thin king

Dear all,


There is a Chinese quotation which in English is
"Man not contented, snake swallows elephant".
This does not convey a clear message unless one
knows the fable behind the quotation.

The fable, when retold, goes simply as follows:


An old and poor widow lived with her son named Jiang which
means elephant. When the widow was very sick, the physician
told her that the only thing that could cure her was a very special
herbal medicine made with the gall of a kind of large snake called
tarser of which he had no stock.

Now, Jiang had once saved a tarser from being killed, so he went
to this tarser for help. Tarser was glad to return the favour. It said
to Jiang, "You can go inside me and cut a small piece of my gall
bladder. If you do not cut too much, I will be all right in a few days.
So Jiang went inside Tarser and cut a bit of the gall bladder.
Tarser felt pain, but it managed to control itself and did not swallow
Jiang by mistake.

Jiang hurried over to the physician who processed the gall into the
medicine which cured his mother. And since there was some of the
medicine left, the physician offered Jiang a very high price for it,
because it was very rare and efficacious.

Jiang thought about this, "We are very poor, and if I can take a bit
more of that snake's gall to sell, we can become rich". So he went
back to Tarser and lied that his mother was still sick. Tarser said,
"It was very painful, but for your sake I will let you do this one more
time. Please make sure that you cut only a small piece off."

So, Jiang went into Tarser again. Then when he was about to cut
a small piece off, he thought, "Since I am only allowed one more
cut I may as well cut a large piece off." But as he started to make
a deep incision, Tarser felt a sharp pain and swallowed hard.
And aiyoyoyo!, Tarser swallowed Jiang!

"The snake swallowed the elephant."

Ha ha ha!

Have a nice day.
Ronald