Idiom Explanation:
Talking like honey but hiding a sword in heart, he words of the mouth are nice, but the heart is planning bad ideas. Describe the sweet mouth and cruel heart, sinister and cunning.
Pronunciation:
口蜜腹剑
kǒu mì fù jiàn
origin:
北宋·司马光《资治通鉴·唐玄宗天宝元年》：“尤忌文学之士，或阳与之善，啗以甘言，而阴陷之。世谓李林甫‘口有蜜，腹有剑’。”
story:
Li Linfu, during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang Dynasty (Li Longji), was the official “Minister of War” and “Minister of the Central Secretariat”, which was the position of the Chancellor. This person is not bad in terms of talent, he can write and draw well. But if we talk about personal character, it is simply bad to home.
Li Linfu jealous of talent to harm people, where talent than he is strong, reputation than his high people, power status and his similar people, he will do anything to find ways to exclude, fight. To Tang Xuanzong, he had a set of flattering and flattering skills. He tried his best to accommodate Xuanzong and used various techniques to please his favored concubines and eunuchs to gain their favor and support in order to retain his position. When Li Linfu came into contact with people, he always appeared to be amiable and cooperative, and his mouth was full of nice and kind words. But in fact, his temperament and his apparent attitude is the exact opposite, he is actually a sinister and cunning, often to make bad ideas to harm people.
Once, he pretended to be sincere and said to his colleague Li Shizhi, “Huashan Mountain produces a large amount of gold, and if it could be mined, it could greatly increase the wealth of the country. Unfortunately, the emperor does not know about it yet.”
Li Shizhi thought it was true and rushed to suggest to Emperor Xuanzong to mine it quickly. Emperor Xuanzong was very happy to hear this, and immediately brought his favorite minister Li Linfu to discuss, but Li Linfu said: “I already knew about this. Huashan is the emperor’s ‘feng shui’ concentrated place, how can you just exploit it? Other people advised you to exploit, I am afraid they are not good intentions. I have wanted to tell the emperor about this several times, but I just did not dare to say anything.” Impressed by his words, Emperor Xuanzong thought that he was a loyal and patriotic minister, but was dissatisfied with Li Shizhi and gradually distanced himself from him.
In this way, Li Linfu, with this special “skill”, won the favor of Emperor Xuanzong and remained a great official for nineteen years. However, although the bad guys can sometimes achieve the purpose of harming people, to show off treacherous schemes in the moment, after a long time, people found him this hypocrisy, so they have in the background, he “mouth honey, belly sword”. That is, the mouth is sweet and sweet, but the heart is sharp and harmful. This is the origin of the idiom “honey in the mouth and sword in the belly”.
Similar Idioms:
- 佛口蛇心
