Page 318 - Chinese Porcelain Vol I, Galland

1 86 CHINESE PORCELAIN.

not as vitreous as usual, chiefly green, blue, and neutral tint,
relieved with red, yellow, and black. With the exception of
a band at the mouth, on which is traced in black the
green
and the uncoloured band on the shoulder, which
key pattern,
" "
is ornamented with ice cracks traced in red, with here and
there a green, blue-tipped primus blossom thrown on it so as to
show but half the flower, the whole vase is covered with rocks
in green, blue, and neutral tints ; the pine trees have stems of
the latter with On one side are seen an
green foliage. elderly
Chinese a to where he will find
gentleman directing younger
on the
the two ladies, who, on the other side, are seen, evidently
outlook for some expected arrival. The younger man carries
a Chinese hoe, which points to the subject being Yao giving
his two daughters to Shun, one of the examples of filial piety.
"
189 Shun, B.C. 2317-2208. The successor
Mayers, p. :
chosen to his throne the ancient emperor Yao, and
occupy by
revered with the latter as one of the of virtue.
patterns regal
His father, Ku Sou ' blind old man on the death of
(the '),
Shun's mother, took a second wife, by whom he had a son
named the of his second union
Siang ; and preferring offspring
to his eldest son, he repeatedly sought to put the latter to
death. Shun, however, while escaping this fate, in no wise
lessened his dutiful conduct toward his father and stepmother,
or his fraternal regard for Siang. He occupied himself in
ploughing at Li Shan, where his filial piety was rewarded by
beasts and birds, who spontaneously came to drag his plough
and to weed his fields. He fished in the Lui Lake, and made
pottery on the banks of the Yellow Eiver. Still his parents
and his brother sought to compass his death ; but although
they endeavoured to make him perish by setting fire to his
house and by causing him to descend a deep well, he was
In his twentieth he
always miraculously preserved. year
attracted by his filial piety the notice of the wise and virtuous
Yao, who bestowed on him later his two daughters in marriage,
" "
and disinherited his (unworthy) son, Chu of Tan, in order
"
to make Shun his successor upon the throne." P. 165 : Ngo
Hwang, sister of Nii Ying, with whom she was given to the
virtuous Shun to wife her father, the
by Emperor Yao, in
B.C. 2288 A tradition relates that the two sister-
(?). pleasing
queens, having accompanied their lord on his journey to the