Yellow chalcedony would have had particular appeal at court on the grounds of being a naturally yellowish colour, which was reserved for Imperial use. It is not, of course, the brilliant yellow of the typical Imperial colour found on court robes and glass snuff bottles, but then neither is any of the so-called ‘yellow’ jade that was obviously so highly valued. It was probably sufficient for a natural material to do no more than appear yellowish to qualify for Imperial symbolism, which brings us neatly to one of our main reasons for an attribution to the palace workshops.
A lone goose—cold and desolate (qiqi).
The thousand sounds belong to autumn (qiu).
Where does the Yi River flow (liu)?
(The Yi River flows into the Lo River at Loyang, which was the poet’s native district, so he is expressing his homesickness.) The second line here looks unremarkable to anyone who has read a fair amount of Chinese poetry, although we have not found it in any other poem, let alone in any version of Liu Fangping’s poem. But, as we said, it does not rhyme, and there is no way it could replace the second line of the received text of his poem: ‘Insects echo, and the reeds sigh mournfully (sousou)’.
The inscription was obviously filled with gold pigment at some time, probably gold-leaf applied to the roughened cut surface of the stone where the calligraphic strokes were carved, but much of it has since worn away. We cannot be certain, of course, that the gold pigment was the original intention of the artist. It could have been added at any time after it was finished.