Chinese Æsop:

The Classics of Mountains and Seas says, there is a god on the mountain of Celestial Mountain,  whose form resembles a yellow sack with a red aura like cinnabar. He has six legs and four wings and exists in a state of confusion with no face or eyes. He knows how to sing and dance for he is, in fact, Di-Jiang. This God Di-Jiang was actually the Cosmogonic Chaos, or Hundun. The Book  Master Zhuang says, the Ruler of the Southern Ocean was Shû, the Ruler of the Northern Ocean was Hû, and the Ruler of the Centre was Chaos. Chaos looked like a red, faceless bird with four wings and six legs, and was born without the seven bodily openings of other humans. Shû and Hû were continually meeting in the land of Chaos, who treated them very well. They consulted together how they might repay his kindness, and said, `Men all have seven orifices for the purpose of seeing, hearing, eating, and breathing, while this (poor) Ruler alone has not one. Let us try and make them for him.' Accord...

When Kung-nî was on his way to Khû, as he issued from a forest, he saw a hunchback receiving cicadas (on the point of a rod), as if he were picking them up with his hand. 'You are clever!' said he to the man. 'Is there any method in it?' The hunchback replied, 'There is. For five or six months, I practised with two pellets, till they never fell down, and then I only failed with a small fraction of the cicadas (which I tried to catch). Having succeeded in the same way with three (pellets), I missed only one cicada in ten. Having succeeded with five, I caught the cicadas as if I were gathering them. My body is to me no more than the stump of a broken trunk, and my shoulder no more than the branch of a rotten tree. Great as heaven and earth are, and multitudinous as things are, I take no notice of them, but only of the wings of my cicadas; neither turning nor inclining to one side. I would not for them all exchange the wings of my cicadas;--how should I not succeed i...

At an interview of Kwang-dze with duke Âi of Lû, the duke said, 'There are many of the Learned class in Lû; but few of them can be compared with you, Sir.' Kwang-dze replied, 'There are few Learned men in Lû.'  'Everywhere in Lû,' rejoined the duke, 'you see men wearing the dress of the Learned;--how can you say that they are few?' 'I have heard,' said Kwang-dze, 'that those of them who wear round caps know the times of heaven; that those who wear square shoes know the contour of the ground; and that those who saunter about with semicircular stones at their girdle-pendents settle matters in dispute as they come before them. But superior men who are possessed of such knowledge will not be found wearing the dress, and it does not follow that those who wear the dress possess the knowledge. If your Grace think otherwise, why not issue a notification through the state, that it shall be a capital offence to wear the dress without possessing t...

King Yíng of Wèi made a treaty with the marquis Tián Móu of Qí, which the latter violated. The king was enraged, and intended to send a man to assassinate him. When the Minister of War heard of it, he was ashamed, and said to the king, 'You are a ruler of 10,000 chariots, and by means of a common man would avenge yourself on your enemy. I beg you to give me, Yán, the command of 200,000 soldiers to attack him for you. I will take captive his people and officers, halter and lead off his oxen and horses, kindling a fire within him that shall burn to his backbone. I will then storm his capital; and when he shall run away in terror, I will flog his back and break his spine.' Jì Zǐ heard of this advice, and was ashamed of it, and said to the king, 'We have been raising the wall of our capital to a height of eighty cubits, and the work has been completed. If we now get it thrown down, it will be a painful toil to the convict builders. It is now seven years since our troops wer...

The family of Zhuāng Zhōu being poor, he went to ask the loan of some rice from the Marquis Superintendent of the Hé (the Yellow River), who said, 'Yes, I shall be getting the tax-money from the people soon, and I will then lend you three hundred ounces of silver;--will that do?' Zhuāng Zhōu flushed with anger, and said, 'On the road yesterday, as I was coming here, I heard some one calling out. On looking round, I saw a goby in the carriage rut, and said to it, "Goby fish, what has brought you here?" The goby said, "I am Minister of Waves in the Eastern Sea. Have you, Sir, a gallon or a pint of water to keep me alive?" I replied, "Yes, I am going south to see the kings of Wú and Yuè, and I will then lead a stream from the Western Jiāng (the Yangtze River) to meet you;--will that do?" The goby flushed with anger, and said, "I have lost my proper element, and I can here do nothing for myself; but if I could get a gallon or a pint of...

Wei Sheng was a young man who had an assignation with a young lady beneath a bridge. At the time appointed she did not come, but the tide did; and Wei Sheng, rather than quit his post, clung to a pillar and was drowned.

There was a man of Sòng, called Cáo Shāng, who was sent by the king of Sòng on a mission to Qín. On setting out, he had several carriages with him; and the king of Qín was so pleased with him that he gave him another hundred. When he returned to Sòng, he saw Zhuāng Zǐ, and said to him, 'To live in a narrow lane of a poor mean hamlet, wearing sandals amid distress of poverty, with a weazen neck and yellow face;--that is what I should find it difficult to do. But as soon as I come to an understanding with the Lord of a myriad carriages, to find myself with a retinue of a hundred carriages,--that is wherein I excel.' Zhuāng Zǐ replied, 'When the king of Qín is ill, the doctor whom he calls to open an ulcer or squeeze a boil receives a carriage; and he who licks his piles receives five. The lower the service, the more are the carriages given. Did you, Sir, lick his piles? How else should you have got so many carriages? Begone!'

