《指鹿为马》成语英译与典故

九十八、指鹿为马

秦朝时有个大臣叫赵高，

一心想篡夺君位把皇帝当。

可他怕众多的大臣心不服，

想试探众人对他怎么样。

有一天他让人捉来一只鹿，

赵高他亲手牵鹿进朝堂，

来到皇帝跟前指鹿说：

“臣要献一匹宝马给皇上！”

皇帝一听很生气，

责备他指鹿为马欺君王。

那赵高让周围的大臣来评说，

问他们到底是鹿还是马？

大臣们都知赵高有野心，

胆小的就随声附和说马真壮！

那正直的就说明明是只鹿，

怎能金銮宝殿哄君王？

还有人生性懒开口，

索性站立一边不声张。

到后来赵高心狠手更辣，

把那些正直的大臣全杀光！

“指鹿为马”作成语，

常比喻，颠倒是非、混淆黑白把人诳。

Call a Stag a Horse

In the Qin Dynasty（221—206B.C.），there was a Prime Minister named Zhao Gao，who was intending to usurp the power to be emperor.He was afraid that he wouldn't have the popularity with all the ministers，so he wanted to test it.

One day he had a stag caught，and drove it into the court himself.He came to the emperor and point⁃ed to the stag and said，“I would like to present to Your Majesty a good horse.”The emperor was very angry when he heard it，and condemned him for cheating the emperor by calling a stag a horse.Then Zhao Gao asked the ministers around to judge whether it was a stag or a horse.

The ministers all knew that Zhao was ambitious.The timid ones began to echo that the horse was very strong.The honest and upright ones said that it was obviously a stag，how could he take a horse before His Majesty？Some hesitated by nature，and they just remained there standing quietly.Later on Zhao Gao became even more vicious，and killed all the honest and upright ministers.

“Call a Stag a Horse”as an idiom，means some⁃thing black was called white，something wrong was called right as to deceive people.