Idiom Explanation:
Conflict of spear and shield. It is a metaphor for doing or saying something that contradicts itself.
Pronunciation:
自相矛盾
zì xiāng máo dùn
Origin:
战国·《韩非子·难一》：楚人有鬻盾与矛者，誉之曰：“吾盾之坚，物莫能陷也。”又誉其矛曰：“吾矛之利，于物无不陷也。”或曰：“以子之矛陷子之盾，何如？”其人弗能应也。众皆笑之。夫不可陷之盾与无不陷之矛，不可同世而立。
Story:
There was a man in the state of Chu who sold both shields and spears in the marketplace (in ancient times, both spears and shields were weapons used in combat. The spear was used to stab the enemy, while the shield was used to protect the body from being stabbed by the opponent’s spear). In order to make people willing to buy his stuff and make his goods available as soon as possible, he went out of his way to exaggerate and overstate his hype.
He first held up the shield in his hand and boasted to the passers-by: “Look at this shield in my hand, gentlemen, it is a good shield forged from the best materials at once. A speech that people have gathered around to look carefully.
Then the Chu man picked up the spear leaning against the wall and boasted even more recklessly, “Gentlemen, please look at this spear in my hand, it is a good spear made by a thousand refinements, with a particularly sharp tip. Once this big talk, the onlookers all felt very funny.
After a while, a man stood out from the crowd and pointed at the Chu man and asked, “You just said that your shield is so strong that no spear can pierce it, and your spear is so sharp that no shield can resist it. Then may I ask: If I poke your shield with your spear, what will be the result?”
Hearing this, the Chu man was speechless, so he turned red, hurriedly packed up his spear and shield, and fled from the marketplace in silence. This story is the origin of the phrase “contradicting oneself”.
