Question

急急急！要求一篇英语哲理故事，两分钟左右。

简单点的，符合初二的。

Answer 1

破镜重圆
南朝陈国(公元557-589)将要灭亡的时候，驸马徐德言把一面铜镜破开，跟妻子各留下一半。双方约定：如果将来夫妻失散了，就把它当作信物。后来，夫妻二人真的失散了，凭借着各人留下的半面镜子，他们最终又得到团圆。

In the Northern and Southern Dynasties when the State of Chen (A.D. 557-589) was facing its demise, Xu Deyan, husband of the princess, broke a bronze mirror into halves. Each of them kept a half as tokens in case they were separated. Soon afterwards, they did lose touch with each other, but the two halves of the mirror enabled them to be reunited.

“破镜重圆”这个成语比喻夫妻失散或分离后重新团聚。

This idiom is used to refer to the reunion of a couple after they lose touch or break up.
This is an interesting story from the Three Kingdoms period (220-280) in ancient China, when the Wei and Wu kingdoms joined together to fight against the Wei Kingdom. Zhou Yu, the chief military commander of the Wu Kingdom, ordered Zhu Ge Liang (the chief minister of the Shu Kingdom and generally regarded as the kingdom´s top master-mind) to produce 100,000 arrows within 10 days.
"Three days is enough, " said Zhu. He also aGREed to be punished if he failed to complete the order.

Zhou mocked that Zhu was looking for self-destruction. On the one hand, Zhou ordered his troops not to provide Zhu with materials to make the arrows. He also sent Lu Su to see how Zhu was dealing the problem.

In fact, Zhu had already realized that this was a plot. He asked Lu (who was kind-hearted) to lend him 20 boats, each lined with straw scarecrows and manned by 30 soldiers. He also requested that Lu not tell Zhou what was happening.

When Lu came again to see Zhu, he did not find anything unusual. Nothing happened on the second day either. In the early morning of the third day, Zhu invited Lu for a boat ride. The 20 boats were tied together with strong ropes. Zhu´s fleet sailed toward the camp of Cao Cao (who was the king of the Wei Kingdom).

A thick mist had spread over the surface of the river. People could hardly see each other on the river. When Zhu´s fleet got close to the Cao camp before dawn, Zhu ordered his soldiers to shout and beat drums to fake an attack. Zhu and Lu simply sat inside one of the boats and drank wine to enjoy themselves.

As soon as the Cao camp heard the shouting and drum beating, they mistook it for a surprise attack by the Zhou camp. Since they could see nobody on the river, they gathered 3,000 bowmen and ordered them to shoot arrows. The front of the scarecrows was quickly shot full of arrows.

After a while, Zhu had his fleet turn around to expose the other side of the scarecrows. When this side was also shot full of arrows, the day broke. Zhu ordered his soldiers to return to their base port. The soldiers shouted, "Thank you, Cao, for your arrows." After they got back to their camp, they collected more than 100,000 arrows from the scarecrows.
A man wanted to buy an ass. He went to the market, and saw a likely one. But he wanted to test him first.

So he took the ass home, and put him into the stable with the other asses. The new ass looked around, and immediately went to choose a place next to the laziest ass in the stable.

When the man saw this he put a halter on the ass at once, and gave him back to his owner.

The owner felt quite surprised. He asked the man, "Why are you back so soon? Have you tested him already?" "I don´t want to test him any more," replied the man, "From the companion he chose for himself, I could see what sort of animal he is."

驴和买驴的人

一个买主到市场上去买驴，他看中一头外表不错的驴，但是他想要牵走试一试。

他把驴牵回家，放在自己其他的驴之间，这驴四处看看，立即走向一头好吃懒做的驴旁边。

于是，买驴的人立刻给那头驴套上辔头，牵去还给驴的卖主。

卖主感到很奇怪，他问买主：“你怎么这么快就回来了？”买主说：“不必再试了，从他所选择什么样的朋友来看，我已经知道他是什么样了。”

