Idioms & Fables

A general with no land and no plan walked three times to a thatched hut in the hills, in the snow, to ask a young farmer for help. The third time, the farmer was asleep, and the general waited. This is the Chinese idiom 三顾茅庐, from the Records of the Three Kingdoms.

A poor scholar fell asleep at a roadside inn, resting his head on a blue-green porcelain pillow. In one nap he rose to prime minister, was thrown in prison, and died at eighty. When he woke, the pot of millet on the stove was not yet cooked. This is the Chinese idiom 黄粱一梦.

A master archer told the King of Wei he could bring down a bird without an arrow. He pulled the string, and a lone wild goose dropped out of the sky. It was not the shot that felled it, but an old wound, and the fear it had never put down. This is the Chinese idiom 惊弓之鸟.

A small state was about to be crushed by a bigger one. Then a farmer climbed onto the duke’s chariot and told him not to beat the war drum. He waited for the enemy to drum three times, and only then struck. This is the Chinese idiom 一鼓作气, from the Zuo Commentary.

A king lost his country, then spent three years feeding horses for the man who beat him. When he finally went home, he slept on a pile of dry brushwood and tasted bitter gall every day, so he would never forget. This is the Chinese idiom 卧薪尝胆, from the Records of the Grand Historian.

In the middle of the night a rooster crowed, and two young men got up to practise swordplay instead of going back to sleep. One of them later marched on the north; the other never came home. This is the Chinese idiom 闻鸡起舞.

A cook carved an ox for a king, and his knife had not needed sharpening in nineteen years. The king watched him work and learned how to live. This is the Chinese idiom 庖丁解牛, from the book of Zhuangzi.

An old man at the frontier lost his horse. His neighbours came to comfort him, and every one of them was wrong. This is the Chinese idiom 塞翁失马 – the two-thousand-year-old story behind “a blessing in disguise”.

A fugitive prince promised a king that if their armies ever met, he would retreat ninety miles first. Years later he kept that promise on a battlefield – and it won him the war. This is the Chinese idiom 退避三舍.

A powerful king offered fifteen cities for a single jade disc. A nobody named Lin Xiangru was sent to close the deal – and found out the offer was a trap. This is the Chinese idiom 完璧归赵, the story of how one man walked out of the strongest court in China with the treasure whole.