a flying moth darts into the fire(fēi é pū huǒ)

a flying moth darts into the fire

Moths to the fire, a Chinese idiom, Pinyin is f ē I é P ū Hu ǒ, which means moths to the fire, compared to self destruction. From the book of Liang, biography of Zhiji.

Idiom usage

He came here today and asked himself to die. Yuan · Yang Xianzhi's the second part of xiaoxiangyu. In the Southern Dynasties, the talented scholar of Liang Dynasty was the grandson of Jin ziguanglu, a doctor of the imperial court. He was deeply loved by the emperor Xiao Yan. He often wrote poems together. Xiao Yan specially gave his grandfather a poem: "grind ink to tengwen, brush to fly to letter, like a moth to the fire, don't burn yourself.". It will be as old as it has been, and it can be fake for Shaoyu. " When he came here today, did he not fly moths to the fire and ask for food. (the second part of Xiao Xiang Yu by Yang Xianzhi in Yuan Dynasty).

The origin of Idioms

According to the book of Liang, the biography of Daoji: "if a moth goes to the fire, how can he burn himself?"

Idioms and allusions

During the northern and Southern Dynasties, there was a man named Daiji in the Liang Dynasty. When he was young, his parents died and he became an orphan. His life was very difficult. But he didn't flinch because of this. When he had time, he devoted himself to study hard, accumulated a lot of knowledge, and became an intelligent and talented person. He was bold and forthright, and later used by the imperial court. He served as an official, a servant, and a son of the state. He had a grandson named Peng. He was very clever since he was a child. He liked him very much. Whenever he had time, he accompanied him to read and write poems. He developed a good habit of loving poetry and prose. When he was an adult, he made more achievements in poetry than in irrigation, which won the praise of emperor Liang Wu. Once, when he was chatting with Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty, Emperor Wu joked: "your grandson's articles are so good, he wrote all your articles for you?" for this reason, Emperor Wu of Liang Dynasty also wrote a poem named Lianzhu, which was given to him. The main idea of the poem is: to write an article with ink from an inkstone, you can wave your pen very freely. At this time, like moths to the fire, completely forget that their own time can be destroyed. But you are already old. Why don't you let your grandson Huang write instead of you? He was appointed Yincheng of Danyang by Liang Wudi soon after he arrived.

Scientific explanation

Hundreds of millions of years ago, there was no artificial fire light, and moths were guided by natural light sources such as sunlight, moonlight or starlight. Because the sun, moon and stars are far away from the earth, the light they emit (or reflect) shining on the earth can be considered as a parallel straight line. When the moth flies in a straight line, the angle between its forward direction and the light at any position is a fixed value. However, if the light source is very close, such as a torch or a candle, and the light emitted by them can no longer be regarded as a parallel light, the moth will fly in accordance with its inherent habit, and the flight route is not a straight line. It is an equiangular spiral or logarithmic spiral (not Archimedean spiral) that constantly bends to the light source, and then approaches the light source and finally dies in the fire, that is, moths to the fire.

Chinese PinYin : fēi é pū huǒ