There was a man who was frightened at his shadow and disliked to see his footsteps, so that he ran to escape from them. But the more frequently he lifted his feet, the more numerous his footprints were; and however fast he ran, his shadow did not leave him. He thought he was going too slow, and ran on with all his speed without stopping, till his strength was exhausted and he died. He did not know that, if he had stayed in a shady place, his shadow would have disappeared, and that if he had remained still, he would have lost his footprints:--his stupidity was excessive!

The ruler Yüan of Sung once dreamt at midnight that a man with dishevelled hair peeped in on him at a side door and said, 'I was coming from the abyss of commissioned by the Clear Kiang to go to the place of the Earl of the Ho; but the fisherman Yü Zü has caught me.' When the ruler Yüan awoke, he caused a diviner to divine the meaning of the dream, and was told, 'This is a marvellous tortoise.' The ruler asked if among the fishermen there was one called Yü Zü, and being told by his attendants that there was, he gave orders that he should be summoned to court. Accordingly the man next day appeared at court, and the ruler said, 'What have you caught lately in fishing?' The reply was, 'I have caught in my net a white tortoise, sieve-like, and five cubits round.' 'Present the prodigy here,' said the ruler; and, when it came, once and again he wished to kill it, once and again he wished to keep it alive. Doubting in his mind what to do, he had recours...

On the top of the nose of that man of Ying there is a little bit of mud like a fly's wing, He sent for the artisan Shih to cut it away. Shih whirled his axe so as to produce a wind, which immediately carried off the mud entirely, leaving the nose uninjured, and the (statue of) the man of Ying' standing undisturbed. The ruler Yüan of Sung heard of the feat, called the artisan Shih, and said to him, 'Try and do the same thing on me.' The artisan said, 'Your servant has been able to trim things in that way, but the material on which I have worked has been dead for a long time.' (运斤成风, Yun Jin Cheng Feng)

螳螂捕蟬, 麻雀在后 táng láng bǔ chán má què zài hòu The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. This story is excerpted from the Writings of Chuang-Tzu ( Kwang dze in James Legge’s transcribe system), or Zhuang zi (in modern Chinese Pīnyīn), name Zhōu (or Kâu in James Legges’s transcribe system). This idiom when quoted in modern Chinese writing, a sparrow ( má què) is used instead of oriole, but in normal translation (as in a dictionary) an oriole is used. Oriole is mostly tropical songbird, the male is usually bright orange and black; or American songbird, male is black and orange or yellow. In this story Chuang Tzu just say a strange bird with huge eyes from the south, its wings were seven cubits in width. The bird has large eyes but failed to see Chuang tzu approaching who was trying to shoot it with the cross-bow, since all the bird’s attention were on its prey, i.e., the mantis and cicada. This scenario startled and awakened Chuang tzu, because he wasn’t aware the...

You might know the Chinese idiom ying wu xue she ( parrot talks), might also know the story about Dong Shi xiao bin (Dong Shi imitates a frown). Now we have another story about Han Dan xue bu (Han Dan Walks), Han Dan Walks was first mentioned in Chuang Tzu, a story about a boy from Shouling (Wade-Giles romanization Shâu-ling, see below) who traveled to Handan to learn the Handan Walk. Before he manages to learn it, however, he had forgotten what he had learned to walk in his old city, and was marched back home on their hands and knees. In the Book of Chuang Tzu, Chapter XVII, the disciple of Chuang Tzu, Kung-dze Mâu mentioned a story about Handan Walk: ‘And have you not heard of the young learners of Shâu-ling 1, and how they did in Han-tan? Before they had acquired what they might have done in that capital, they had forgotten what they had learned to do in their old city, and were marched back to it on their hands and knees. ’ In the note to ‘Shâo-ling’, James Legge says ‘Of...

One upon a time, there was a frog who lived in a dilapidated well. He said to his friend the turtle of the Eastern Sea, "How I enjoy myself? I leap upon the parapet of this well. I enter, and having by means of the projections formed by the fragments of the broken tiles of the lining proceeded to the water, I draw my legs together, keep my chin up, and strike out. When I have got to the mud, I dive till my feet are lost in it. Then turning round, I see that of the shrimps, crabs, and tadpoles there is not one that can do like me. Moreover, when one has entire command of all the water in the gully, and hesitates to go forward, it is the greatest pleasure to enjoy one's self here in this dilapidated well;--why do not you, Master, often come and enter, and see it for yourself? " The turtle of the Eastern Sea was then proceeding to go forward, but before he had put in his left foot, he found his right knee caught and held fast. On this he hesitated, drew back, and told the...

