精卫填海
The bird Jingwei trying to fill the sea
Once upon a time, the youngest daughter of Emperor Yan, legendary ruler of primitive China, went boating on the Eastern Sea. While she was enjoying herself, a strong wind rose on the sea and her boat capsized. Just before she was buried by the surging waves, her spirit turned into a beautiful bird. As it flew over the roaring sea, it cried sadly in the sound "jinwei, jingwei". That was why people called it "Jingwei".
They would not listen to him, so Di Jun sent the archer, Yi, armed with a magic bow and ten arrows to frighten the disobedient suns. However, Yi shot nine suns, only the Sun that we see today remained in the sky. Di Jun was so angry for the death of nine of his children that he condemned Yi to live as an ordinary mortal in the earth.
One day, the roaring sea said to Jingwei, "Poor little bird, stop doing that meaningless thing! You'll never fill me up." Jingwei replied, "I'll fill you upno doubt! I will, even if it'll take me thousands of years! I'll fight on until doomsday!"
守株待兔的英译文
Staying by a Stump Waiting for More Hares To Come and Dash Themselves Against It
This story took place more than 2,000 years ago,in the Warring States period（475-221 B.C.）.Tradition has it that in the State of Song at that time there was a man who was famous for staying by a stump waiting for more hares to come and dash themselves against it.
fromTai ping yu lan(Taiping Anthologies for the Emperor)
Jiang Taigong Meets King Wen
When King Wen decided to go hunting, Bian, his official historian, burnt a tortoise shell to forecast the result. After reading the cracks he said, "Hunting on the north side of the Wei River is bound to bring a great gain. It will not be a dragon or aChi(1), nor will it be a tiger or a bear. It will be a wise man sent by Heaven to be your minister and mentor." King Wen got on his carriage, started the horses, and set out for the place. There he saw Jiang taigong sitting on the grass and fishing.
曹冲称象
Cao Chong weighed the elephant:
During The Three Kingdoms period, Sun Quan gave Cao Cao an elephant. People didn't know how to weigh it. But Cao Cao's little son, 5 or 6 years old Cao Chong, told people an idea:"Put it on a ship, and mark the water level, then change it with some stones with known weight. When the same water level appears, we'll know how heavy the elephant is." Cao Cao was very happy hearing of this and told people to do so.
邯郸
One man who lives in Wei kingdom goes to Handan. He thought people in Handan have very elegent ways of walking. He tried hard to learn they way Handan people walked but he failed. He tried so hardly and forgot his original Weikingdom ways of walking, so he had to crawled back home.
后羿射日
Chinese people believed that there existed ten suns that appeared in turn in the sky during the Chinese ten-day week. Each day the ten suns would travel with their mother, the goddess Xi He, to the Valley of the Light in the East. There, Xi He would wash her children in the lake and put them in the branches of an enormous mulberry tree called fu-sang. From the tree,only onesun would move off into the sky for a journey ofone day, to reach the mount Yen-Tzu in the Far West.
fromLiu tao(Six Tactics)
Sima Qian (司马迁）
The Han emperor, WuDi, re-established the importance of learning and encouraged the production of new works. As a result, ancient works which had arrived the book burning of the first emperor began to re-appear. Sima Qian took on the task of writing a complete history of China.
The bird lived on a mountain near the sea. It hated the sea so much that it decided to fill it up. Every day, it flew to and fro between the mountain and the sea, carrying in a twig or a pebble from the mountain and dropping it into the sea.
Tired of this routine, the ten suns decided to appear all together. The combined heat made the life on the Earth unbearable. To prevent the destruction of the Earth, the emperor Yao asked Di Jun, the father of the ten suns, to persuade his children to appear one at a time.
The brave little bird kept carrying twigs and pebbles from the mountain to the Eastern Sea without taking a rest.
From this fable comes the idiom "The bird Jingwei trying to fill the sea". We use it to describe people who are firm and indomitable and will not stop until they reach their goal.