The moral of the fable story of drawing a snake and adding feet to it

1, drawing a snake to add feet, from the "warring states strategy - Qi Ce II", the original meaning is to draw a snake to add feet to the snake, and then compared to the redundancy, not only unhelpful, but also inappropriate. It is also a metaphor for fictionalizing facts and creating something out of nothing.

2. Story: In ancient times, a family in the state of Chu, after sacrificing their ancestors, was ready to reward the sacrificial wine to the people who helped them, but there were a lot of people, so how to share this pot of wine? In the end, someone suggested that each person draw a snake on the ground, and see who draws fast and well, then the pot of wine will be given to whom.

One man drew the snake very quickly, and when he had finished, he picked up the jug of wine and was about to drink. But he looked back to see that the others had not yet finished, and was a little smug. Wanting to show his ability, he drew the snake's feet.

While he was drawing the snake's feet, another man had already finished. The man then snatched the jug back and said, "Have you never seen a snake before? A snake has no feet, so why do you want to add feet to it? So the first person who drew the snake was me, not you.

3. Later, people derived the idiom of "Drawing a Snake and Adding Feet to It" from this story, which is a metaphor for someone who is too smart for his own good and often does unnecessary things, which in turn makes things worse. It is a metaphor for making things more complicated than they need to be.

The idiom of "drawing a snake to add feet" also tells us that we should not do more than is necessary, otherwise it is not only unhelpful, but harmful; no matter what we do, we should respect the objective facts and seek truth from facts. In addition, no matter what you do, you must have clear goals and requirements, do not be overwhelmed by the victory, too blindly optimistic, may lead to failure.