this mughal jade cup, it's “瓜瓣瓢” or “瓜辨瓢”?

Question

this week, the christie's have an auction of this jade cup:

i suspected this one is the object of emperor 乾隆's poem 痕都斯坦玉羊頭瓜辨瓢歌

my question is:

the poem title is 玉羊頭瓜辨瓢

is it an typo of 瓣?

cause, in the poem, the 5th verse mentioned 瓜分數瓣

鹿臺嘉産来遐陬

彼中良工細雕鎪

式異漢盃及商卣

瓢飲一具琢羙球

瓜分數瓣花葉浮

曲柄廻顧為羊頭

匪夷所思用意周

其脂非逺其性柔

東陵闗内伊誰候

any ideas?

dROOOze · Accepted Answer · 2019-06-22 13:34:07Z

1

Looks like it should be 瓜瓣瓢.

瓜瓣瓢 probably means a 瓢 made from 瓜瓣. In contrast, 瓜辨 is not a word (AFAIK).
See a printed version of 清・金士松《喬羽書巢詩集》 (https://ctext.org/library.pl?if=en&file=105725&page=51). Since your screenshot looks like it's from a handwritten version of 《御製詩四集》, I suspect that it's a handwriting error. Well, printing is less likely to introduce errors :)

answered Jun 22 '19 at 13:28

dROOOze

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semantically, it should be "瓜瓣", "瓜辨" does not make any sense. well, i'm now guessing who made the typo? the emperor himself, then the copy-writer didn't dare to rectify it. or the copy-writer made it, and proof-readers didn't discover it? – 水巷孑蠻 Jun 22 '19 at 13:38
@水巷孑蠻 Well, 金士松《喬羽書巢詩集》 says 瓜瓣瓢, so I'm guessing that even if the Emperor wrote it wrongly, someone still "dared" to rectify it. However, I'm thinking that the copy-writer was the one who made the mistake. Maybe some museum still has the original copy of the fabric/paper that the poem was written on... – dROOOze Jun 22 '19 at 13:41
btw, th poem is in the 四庫全書　集部　御製詩四集　卷六十四, page 28: archive.org/details/06054259.cn/page/n28 – 水巷孑蠻 Jun 22 '19 at 13:42
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how dare was mr 金 :) – 水巷孑蠻 Jun 22 '19 at 13:43

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