Calling A Deer A Horse
One Chinese idiom that is derived from an incident involving Zhao is "calling a deer a horse" (simplified Chinese: 指鹿为马; traditional Chinese: 指鹿為馬; pinyin: zhǐ lù wéi mǎ), meaning "deliberate misrepresentation for ulterior purposes". The Shiji records that Zhao, in an attempt to control the government, devised a loyalty test for court officials using a deer and horse:
Zhao Gao was contemplating treason but was afraid the other officials would not heed his commands, so he decided to test them first. He brought a deer and presented it to the Second Emperor but called it a horse. The Second Emperor laughed and said, "Is the chancellor perhaps mistaken, calling a deer a horse?" Then the emperor questioned those around him. Some remained silent, while some, hoping to ingratiate themselves with Zhao Gao, said it was a horse, and others said it was a deer. Zhao Gao secretly arranged for all those who said it was a deer to be brought before the law. Thereafter the officials were all terrified of Zhao Gao. (tr. Watson 1993:70)
Read more about this topic: Zhao Gao
Famous quotes containing the words calling a, calling, deer and/or horse:
“What is an artist? A provincial who finds himself somewhere between a physical reality and a metaphysical one.... It’s this in-between that I’m calling a province, this frontier country between the tangible world and the intangible one—which is really the realm of the artist.”
—Frederico Fellini (b. 1920)
“[T]he most artful method [of courtship] would be this, to tell her that what she doth not possess is useless and contemptible, that weakness and imperfection is the perfection of a woman, that I am stark mad in love with ignorance; and thus shall I allure her by calling her [a] fool.”
—Sarah Fielding (1710–1768)
“The deer and the dachshund are one.
Well, the gods grow out of the weather.
The people grow out of the weather;
The gods grow out of the people.
Encore, encore, encore les dieux . . .”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“A good horse will never return to graze on grass it has already passed by.”
—Chinese proverb.