有二人短于视，百皆讳言之，喜以目力自多。一日，闻某家于神庙悬扁，乃先侦知其字。是日入庙，一人仰视曰：“美哉，‘赫耀声灵’四大字也！” 一人曰：“尚有小字，君未之见，乃‘某月日某书’也！” 正共夸诩，旁有一人问曰：“两君会何？”告以所见，其人笑曰：“扁尚未悬，何处有字？”
——《笑林新雅》
Short-Sightedness
Two
men were short-sighted, but instead of admitting it, both of them boasted of
keen vision. One
day they heard that a tablet was to be hung in a temple. So each of them found
out what was written on it beforehand. When the day came, they both went to the
temple. Looking up, one said, “Look, aren’t the characters ‘Brightness and
Uprigheousness’?” “And
the smaller ones. There! You can’t see them, they say, ‘Written by so and so in
a certain month, on a certain day’!” said the other. A
passer-by asked what they were looking at. When told, the man laughed. “The tablet
hasn’t been hoisted up, so how can you see the characters?” he asked.
Xiao Lin Xin Ya (Selected Jokes) （杨宪益、戴乃迭 译） |
/1 
