Idioms & Fables

The torturer Zhou Xing explained how to make a prisoner confess inside a heated jar. Then Lai Junchen invited him to step into it. This is the Chinese idiom 请君入瓮, from the Comprehensive Mirror.

He wrote for ten years while everyone laughed, and when the rhapsody appeared, the whole capital fought to copy it. This is the Chinese idiom 洛阳纸贵, from the History of Jin.

Han Xin put a river at the backs of his own soldiers, and then dared them to lose. This is the Chinese idiom 背水一战, from the Records of the Grand Historian: to fight a battle with no way out.

A hungry tiger caught a fox, and the fox talked his way out by walking in front. This is the Chinese idiom 狐假虎威, told at the court of Chu by the minister Jiang Yi: the fox borrows the tiger’s might.

His own son helped murder the ruler of Wey, and the old minister Shi Que would not bend the law for him. This is the Chinese idiom 大义灭亲, from the Zuo Commentary: to place the great right above your own kin.

He had already passed the imperial examination, and he was forty years old. He still stood outside his teacher’s gate, in the snow, because the teacher was sitting in stillness and he would not knock. This is the Chinese idiom 程门立雪, from the History of Song.

He was the most famous man in the empire who refused to take a job. For close to twenty years he lived on a mountain in the southeast, sailing and writing poems. Then his family needed him, and he came down. This is the Chinese idiom 东山再起, from the Book of Jin.

On the last night of his life, the greatest warrior of his age heard his own village songs rising from the enemy camps on all four sides. He understood at once that the home he meant to return to no longer existed. This is the Chinese idiom 四面楚歌, from the Records of the Grand Historian.

In a Chu courtyard, several men raced to draw a snake on the ground for a single jug of wine. The fastest hand finished first, took the jug, and then kept drawing, adding feet to a creature that has none. He lost the wine. This is the Chinese idiom 画蛇添足, from the Intrigues of the Warring States.

A small state stood between a great power and the land it wanted, and made its living by holding the gate. A minister warned his ruler that the two neighbours shared a single fate. The ruler took the horses and the jade, and lent the road. This is the Chinese idiom 唇亡齿寒, from the Zuo Commentary.