Translation of Lu people sawing poles into the city

The vernacular translation is as follows:

A man with a long pole in the state of Lu tried to enter the city gate. At first, he stood up with it and could not enter (the city gate). Hold it sideways, and you can't enter (the city gate). I can't think of anything.

(After a while) an old man came here and said, "I'm not a man of great intelligence, but I've seen a lot of things. Why not use a saw to cut off the long pole and enter the city gate?" So (the Lu native) listened to (the old man's method) and cut off the long pole. Nothing in the world is more stupid than this.

is selected from Tai Ping Guang Ji in Song Dynasty.

The original text is as follows:

If Lu has a long pole to enter the city gate, he will hold it vertically at the beginning and cannot enter. If you hold it horizontally, you can't enter it. Nothing can be done. An old lady from Russia said, "I'm not a saint, but I've seen a lot of things. Why not cut in with a saw?" So I cut it off. The stupidity of the world is beyond me.

Extended information:

Creation background:

Taiping Guangji is a great book compiled by people in the Song Dynasty. There are 5 volumes in the book and 1 volumes in the catalogue, which are based on unofficial history's novels from the Han Dynasty to the early Song Dynasty, and other miscellaneous works mainly by novelists. In the Song Dynasty, 12 people, including Li Yun, Hu Meng, Li Mu, Xu Xuan, Zhao Neiji, Wang Kezhen, Song Bai, Lu Wenzhong, were ordered by Song Taizong to compile. It started in the second year of Taiping Xingguo (977) and was completed in the following year (978).

There are more than 4 kinds of books cited in Taiping Guangji, and the source is generally indicated at the end of each article, but occasionally there are some mistakes, which cause the same book to have different names or different books to have the same name, so it is impossible to make accurate statistics based on it. There is a bibliography in front of the book, * * * 343 kinds, but it doesn't match the actual number in the book. It is probably added by people after the Song Dynasty.

In terms of content, the story that received the most was actually a collection of stories before the Song Dynasty. Many of these books have been lost, and only their remains can be seen in this book. Many stories of the Tang Dynasty and before the Tang Dynasty were preserved by Taiping Guangji.