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An official of the ancient
State of Chu awarded a pot of wine to his men
after the ceremony of
Spring Sacrifice.
One man said
，
“
We have only one pot of
wine. It's not enough for all of us but
sufficient for one. Let's determine
who'll have the wine by drawing a snake on the
ground. He who
finishes first will have
the wine.”
The others agreed. Very
soon
，
one man
finished his snake. He was about to drink the wine
when he saw the others were still busy
drawing. He said
complacently
，
“
How
slowly you are
！
I
still have enough time to add feet to
my snke.
”
But
before he finished the feet
，
another man
finished his
snke and grabbed the pot from
him
，
saying
，
“
Whoever has seen a
snake with feet
？
Yours is not a snke. So the wine should
be mine
！
”
He drank the wine. The man adding the
feet to
the snake had to give in and
could only regret his foolishness.
From that story
comes the idiom
“
Draw a
snake and add feet to
it
”
。
Now people use this
idiom to
illustrate the truth that going too far is as bad
as not going far enough.
译文：
楚国有一个官员，
在春天祭过了祖宗之后，
便将一壶酒赏给他的办事人员喝。
有人提议：
“我们只有一壶酒，
肯定不够我们大家喝的，<
/p>
一个人喝倒是绰绰有余。
我们每人在地上画一
条蛇，谁画得最快，就把这壶酒给他。
”
大家都同意了。
有一个人很快就把蛇画好了。
他正打算喝这壶酒时，
看见别人都还忙着画呢。
他就得意
扬扬地说：
“你们画得好慢呀，等我再画上几只脚
吧！
”
他的蛇脚还没画完，另一个人
已经
把蛇画好了。那人把酒壶夺了过去说：
“有谁见过长脚的蛇
？你画的不是蛇，这壶酒应该是
我的了。
”说罢，就喝起酒来。
那个给蛇画脚的人没办法，只能懊悔自己的愚蠢。
“画蛇添足”这个成语就是从这个
故事来的。
现在人们用它来说明这么个道理：做的过
分和做的不
够是一样有害的。
一鸣惊人
Amazing the World with a Single Feat
战国时代，
齐威王即位后做了三年国
君，
只顾享乐，不理政事。有个善于说笑话的人叫淳于
髡，一天
对齐威王说：
“城里有一只大鸟，三年不飞也不叫，你知道这是什么道理？”齐威
王说：
“这鸟不飞则罢，一飞就冲天；不鸣则罢，一鸣就惊人。”在淳
于髡的激发下，齐威
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