Words about Marry and Love (13)

河东狮吼

Lioness roar at East Bank:  East Bank was the name of a local place. This story was reported by a litterateur at Song Dynasty (960-1279), named 苏东坡who have a good friend named陈慥. 陈慥’s father was a high rank officer. Of course, his early year was lived in a rich environment. 陈慥had a hobby, as he was rich, he loved to afford many singing girls in his mansion. He loved to invite friends to his house for party. Every time, he would show his singing girls for friends. When he getting old, he didn’t have a good job, so he turned poor and moved to countryside but he enjoyed a recluse life too. He still had some friends for party. But his wife was a shrew. If she didn’t like her husband to enjoy the party with friends, she would use a stick to knock the wall and shouted. Then everybody would be threaten and left. At that time, a woman behaved like this would be regard as shrew.

Every time it made 陈慥 feel losing face. 苏东坡 wrote a poem for joke to this friend:

龙丘居士亦可怜，说空说有夜不眠。

忽闻河东狮子吼，拄杖落手心茫然。

The first sentence said: a lay Buddhist named 龙丘 is very pitiful, talking about empty and exist (the idea of Buddhist) throughout the night.

The second sentence said: Suddenly he heard lioness roar at East Bank, his walking stick fall down and he lost in perplexity.

Later the term of: Lioness roar at East Bank turned to be the synonym of shrew. And this story has been translated to the screen:

Pic from: http://image11.m1905.cn/uploadfile/2012/0717/20120717085355330.jpg

Socrates said, “If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.”