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Subject:jade seal translation
Posted By: Marcel Thu, Dec 04, 2014 IP: 213.46.66.153

Hello,

I hope someone can help me with the translation of this
jade? seal

Greetings.M







Subject:Re: jade seal translation
Posted By: rat Thu, Dec 04, 2014

This looks like quite a nice Qing seal to me, though I am no expert on them.

The base is carved with the same text as that carved into the side, except for the final four characters on the side, which are the cyclical year 戊申 (equivalent to 1968, and 1908, and 1848, and 1788, etc.) and what I take to be the carver's rather than the owner's name, 君楚, but I am away from my books and can't look him up at the moment.

Subject:得一日閒為我福 ,做千年調笑人痴
Posted By: Super Sat, Dec 06, 2014

The two sentences with 7 characters in each are:

得一日閒為我福
作千年調笑人痴

it is not easy to translate them because qiān nián diào 千年調 in the second sentence can mean different things:

First 千年 means a thousand years old, in this case it was used as an adjective to describe 調 diao that is a thousand-year old.

diao can mean a melody (music) or a certain type of Chinese poem. There was also a famous poem named 千年調 that was written by 辛弃疾

However, after reading the first sentence, IMHO, neither one would be the appropriate translation.
In this case, I believe diao means wealth or accumulations (material).

Therefore, my translations for them would be:

To take a day off and do nothing will be a blessing to me,

only a fool would work so hard to accumulate wealth that will last a thousand years.

These two sentences originated from:
得一日閑方是福,做千年調笑人痴 (first sentence a bit different than these two)
遵生八牋 No. 7 scroll written by 髙濂 in Ming dynasty in which the no. 7 and 8 scrolls (of 8 scrolls) taught people in how to live their daily life.

http://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/遵生八牋/卷07

Of course, I could be wrong.

Super

P.S. The material of the jade seal appears to be serpentine to me than nephrite jade. Of course, what the Chinese call xiu yu (or xiu yan jade) is serpentine. Again, without being able to handle it in person, I cannot tell for sure.

Subject:Re: jade seal translation
Posted By: Marcel Sun, Dec 07, 2014

Thanks for your response the information is very useful, it is great
to know that the seal is dated that helps me a lot...thanks again.

Marcel


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