For the sake of proving the fact, he invited the friend to his room again.After he placed a cup of wine at the former place, he asked the guest: “Do you see the snake again?”
The host then explained the cause, so the guest suddenly saw the light and his lingering illness was cured right then.
2.Long, long ago, a man wondered why a good friend of his had not called on him for a long time. One day he bumped into the friend and asked the reason. The friend answered:
“When you entertained me with wine last time, I saw a snake in the cup as I was going to drink the wine. I felt nausea then but I still drank it up. However, I was taken ill. The host remembered that there had been a horn-decorated bow on the wall of his room so that the so-called “snake” in the cup might be the reflection of the bow.
1.In ancient China, a farmer had a field with a stump in it. One day when the farmer was ploughing his field, a hare came and dashed itself against the stump. The hare died because of the broken neck. In expectation of the same chance to come, the farmer put away his plough, stood by the stump all day long and waited for more hares to eat his fill. To his disappointment no more hares came. On the contrary, his field had lain waste and he sustained heavy losses. The farmer not only tried in vain, but also became the laughingstock of the whole nation.