Expert: Sir William - 12/9/2010

Question
QUESTION: Hi,
I would like to know if the Chinese characters (picture herewith attached) on a pair of antique ivory chopsticks are a  poem.  Is it possible to translate any of these into English?
I apologize that the picture is not clearer.  Any help you can provide will be most appreciated.  
Many thanks.

ANSWER: Hi, Ron,

I am sorry but I cannot read the Chinese characters in the picture because they are too small.  

Please post the picture with higher resolutions, if possible.

Sir William

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Dear Sir William,
Thanks very much for your reply.  I'm very sorry that the image I sent was so small.  I'm still learning how to do this.
Herewith attached is another image, which I hope will be clearer.   
Thank you very much again.
Ron

Answer
Dear Ron,

Thank you for the picture in higher resolutions, though the Chinese characters therein are still somewhat blurry.  I think there's a restriction on how big a picture (in pixels) that you can post on this web site. (It can also be the stone-age computer that I am using....)

From what I can see in the picture, the Chinese characters on the pair of chopsticks do not appear to be a poem.  The engravings on the right hand side (Left<->Right) praise the beauty of peony and the colorful peacock as king of birds; the engravings on the left say that the distich was written in "a upper house" on "a winter day" in "Yam Sun" (year, a Lunar term), followed by the name, signature and personal stamp (the little red square) of the writer.

I hope the above will give you a brief understanding of the meaning of the Chinese characters on your pair of chopsticks.

Thank you for your question and for enriching my database.

With best regards,

Sir William