守株待兔
Waiting for a rabbit by the tree stump
Name: ________________ Date: ________
两千多年前，宋国有个农民。一天，他在地里干活，一只兔子突然从草里跑了出来。它跑得太快，没看路，撞在了地里的一个老树桩上。
它的脖子断了，一下就死了。
农民把它拿起来，看了又看，笑了：“不用干活，就有肉吃？这么好的事，我怎么今天才知道！”
第二天，他把锄头放在一边，搬来一把椅子，坐在树桩旁边，等。
等了一天，什么也没有。他想：没关系，兔子们还在睡觉呢。
第三天，他带来了一口锅，连水都烧好了。第五天，他连床都带来了。
第十天，真的来了一只兔子！他马上从床上跳了下来。兔子跑到树桩前面，不跑了。它看了看农民，农民也看了看它。然后，它慢慢地走开了。
别的兔子，都没有第一只兔子那么笨。
地里的草，已经比人还高了。看见的人都笑他。不久，全宋国都知道了这个等兔子的农民。
“守株待兔”，就是守着树桩，等兔子。今天，中国人还常说这四个字。要是有人不想努力，只想坐着等好事从天上掉下来，朋友就会笑他：“别守株待兔了！”
那个农民最后等来了什么？不是兔子，是一个成语。他被人笑了两千多年。
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 干活 | gànhuó | to work; to do manual labor |
| 死 | sǐ | to die; dead |
| 全 | quán | whole; all; entire; complete; completely; entirely |
| 要是 | yàoshì | if; in case |
| 掉 | diào | to fall; to drop |
| 农民 | nóngmín | peasant; farmer |
| 兔子 | tùzi | rabbit; hare |
| 撞 | zhuàng | to hit; to collide with; to bump into |
| 断 | duàn | to break; to snap |
| 锅 | guō | pot; pan; wok |
| 烧 | shāo | to cook; to roast; to stew (as in 烧鹅, 红烧) |
| 天上 | tiānshàng | in the sky; in heaven |
English (for the teacher)
More than two thousand years ago, there was a farmer in the state of Song. One day, while he was working in his field, a rabbit suddenly shot out of the grass. It was running too fast and not looking where it was going, and it crashed into an old tree stump in the field.
It broke its neck and died on the spot.
The farmer picked up the rabbit, looked it over and over, and laughed: “Meat to eat, and no work to do? Something this good, and I’m only finding out today!”
The next day, he put his hoe to one side, brought over a chair, sat down next to the stump, and waited.
He waited a whole day, and nothing came. He thought: never mind, the rabbits are still asleep.
On the third day, he brought a pot, and even had the water boiling. On the fifth day, he even brought his bed.
On the tenth day, a rabbit really did come! He jumped off the bed at once. The rabbit ran up to the stump and stopped. It looked at the farmer, and the farmer looked at it. Then it slowly walked away.
None of the other rabbits were as stupid as the first one.
By now the grass in his field was taller than a man. Everyone who saw him laughed at him. Before long, the whole state of Song had heard about the farmer who was waiting for rabbits.
“Shǒu zhū dài tù” simply means keeping watch by a tree stump and waiting for a rabbit. Today, Chinese people still use these four characters a lot. If someone doesn’t want to work hard and just wants to sit and wait for good luck to fall from the sky, their friends will tease them: “Stop waiting by the stump for a rabbit!”
So what did the farmer get in the end, after all that waiting? Not a rabbit, but an idiom. People have been laughing at him for more than two thousand years.