The time of the autumnal floods was come, and the hundred streams were all discharging themselves into the Yellow River. Its current was greatly swollen, so that across its channel from bank to bank one could not distinguish an ox from a horse. On this the Spirit-earl of the Yellow River laughed with delight, thinking that all the beauty of the world was to be found in his charge. Along the course of the river he walked east till he came to the North Sea, over which he looked, with his face to the east, without being able to see where its waters began. Then he began to turn his face round, looked across the expanse, as if he were confronting the North Sea Spirit Zo, and said with a sigh, 'What the vulgar saying expresses about him who has learned a hundred points (of the Tâo), and thinks that there is no one equal to himself, was surely spoken of me. And moreover, I have heard parties making little of the knowledge of Confucius and the righteousness of Po-î, and at first I did ...

Yün Kiang, rambling to the east, having been borne along on a gentle breeze, suddenly encountered Hung Mung, who was rambling about, slapping his buttocks and hopping like a bird. Amazed at the sight, Yün Kiang stood reverentially, and said to the other, 'Venerable Sir, who are you? and why are you doing this?' Hung Mung went on slapping his buttocks and hopping like a bird, but replied, 'I am enjoying myself.' Yün Kiang said, 'I wish to ask you a question.' Hung Mung lifted up his head, looked at the stranger, and said, 'Pooh!' Yün Kiang, however, continued, 'The breath of heaven is out of harmony; the breath of earth is bound up; the six elemental influences 1 do not act in concord; the four seasons do not observe their proper times. Now I wish to blend together the essential qualities of those six influences in order to nourish all living things;-how shall I go about it?' Hung Mung slapped his buttocks, hopped about, and shook his he...

When Chuang Tzŭ was about to die, his disciples expressed a wish to give him a splendid funeral. But Chuang Tzŭ said: "With Heaven and Earth for my coffin and shell; with the sun, moon, and stars, as my burial regalia; and with all creation to escort me to the grave,—are not my funeral paraphernalia ready to hand?" "We fear," argued the disciples, "lest the carrion kite should eat the body of our Master;" to which Chuang Tzŭ replied: "Above ground I shall be food for kites; below I shall be food for mole-crickets and ants. Why rob one to feed the other?" [1. paraphernalia, short for paraphernalia bona "paraphernal goods", originally means " "a woman's property besides her dowry," here refers to equipments consisting of miscellaneous articles needed for a funeral. 2. regalia, decorations or insignia of an order, here refers to decorations for a funeral.]

When Chuang Tzŭ's wife died, Hui Tzŭ went to condole. He found the widower sitting on the ground, singing, with his legs spread out at a right angle, and beating time on a bowl. "To live with your wife," exclaimed Hui Tzŭ, "and see your eldest son grow up to be a man, and then not to shed a tear over her corpse,—this would be bad enough. But to drum on a bowl, and sing; surely this is going too far." "Not at all," replied Chuang Tzŭ. "When she died, I could not help being affected by her death. Soon, however, I remembered that she had already existed in a previous state before birth, without form, or even substance; that while in that unconditioned condition, substance was added to spirit; that this substance then assumed form; and that the next stage was birth. And now, by virtue of a further change, she is dead, passing from one phase to another like the sequence of spring, summer, autumn and winter. And while she is thus lying asleep in Ete...

Chuang Tzŭ and Hui Tzŭ had strolled on to the bridge over the Hao, when the former observed: "See how the minnows are darting about! That is the pleasure of fishes." "You not being a fish yourself," said Hui Tzŭ, "how can you possibly know in what consists the pleasure of fishes?" "And you not being I," retorted Chuang Tzŭ, "how can you know that I do not know?" "If I, not being you, cannot know what you know," urged Hui Tzŭ, "it follows that you, not being a fish, cannot know in what consists the pleasure of fishes." "Let us go back," said Chuang Tzŭ, "to your original question. You asked me how I knew in what consists the pleasure of fishes. Your very question shows that you knew I knew. I knew it from my own feelings on this bridge."

Hui Tzŭ was prime minister in the Liang State. Chuang Tzŭ went thither to visit him. Some one remarked: "Chuang Tzŭ has come. He wants to be minister in your place," Thereupon Hui Tzŭ was afraid, and searched all over the State for three days and three nights to find him. Then Chuang Tzŭ went to see Hui Tzŭ and said: "In the south there is a bird. It is a kind of Do you know it? It started from the south sea to fly to the north sea. Except on the wu-t‘ung tree, it would not alight. It would eat nothing but the fruit of the bamboo, drink nothing but the purest spring water. An owl which had got the rotten carcass of a rat, looked up as the phoenix flew by, and screeched. Are you not screeching at me over your kingdom of Liang?"

Chuang Tzŭ was fishing in the P'u when the prince of Ch'u sent two high officials to ask him to take charge of the administration of the Ch'u State. Chuang Tzŭ went on fishing and, without turning his head, said "I have heard that in Ch'u there is a sacred tortoise which has been dead now some three thousand years, and that the prince keeps this tortoise carefully enclosed in a chest on the altar of his ancestral temple. Now would this tortoise rather be dead and have its remains venerated, or be alive and wagging its tail in the mud?" "It would rather be alive," replied the two officials, "and wagging its tail in the mud." "Begone!" cried Chuang Tzŭ. "I too will wag my tail in the mud." Musings of a Chinese Mystic, by Lionel Giles, [1909]