Idiom Explanation:
The clown who jumped around. It is a metaphor for a despicable person who is rampantly disruptive but cannot achieve a big climate.
Pronunciation:
跳梁小丑
tiào liáng xiǎo chǒu
Origin book:
《庄子·逍遥游》：“子独不见狸牲乎，卑身而伏，以候敖者，东西跳梁，不辟高下。”
Origin Story:
During the Warring States period in China, Huishi, the minister of the state of Wei, in a conversation with Zhuangzi, cited a large simarouba tree in his house as an example, saying that the main trunk of the tree was swollen and the twigs were curled, making it useless.
To this, Zhuangzi replied: “The son alone does not see the civet vine, which humbles itself and crouches down to wait for Ao; something jumps up and down, does not open the high and low; in the machine, dies in the reckless. Nowadays, the cattle are as big as the clouds in the sky. This can be big enough, but can not execute the mouse. Now the son has a big tree, suffering from its useless, why not tree in the countryside of no Ho there, wide Mo of the wild, wandering about nothing for its side, free to sleep under it. Not prematurely jin axe, things are not harmful, nothing is available, and the hardship!
The meaning of this passage is: Have you never seen wild cats? They hide, waiting for the opportunity to hunt out small animals, scurrying east and west, not to avoid the high and low, often touch the organs, die in the net. And the yak, a huge body like the clouds in the sky. It can make itself very large, but can not catch the mouse. Now you have a big tree, worried about its useless, why not plant it in the vain countryside, wide and endless wilderness, it can grow more branches and leaves, and pedestrians can come and go freely under it to rest in the shade. Therefore, it does not feel any hardship because of the so-called uselessness.
What Zhuang Zi is saying here is that “nothing is for nothing, and one can be at ease with one’s nature and shade the living”, in order to refute Huishi’s ridicule of being “big and useless”. This story later evolved into the idiom of “The clown who jumped around”.
Similar Idioms:
- 害群之马
