a complaint and an attendant’s answer. It is the one passage we found in which the retired king speaks about the envoys. The National Institute of Korean History serves the text and the page image of the Taebaeksan print; we read the line against the image. The print has no punctuation; the marks below are the Institute’s.
○太上王駕次于平壤府。 太上王曰: “予在東北面時, 國王不遣人, 在孟州時, 又不遣人, 不無憾焉。” 侍者曰: “上使前政丞李舒、大禪師益倫ㆍ雪悟問安, 乃以路梗未達而返。” 太上王曰: “皆予所信重者, 故遣之也。”
Translation
Taejo’s carriage stopped at Pyongyang. Taejo said, “When I was in the northeast the king sent nobody, and when I was at Maengju he sent nobody again. I do feel some resentment.” An attendant said, “The king did send the former state councillor Yi Seo and the great Seon masters Ingnyun and Seoro to ask after you, but the road was blocked and they turned back without reaching you.” Taejo said, “They are all people I trust and respect, and that is why he sent them.”
Notes
- 太上王 (Taejo) is the retired king; 國王 is the reigning king, his son Taejong. 東北面 is the northeast province, around Hamhung and Anbyeon; 孟州 (Maengju) is on the northwest side.
- 大禪師 (great Seon master) is a title of senior Buddhist monks. The Sillok names the same three men, Yi Seo, Ingnyun and Seoro, as sent on 2/11/15 and again on 2/11/28; Yi Seo and Seoro turned back at Cheollyeong on 2/11/24 “because the road was blocked”.
- 不無憾焉 is a double negative; we render it “I do feel some resentment”.
- The attendant’s answer is reported as speech; the Sillok does not say who he was.