Later, when the king was dying, he called his three sons to the bed and said, "My dear sons! There is one thing that I kept in mind a long time ago, and now I will tell you about it! Listen carefully. When I die, I intend to pass on the throne to the laziest of you. 」
The eldest prince immediately replied, "Father, if so, then the kingdom is mine. Speaking of my laziness, when I'm lying in bed ready to sleep, I'm too lazy to close my eyes even if I happen to see water drops in my eyes. 」
The second prince also said, "Father, the kingdom is mine. Speaking of my laziness, I would rather burn my heels than shrink my feet when I sit and warm myself. 」
Finally, the third prince said, "Father, the kingdom is mine. Speaking of my laziness, when I was about to be hanged, I saw that the rope had been put around my neck. Even if someone put a sharp knife in my hand and told me that I could cut the rope with this knife, I was too lazy to raise my hand to reach the rope. I would rather be hanged like this. 」
Hearing this, the King of Qi said, "You are too lazy to figure it out. I will pass the throne to you. 」
Success because of laziness? ! Fairy tales are full of paradox. For those who always expect to read the teaching of encouraging good and punishing evil from fairy tales, the paradox of fairy tales sometimes makes people deeply confused. For example, "laziness" to be discussed in this chapter is one of them.
This is an interesting story. The king, who had three sons under his knee, said before he died that he wanted to pass on the throne to the laziest one. The eldest prince said, "even if I happen to see a water drop in my eye, I'm too lazy to close my eyes." The second prince said, "I would rather burn my heels than shrink my feet by sitting to keep warm." 」
However, the laziness of the third prince is even more thorough. Because he said that when he saw the rope around his neck, even if he had a knife that could cut the rope in his hand, he was too lazy to raise his hand and would rather be hanged like this. The king also appreciated the words of the third prince and decided to pass on the throne to him.
This story is puzzling. Why does laziness get such a high evaluation? In order to find out this, we will investigate the lazy people in fairy tales to understand the development of the story.
The first is the "lazy man" in Grimm's fairy tales. For example, the host is a lazy girl. She is lazy and hates spinning. The girl was scolded by her mother because she was too lazy to cry.
Unexpectedly, the princess happened to pass by and asked the girl why she was crying. Mom quickly lied that because her daughter loves spinning, it is always too hard. She scolded her and let her rest, and she cried as a result. The princess believed it, saying that she needed such diligent help, and planned to take the girl back to the castle and let her spin as much as possible. The girl who was taken back to the castle didn't know what to do, and she couldn't help crying. At this time, three strange-looking women appeared in front of them and said that they liked spinning very much. The first person is responsible for stepping on the pedal of the spinning machine, so the soles of the feet are very large; The second person is responsible for moistening the thread, so his lips are thick; The third person is responsible for twisting the yarn, so the thumb is wide.
Three women told the girl that they would help her spin, but when she was rewarded and married to the prince, she hoped that she would entertain them to the wedding. The girl agreed, so the three of them began to work at once. The princess was very happy to see the result. As predicted by three women, she decided to let the girl marry the prince.
On the wedding day, the girl also kept her promise and hosted a banquet for three ladies. The prince was deeply surprised by their strange appearance and asked the reasons one by one. Three women said they became like this for spinning. The prince was shocked and announced that he would never let the bride turn around again. Finally, the story ends like this: "So, girls don't have to do that disgusting spinning job anymore." In other words, in this story, the lazy man also succeeded smoothly.
Since ancient times, spinning is one of the most important jobs for women, and it is also a symbol of women's characteristics, which has a certain weight; The girl who hated this job until she cried finally married the prince, which shows that this story is simply against common sense.
In Grimm's fairy tales, there is another story called "Grimm". The protagonist of the story is also a lazy man. I was scolded by my husband and asked her to wind the spun yarn. But this wife is quite eloquent. She retorted that because there was no spool at home, she couldn't work and asked him to cut down trees in the forest to make spools. So the husband went to the forest, followed by the lazy wife.
When she saw her husband trying to cut down a tree to make a spool, she immediately threatened from her hiding place: "The guy who cut down my tree will die!" " The husband couldn't help feeling scared and decided to give up cutting down trees and go home. When the wife saw this, she also took a shortcut and rushed home first, waiting for her husband to come back casually.
The subsequent development of the story is omitted here, and the final result is that the lazy wife can stop working by cheating. Perhaps the story went too far, and the narrator even added a paragraph at the end: "But is this really good?" This is simply the waste residue in women! 」
In addition to the success of lazy people, if you add the wisdom of using tricks, the stories that the Japanese will associate are probably ok. There are many versions of this story, and the example I give here is the version collected from Xibadai County, Yamanashi County.
There used to be two families somewhere. People in the east are rich, but people in the west are poor. Hezekiah's father has passed away, leaving only his mother and her only son. However, this only son is lazy by nature and only knows how to eat and sleep, so everyone calls him "lazy".
At the age of twenty-one, the "slacker" suddenly began to show his talents. Dressed as a god, he sneaked into the rich man's house in the east and hid in a shrine. It was not until dinner time that he jumped down and shouted, "I am the land god, and your daughter must marry Jia Xi's son." 」
The lazy man's move was very successful. He married the daughter of a rich man as he wished and turned his house into a mansion.