Liu Tsung-yüan (773–819)
There were no donkeys in Ch’ien 1 until someone who was fond of curiosities brought one in by boat. After the man got it there, he found the donkey was useless, so he let it loose near the hills. A tiger, upon seeing it, thought it was such a large beast that it took it for a god. So the tiger hid in the forest to spy on it. Bit by bit the tiger came closer to it, but carefully so that it wouldn’t know.
One day the donkey brayed, and the tiger was so terrified that he ran far off. He thought that the donkey was going to eat him and was extremely frightened. Yet as the tiger kept observing it time and again, he realized there wasn’t anything unusual about the donkey. The tiger had gotten increasingly used to hearing the braying. He now came out near the donkey circling it, but still dared not pounce. In a little while, he pressed even closer to it, and he nudged it unconcernedly. Overcome with rage, the donkey kicked out at the tiger.
Now the tiger happily reckoned to himself, “So this is the extent of its talents.” Thereupon he leaped, roaring loudly, and ripped open the donkey’s throat. He ate his fill and then left.
Alas! The donkey’s larger size made it seem to be a creature of virtue; its loud voice made it seem to be a creature of ability. If it had never revealed the limit of its talents, the tiger, despite his own ferociousness, would still have been suspicious and fearful and in the end would not have dared attack it. Now, instead, things have come to this—how disheartening!
Translated by Madeline K. Spring
Allegories have a long tradition in China. They were originally linked to persuasive rhetoric and sometimes found in philosophical writings such as Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, and Han Fei Tzu. By the T’ang dynasty, a number of writers, who were involved to varying degrees with the literary reforms known as the ku-wen (old-style prose) movement, experimented with different types of allegories. These works, written either in prose or in verse, often featured animals rather than people. Through descriptions of situations in the animal world with direct counterparts in the human sphere, writers were able to offer indirect criticism or moral instruction about general philosophical principles. Animal allegories were also used to illustrate the possible dangers of a given political situation or to express the author’s dissatisfaction with events in his own life. Since the analogies in these works were often fairly subtle, authors had more freedom of expression than they did in more narrowly defined, constraining genres. T’ang animal allegories also present a fascinating look at how writers of this era envisioned the natural world and the role of man within it.
The first of a group of “Three Admonitions.”
For a brief note on the author, see selection 44.
1. An old name for Kweichow.