Burn not your house to rid it of the mouse

There is a story in the book of Hanshu telling of a rich man, who being a lover of vase and had a large collection of it. Among them was a rare vase made of jade. The vase of exquisite workmanship and of historical value and he loved it dearly.

One night he noticed a mouse passing near the precious vase. The mouse jumped into the vase and was trying to eat some food which the man had carelessly left there.

The sigh infuriated the man and in a fit of rage he threw a stone at the mouse. For sure, the mouse was killed, but the precious vase was broken also.

The loss of the vase pained the man greatly and he deeply regretted his own thoughtlessness, which bought him this unrecoverable loss.

He now realized that any one, who cares for the present and overlooks consequences, is apt to bring disasters upon himself. So he exclaimed to warn people by saying do not burn you house to get rid of a mouse.

Comments

zhugw said…

I think the story is not based on truth! First, the man seems is a rich man and the scene of the story seems is the bedroom. So I don't think a mouse could appear in this circumstance. Besides, we all know mouse is very clever. It is a little difficult to believe a human being can easily hit a mouse by stone. So author just made up the story for the moral.

28 July 2011 at 05:54

The wonderful pear-tree

Once upon a time a countryman came into the town on market-day, and brought a load of very special pears with him to sell. He set up his barrow in a good corner, and soon had a great crowd round him ; for everyone knew he always sold extra fine pears, though he did also ask an extra high price. Now, while he was crying up his fruit, a poor, old, ragged, hungry-looking priest stopped just in front of the barrow, and very humbly begged him to give him one of the pears. But the countryman, who was very mean and very nasty-tempered, wouldn't hear of giving him any, and as the priest didn't seem inclined to move on, he began calling him all the bad names he could think of. " Good sir," said the priest, " you have got hundreds of pears on your barrow. I only ask you for one. You would never even know you had lost one. Really, you needn't get angry." "Give him a pear that is going bad ; that will make him happy," said one of the crowd. "The o

The Legend of The Three-Life Stone

The Buddhist believe metempsychosis, or the migration of the souls of animated beings, people's relationships are predestined through three states of life: the past, present, and future life. Legend has it that there's a road called Yellow Spring Road, which leads to Fogotten River. Over the river there's a bridge called Helpless Bridge (Naihe Bridge), at one end of the bridge sits a crimson stone called Three-life Stone. When two people die, they take this route to reincarnation. if they carve their name on the Three-life Stone together while they pass the stone, they are to be predestined to be together in their future life. Although before their rebirth they will be given a MengPo Soup to drink and thereby their memory of past life are obliterated. In reality, San-Sheng Shi (三生石), or Three-Life Stone is located beside Flying Mountain near the West Lake, Hangzhou. On the stone, there is seal with three Chinese characters that say "The Three-life Stone," and a de

The Fox and The Tiger

ONE day a fox encountered a tiger. The tiger showed his fangs and waved his claws and wanted to eat him up. But the fox said: 'Good sir, you must not think that you alone are the king of beasts. Your courage is no match for mine. Let us go together and you keep behind me. If the humans are not afraid of me when they see me, then you may eat me up.' The tiger agreed and so the fox led him to a big high-way. As soon as the travellers saw the tiger in the distance they were seized with fear and ran away. Then the said: 'You see? I was walking in front; they saw me before they could See you.' Then the tiger put his tail between his legs and ran away. The tiger had seen that the humans were afraid of the fox but he had not realized that the fox had merely borrowed his own terrible appearance. [This story was translated by Ewald Osers from German, published by George Bell & Sons, in the book 'Chinese Folktales'. Osers noted that this story was

Chinese Æsop:

Search This Blog