寓意: 物以类聚，人以群分。人们往往喜欢跟与自己相同的人交往，所以，我们可以根据一个人的朋友来推断他的为人。

草船借箭

东吴与刘备联合抗曹，东吴大都督周瑜命诸葛亮十日内制作十万支箭。诸葛亮说："只击需三日。"并立下军令状。周瑜笑诸葛亮是自取灭亡。周瑜吩咐士兵不给诸葛亮准备制作箭的材料.诸葛亮让谋士鲁肃偷偷借给他二十条船，每船三十个军士，两边扎上稻草人，听候调用。又叮嘱鲁肃千万别告诉周瑜。鲁肃又来见诸葛亮，第一天不见动静，第二天也不动。第三天四更时分，诸葛亮密请鲁肃到船上。同时，把二十条船用绳索连好，向曹营进发。此时，江上大雾迷漫，对面看不见人。五更时分，船只接近曹营。诸葛亮让军士们在船上擂鼓呐喊，装作周瑜来偷袭。无奈江上雾大看不清楚，曹操只好调三千弓箭手向船上射箭。待草人身上密密地插满了箭，天已放亮，诸葛亮下令收船。军士们高喊着："谢谢曹丞相的箭。"高高兴兴地往回走了。回营后，把箭取下，十万有余
One day Li Kui and Yan Qing， two heroes in liangshan Marsh， spent the night in the town of Jingmen， which is near to the Liangshan Marsh. In the manor the squire told them that Song Jiang， head of the liangshan Marsh， had snatched his daughter away by force. Li Kui got so angry that he ignored the facts and Yan Qing's doubts and immediately went to Liangshan Marsh. He went directly to Loyalty Hall and without a word took his axes and cut down the apricot-yellow banner inscribed with "Act in Heaven's Behalf" and ripped it to shreds. Axes in hand， Li Kui charged across the hall towards Song Jiang. Some commanders in the hall hurriedly blocked him and asked him for reason. Li Kui told them what he had heard， which song Jiang strongly denied. Seeing that Li Kui did not believe him， Song Jiang asked him to search his house. But Li kui said it would be impossible to find the girl because every man in the fortress was under Song Jiang's command. Finally Song Jiang said， "The squire isn't dead yet. I'll go and confront him." In the manor， Li Kui discovered the truth： it was someone else who misbehaved in Song Jiang's name. He began to regret his impatient， hasty actions. He carried a thorn stick on his bare back and asked Song Jiang to take the stick and beat him. Song Jiang said， "I'll forgive you if you capture the two impersonators and bring the girl home." After taking a great deal of bother Li Kui finally found the two perpetrators， Wang Jiang and Dong Hai. He killed them and saved the squire's daughter.

一天，梁山好汉李逵、燕青来到离梁山泊不远的荆门镇投宿。他们听说庄主太公说他的女儿被梁山泊首领宋江抢走。李逵非常气愤，不问青红皂白，也不听燕青劝阻，赶回梁山直奔忠义堂，抡起两把大斧砍倒了堂前的旗杆，把"替天行道"的旗子扯得粉碎。接着又冲上堂去，举斧直奔宋江，在堂上议事的头领门急忙拉住李逵问原因，李逵把荆门镇听到的事情说了一遍。宋江否定，李逵不信，宋江让他去搜，李逵说山上向着宋江的人多，搜不出来。宋江无奈说："太公没死，我们前去对质。"宋江一行来到庄上后，李逵才知道有人冒名顶替，自己后悔莫及，比负荆请罪。宋江说："你找到假宋江，就会姑娘，便可饶你。"李逵下山，几经周折，终于在牛头山找到了抢人的王江和董海两个草寇头目，杀死了强盗，救出了太公的女儿。
To Pull up the Seedlings to Help Them Grow

拔苗助长
Once upon a time, an old farmer planted a plot of rice. Everyday he went to the field to watch the seedlings grow. He saw the young shoots break through the soil and grow taller each day. But still, he thought they were growing too slowly. He got impatient with the young plants. "How could the plants grow faster?" He tossed in bed during the night and could not sleep. Suddenly he hit upon an idea. He had an idea not wait for daybreak. He jumped out of the bed and dashed to the field. By the moonlight, he began working on the rice seedlings. One by one, he pulled up the young plants by half an inch. When he finished pulling, it was already morning. Straightening his back, he said to himself, "What a wonderful idea! Look, how much taller the plants have grown one night!" With great satisfaction, he went back home. He told his son what he had done in a triumphant tone. His son was shocked. Now the sun had risen. The young man was heart-broken to see all the pulled-up young plants dying.
People now use " Ba Miao Zhu Zhang" to describe the behavior of those who are too eager to get something done only to make it worse. The idiom is a bit like the English proverb "Haste makes waste" ------to spoil things by excessive enthusiasm.
从前，有个农夫，种了稻苗后，便希望能早早收成。每天他到稻田时，发觉那些稻苗长得非常慢。
他等得不耐烦，心想：“怎么样才能使稻苗长得高，长很快呢?
想了又想，他终了想到一个“最佳方法”，就是将稻苗拨高几分。
经过一番辛劳后，他满意地扛锄头回家休息。心想：明天稻苗长得一定更高了。
隔天早晨．一早起身，他迫不及待地起去稻田看他的“成果”。
哪知，他跑到稻田时，却看到所有的稻苗都枯萎了。