32 CHINESE METAPHORICAL ZOOLOGY 



love, and are mere sycophants who cleave to one only as 

 long as the money lasts, like ants which settle on the mutton 

 fat (W. #i Pft ifi); entertaining them is equivalent to letting 

 a tiger into the house (ffi£ )% A HE), and rearing the brute to be 

 a source of trouble (fl J% Wi &), or, as we should say, 

 "nourishing a viper in the bosom." It is easy to mistake a 

 rogue for an honest man, or to take a wolf for a dog ( 12 $1 

 J§» it), yet many a harum-scarum fellow is but a wild horse 

 without a bridle (W M M ?M), and repentance in time, or 

 holding in the horse at the brink of the -precipice (5U1 S I& l&) 

 may have good results, since from being a menace to society, 

 like the horse which is a danger to the herd (|1 ^L %) 

 he may be brought to see the error of his ways; no longer 

 behaving in a mischievous manner like a devil or a water 

 kelpie (#P % % M), 4 he will regulate his behaviour, and take 

 thought for the morrow, like the clever hare with three holes 

 to its burrow (I^Hl) and leave a good reputation after 

 his death, so that instead of eliciting crocodile tears as when 

 the cat mourns for the rat ($S 9£ $& -J"), general sorrow will 

 be shown, in the same way as the fox grieves when the 

 hare dies (^ £E <E ijfc), out of fellow-feeling. 



The pusilanimous person, who can never make up his 

 niind about anything, like the rat with his head looking first 

 one way and then the other ( JL "M" M $s), with a gall as small 

 as a rat's (JPL >h fin JL), or a rat's stomach and chicken's 

 entrails (H Ui H St), going about in a hang-dog manner 

 with the appearance of a dove and the face of a heron 

 (M ft£ n% ®), will always be at the mercy of the unscru- 

 pulous, like a sheep in a pack of wolves (^ A 3J£ W). He 

 who lives an honest and sober life, neither careless in his 

 work, never making, as it were an incomplete sketch of a 

 tiger (ft ^ ^> J35), drawing a tiger like a dog (W[ 1% M it) 

 nor adding feet to a snake ( H ^ $?S M ), but insisting on 

 perfection and demanding a horse in exact accordance with 

 the picture (j& SI % SI), always aiming at accuracy, and 

 never missing the heron in the centre of the target ( ^ %z 

 IE *|), will be a success in life, whereas the devil-may-care 

 person walking into any kind of danger, such as treading on 

 a tiger's tail ( 3=f Ba ^ M . ), or peering into its mouth ( hi •$§ 

 J3s P), venturing unabashed into such fearsome spots as 

 the dragon's pool and. the tiger's den (nt M )% si), should 

 learn to restrict himself to his proper sphere, taking a lesson 

 from the dragon which never leaves its pool ( ft 7fc Hi j$), 



4 The Yil (|JS«$), or water-kelpie, is a mythical creature, which is 

 supposed to spirt sand from its mouth on a person's shadow, causing 

 Mm either to sicken or to die. From the Shih Shuo (Jfe fft). 



