#亡羊补牢#

[开学季] 亡 means ‘lose,’ 补 means ‘mend, repair,’ and 牢 means ‘sheep pen.’ A literal translation of the idiom is ‘mend the sheep pen when one loses sheep.’ This is a metaphor for it never being too late to figure out a way to solve a problem that has arisen.

📝 English translations include ‘it’s never too late’ and ‘better late than never.’

🐑 Allusion: In ancient times there was a herdsman who kept many sheep in his household. One night, his sheep pen broke and a sheep was carried off by a wolf. The next day a neighbor came to comfort him and urged him to repair the sheep pen. But he said: “Since the sheep has already been carried off, what use is repairing the sheep pen? That sheep is not coming back.” The neighbor said earnestly: “Haven’t you heard the old saying ‘To not send hunting dogs outside until you see rabbits is not considered too late; and to not repair a sheep pen until you lose a sheep is not considered tardy’? If you don’t repair the sheep pen, you will suffer even greater losses.” The herdsman didn’t believe him; and so the next morning, three of his sheep were carried off by the wolf. (from “Stratagems of Chu,” No. 4, in Stratagems of the Warring States)

🔗来源：500 Common Chinese Idioms: An Annotated Frequency Dictionary / 《成语五百条》

#英语四级# #决战四六级#