What is the moral of ancient Chinese fables?

The main content of a fable is a story containing an ironic or obvious lesson. Its structure is short, and it mostly uses metaphors, so that the theme of a lesson or a profound truth is reflected in a simple story.

The storyline of a fable is a matter of the future of the fable. There are some famous Chinese fables such as "Calling a Deer a Horse", "Covering the Ears and Stealing the Bells", "Indiscriminately", "Keeping the Stake and Waiting for the Rabbit", "Carving a Boat and Seeking a Sword", "Drawing a Snake and Adding Feet" and so on.

1, pointing to a deer as a horse

When the second emperor of the Qin dynasty, the prime minister Zhao Gao wanted to rebel, and was afraid that the other ministers would not agree with him, so he tested it first. He offered a deer to the Second Emperor and said, "This is a horse." The Second Emperor laughed and said, "The prime minister is wrong, isn't he, referring to the deer as a horse." When he asked the people next to him, some were silent, some said it was a horse, and some said it was a deer. Afterward Zhao Gao secretly killed the man who said it was a deer.

2. Covering up the ears and stealing the bell

During the Spring and Autumn Period, Zhi Bo, a nobleman of the state of Jin, exterminated the Fan clan. Someone took the opportunity to run to Fan's house to try to steal something, and took a fancy to a big bell. The man wanted to break it and take it away, but there was a sound in the ringing, so he covered his ears thinking he wouldn't be able to hear it. As it turned out, while he was ringing the bell, people heard the sound and swarmed to catch the thief.

3, indiscriminate

Anciently, the king of Qi, King Xuan of Qi loved music, especially like to listen to the yu, under the 300 good yu musicians. King Xuan of Qi liked to make a lot of noise, loved to make a show, and always wanted to show the majesty of being a king in front of people, so every time he listened to yu, he always asked these 300 people to play together for him to listen to.

There was a Mr. Nanguo who heard about King Xuan of Qi's addiction, and felt that it was a good opportunity to make money, so he ran to King Xuan of Qi and bragged about himself, saying: "Your Majesty, I am a famous musician, and no one who has heard me play yu was not touched by it, and the birds and beasts would dance, and the flowers and grasses would tremble to the beat. skill to the great king."

King Xuan of Qi was so pleased that he accepted him without examination and included him in his 300-strong yu-playing team. After that, Mr. Nanguo played to King Xuan of Qi along with the 300 people, and got a good salary and rich rewards like everyone else, and he was very proud of himself.

In fact, Mr. Nanguo told a big lie: he didn't know how to play yu at all. Whenever you play, Mr. Nanguo will hold the yu mixed in the procession, people shaking his body he also shook his body, people swinging his head he also swinging his head, face pretending to be a look of emotion and forgetfulness, and looks like other people as well as blowing the same kind of dedication, but also really do not see any cracks to.

Mr. Nanguo thus relied on deception to muddle through day after day, getting paid for nothing. After a few years, King Xuan of Qi, who loved to listen to the music of yu, died, and his son, King Min of Qi, succeeded to the throne. King Min of Qi also loved to play yu, but unlike King Xuan of Qi, he thought it was too noisy for 300 people to play together, rather than a solo performance.

So King Min of Qi issued an order to the 300 people to practice and get ready, and he would let them take turns to play yu one by one for him to enjoy. The musicians knew the order and practiced actively, wanting to show their skills, only the indiscriminate Mr. Nanguo was as anxious as the ants on the hot pot, on tenterhooks. He thought about it and felt that he could not get away with it any more, so he had to pack up his luggage and run away in the night.

4. The Farmer and the Snake

On a cold winter's day, a farmer returning home from a market found a frozen snake by the roadside. He took pity on it and put it in his arms.

When the heat from his body warmed the snake, the snake quickly awoke, revealed its cruel nature, and inflicted a fatal wound on the farmer by biting him. Before he died, the farmer said, "I even saved a poor poisonous snake, I deserve this kind of retribution!"

5. Waiting for rabbits

Legend has it that in the state of Song during the Warring States period, there was a farmer who worked at sunrise and rested at sunset． Encountered a good year, but also just enough to eat and wear warm; a disaster, can be starving. He wanted to improve his life, but he was too lazy, timid and small, doing everything is lazy and afraid, always want to come across the door of the unexpected wealth.

A miracle finally happened. One day in the late fall, he was plowing in the field, and there were people hunting around him. There was a lot of yelling and shouting, and the frightened beasts were running for their lives. Suddenly, one of the rabbits, without a second thought, ran headlong into the roots of a tree at the edge of his field.

That day, he had a good meal. He was a good man, and from then on, he did not farm anymore. All day long, he guarded the magical tree root and waited for a miracle.