This idiom emphasizes the importance of associating with excellent people. Talking with sages can increase knowledge, gain knowledge and wisdom, and get inspiration and guidance from them. And associating with mediocre people may waste time and have no substantial gains.
The complete original text is like this:
Loushiming
Liu Yuxi [Tang Dynasty]
The mountain is not high, and the fairy is famous. The water is not deep, and the dragon is the spirit. I am a humble room, but I am virtuous. The moss on the stage is green, and the curtain grass is green. There is no Ding Bai who laughs and has a university. You can tune the pipa and read Jin Dian. There is no confusion, and there is no complicated form. Zhuge Lu in Nanyang and Ting Yun Pavilion in West Shu. Kong Ziyun: What's wrong?
translate
The mountain is not high, but the immortal will be famous. If the water is not deep, the dragon will have aura. This is a humble house, but I don't feel humble because of my good character. The moss is green and grows on the stage, and the grass is green, which is reflected in the curtain. People who come here to talk and laugh are knowledgeable people. People who come and go are knowledgeable and can play the unpretentious piano and read Buddhist scriptures. No orchestral music disturbs the ears, and no official documents make the body tired. There is Zhuge Liang's thatched cottage in Nanyang and the thatched cottage where Yang Ziyun lived when he wrote a book in West Shu. Confucius said: What's so simple about this?
To annotate ...
A humble room: a humble room. Inscription: ancient words carved on objects to warn themselves or state their achievements, called "inscriptions", later became a style. This style generally uses compound sentence, which is neat and catchy.
Be: Yes, the verb.
Name: Names and nouns are used as verbs.
Líng: magical and supernatural.
This is a humble room. Demonstrative pronoun, this, this. Yes: affirmative judgment verb. Humble room: Humble room refers to the author's own room.
Wei Wu Dexin (xρn): Just because I have a high moral character, I don't feel humble. Only: only. Wu: I, this is the inscription. Xin: It means nobility to spread the fragrance far away. Shang Chen Shujun: "Millet is not fragrant, but virtue is fragrant." .
The moss marks on the steps are green, and the grass color enters the curtain: the moss marks spread to the steps, making the steps green; The color of grass is reflected on the bamboo curtain, which makes the room look blue. On: grow to; Enter: reflect.
Hongru: A great scholar means a learned person. Hong: As big as Hong. Confucianism used to refer to scholars.
Ding Bai: Civilians. This refers to people with little knowledge.
Play a simple piano. Tone: violin, here refers to playing (piano). Simple piano: A simple piano.
Jin Jing: There is still controversy in academic circles today. Some scholars think it refers to the Buddhist sutra (Diamond Sutra), while others think it is a beautifully bound classic (Four Books and Five Classics). However, the Chinese books of Jiangsu Education Publishing House refer to Buddhist scriptures (Diamond Sutra), while the investigation in Anhui is the latter. Kim: Baby. Gold is precious, which means precious. All the classics of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism can be said to be golden classics.
Sishu: Harp, flute and other musical instruments. Silk fingered stringed instruments, bamboo fingered wind instruments. This refers to the sound of playing music.
One: Use structural auxiliary words between subject and predicate to cancel sentence independence.
Ear disorder: disturbing both ears. Confusion: The causative use of adjectives makes ... confused and disturbed.
Case (dú): official document or document.
Fatigue: To make the body tired (verb usage). Old: the use of adjectives is ... tired. Form: form, body.
Nanyang: Place name, now Nanyang City, Henan Province. Before coming out of the mountain, Zhuge Liang lived in seclusion in Wollongong, Nanyang.
Zhuge Liang, also known as Kong Ming, was the prime minister of Shu and Han Dynasties, a famous politician and strategist, and lived in seclusion in Wollongong, Nanyang before leaving office. Yang Xiong: Zi Ziyun, a writer in the Western Han Dynasty, was born in Chengdu, Shu County. Lu: A humble little house.
Confucius said that classical Chinese generally refers to clouds.
What's wrong with it? That is, "what's the matter" belongs to the prepositional object. Auxiliary words, strong rhetorical questions, signs of preposition objects, not translated.
There is a university question in Talking and Laughing: People who talk and laugh are learned. H: it's very big.
Creation background
The inscription on the humble abode was written in Hezhou (824-826). Record of Liyang: "The humble room, in Zhangzhou, was built by Liu Yuxi, the secretariat of the Tang and Zhou Dynasties, and was inscribed by Liu Gongquan."
Make an appreciative comment
This inscription, which is less than 100 words, implicitly shows the author's elegant taste and independent personality. It reveals a truth to people: although the living room is simple and short of material, as long as the owner of the living room is virtuous and full of life, the room will be full of fragrance, elegant and domineering everywhere, and he has a magical spiritual power beyond material.
Brief introduction of the author
Liu Yuxi (772 ~842) was born in Luoyang, Henan, and Xingyang, Zhengzhou, Henan. He claimed to be a descendant of Wang Jing in Hanzhong. Ministers, writers and philosophers in the Tang Dynasty were called "poets". His family is a scholarly family handed down from generation to generation by Confucianism. Advocating political innovation is one of the core figures of the Wang school's political innovation activities. Later, Yongzhen failed in innovation and was demoted to Sima Langzhou (now Changde, Hunan). According to the textual research of Mr. Zhou, a historian and collector in Changde, Hunan Province, Liu Yuxi was demoted to Sima Langzhou, during which he wrote the famous "Han Shou Chun Wang".