The poem is a philosophical prose which translates as 'after 30 years as a guest without gaining much comfort from sitting on bare stone, turn your horse to join Su and drink all the time'. Su is a probable reference to the famous Tang poet/statesman, Su Dong Po (1036-1101), whose drinking habit was legendary. The scene above accompanying the poetic couplet is probably Su Dong Po (Su Shi) presenting a painting to the emperor although he is generally depicted barefoot.

The bottom panel is most probably a scene from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Sanguozhi Yanyi, thought to have been written by Luo Guanzhong (c.1330-c.1400). The novel is based on an historical text by Chen Shou (233-97) dealing with events occuring after the disintegration of the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220) when China splintered into the Three Kingdoms. The scene apparently depicts Liu Bei forming his alliance with Guan Yu (later deified in 1594 as Guandi, the Daoist god of war and justice); the third character then being Chang Fei, a commoner who had earned his living as a butcher. Together they waged war against Cao Cao (155-220), the dictator of Wei who had seized control of northern China in circa 219; although they were ultimately unsucessful in overthrowing either Cao Cao or the third kingdom, Wu (based in the area of Nanjing), Liu Bei's forces did prevent Cao Cao from seizing control of the southern regions when they decisively defeated him at the battle of the Red Cliffs; it was this episode of the novel which was often used as a point of comparison with the Ming strongholds of resistance during the early Qing dynasty