《抛砖引玉》成语英译与典故

四十七、抛砖引玉

在唐代有位诗人叫常建，

一次好友赵嘏（ɡǔ）要来苏州玩，

苏州城有一处名胜叫灵岩寺，

他估计赵嘏准到那儿玩。

他先在寺前写下两句诗，

心中想赵嘏一到准看见。

果然是赵嘏来到古寺前，

见到了诗句随口念，

总觉得只有两句不成诗，

补上两句才完全。

赵嘏提笔补诗句，

两旁观者齐称赞。

“写得好！”声音最响是哪个？

人群中走出诗友是常建。

自称是抛砖为引赵嘏玉，

一时诗林传美谈。

到后来常用这成语，

比喻自己对某事的看法是浅见。

若想引人发高论，

抛出愚拙得高见。

“抛砖引玉”表谦虚，

而自夸往往惹得人憎嫌。

To Cast a Brick to Attract Jade

In the Tang Dynasty（618—907A.D.）there was a poet named Chang Jian.One day his best friend Zhao Gu went to Suzhou for a tour，and in the city of Suzhou there was a place of interest called Lingyan Temple.He figured Zhao Gu must be going to visit there.So he went there before hand and wrote two lines of poetry on the front wall，thinking that Zhao Gu would surely notice it.

It happened that Zhao Gu arrived at the place，and read the lines randomly.He considered this not to be a complete poem with only two lines，and an⁃other two lines should be added to it.

Zhao Gu picked up his brush and completed the poem.The onlookers praised it highly in chorus.“Well written！”whose voice was so loud？The man coming out of the crowd was his poem⁃pal Chang Jian.He put it that he was casting a brick to attract Zhao's jade，and for a time this remained a beautiful story.

Later on this idiom was put into common use，implying that your own view is but a shallow one.If you want to attract other people's valuable opinions，you offer him some common place comments.“Cast a Brick to Attract Jade”shows you are modest，and that self⁃exaggeration may cause annoyance.