趁火打劫

Loot a Burning House

原文 Content

敵之害大，就勢取利，剛決柔也。

英文注釋：When a country is beset by internal conflicts, when disease and famine ravage the population, when corruption and crime are rampant, then it will be unable to deal with an outside threat. This is the time to attack.

探源 Origin

英文：In the story of Journey to the West, Xuan Zang and his disciples embarked on a pilgrimage to India to obtain Buddhist scriptures. They passed through a temple on the way to their destination. The abbot hospitably received them. He requested to borrow Xuan Zang's beautiful cassock to get a better look and Xuan Zang agreed. In the dead of night, the abbot bolted the door when Xuan Zang and his disciples fell asleep, and then set the bedroom on fire. Meanwhile, the Monkey King had stayed awake due to his suspicions of the evil intentions of the abbot. To spoil the abbot's scheme, he transformed himself into a honeybee and lingered outside. The Monkey King blew a strong puff of wind. The enormous fire spread to the entire temple and all of the Buddhist monks joined the task of extinguishing the flames. However, a black bear monster came out unexpectedly. He concealed the cassock under the shield of the fire. Although the Monkey King had severely penalized the black-hearted abbot, he lost the master's cassock once again. With no idea of its current possessor or how to reclaim it, he turned to the Bodhisattva Guanyin for assistance. She helped him defeat the black monster and finally acquired the cassock.

中文：話說《西游記》中唐玄奘和他的徒弟去西天取經，途中路過一座寺廟。廟里的方丈熱情地接待了他們，并請求借玄奘美麗的袈裟好好看一看，玄奘同意了。深夜，方丈趁師徒四人睡著時將他們的房門鎖上，然后放火燒他們的臥房。但此時孫悟空并沒有睡著，他早就洞察到方丈的陰謀。為了不讓方丈的陰謀得逞，他變成只蜜蜂飛出屋外。孫悟空吹了一陣風，大火一下子蔓延到整個寺廟，廟里所有的和尚都忙著救火。可誰知這時來了只黑熊怪，他趁火劫走了袈裟。孫悟空雖然懲罰了黑心的方丈，卻再次弄丟了師傅的袈裟。萬般無奈之際，他請求觀音菩薩幫忙。在菩薩的幫助下，孫悟空制服了黑熊怪，并最終要回了袈裟。（引用自《您好漫畫-三十六計》）

詞匯 Vocabularies

ravage: 摧毀，蹂躪；表示摧毀的常用詞還有devastate，它們的區別是：devastate表示完全的大范圍的一種破壞，如:war devastate a country（戰爭摧毀了一個國家），ravage強調的是一種嚴重的暴力行為，常是累積的造成破壞，如：a hurricane which ravaged the Gulf coast（颶風蹂躪了整個海灣地區）

disciple: 信徒，門徒；注意，耶酥的十二門徒應翻譯為：twelve apostles，apostles是指受主差遣的人，而disciple是跟隨主的人，所以可以這么理解，apostle一定是disciple，但disciple不一定是apostle

conceal: 隱蔽，隱藏；該詞常與hide通用，多指有意將某事物隱藏起來或不予以泄漏，它只作及物動詞，hide還可以作不及物動詞，指有意或無意地將某物（或人）藏（躲）在人們不易看到或發現的地方，如：He concealed his motives.（他隱藏了他的動機。） The moon was hidden by the clouds.（月亮被云彩遮住了。）

總結 Summary

“趁火打劫”即是乘機搏亂，有兩種方式：一是乘人之危去混水摸魚；一是自己放火，然后賊喊捉賊，達成自己的企圖。不管趁火也好，縱火也好，其目的都是在對方身處困境的時候，瞅準時機，堅決果斷地出擊，從中獲利。同時這個計謀也警示大家，在出現內部紛爭時，最容易給敵人可乘之機，此時一定要當心鷸蚌相爭，漁翁得利。

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（來源：滬江英語 編輯：崔旭燕）