What fable is the cup bow snake shadow?

The shadow of the bow and snake is an allegory.

Mistake the bow shadow reflected on the glass for a snake. Metaphor is the fear caused by paranoia. Synonym of cup bow snake shadow: suspicious, nervous, antonym: calm.

The shadow of the cup bow snake comes from an allusion. Chen Ying, the county magistrate, invited Du Xuan, the main book, to drink. Because of the light, he regarded the reflection of the bow in the cup as a snake twisting in the cup. After drinking the banquet, he felt unbearable abdominal pain. A few days later, Chen Ying went to Du Xuangu on business and asked him how he got sick. Du Xuan told about the snake in the glass when he was drinking that day.

Chen Ying sat in the hall thinking over and over again, wondering why there was a snake in Du Xuan's cup. Suddenly, the red bow on the north wall caught his attention. He picked up a glass of wine and put it in its original position. There was a bow in the glass. If you don't look carefully, it really looks like a snake crawling.

Chen Ying immediately ordered a carriage to pick up Du Xuan, let him sit in his original position, told him to observe the shadow in the glass carefully, and said: The snake in the glass you mentioned is only the reflection of the bow on the wall, and there is nothing strange. Now you can rest assured! When Du Xuan found out what had happened, his doubts disappeared immediately, and his illness soon recovered.

Cup bow and snake shadow, a Chinese idiom, is a complex sentence idiom evolved from fable. Idiom allusions were first seen in Ying Shao, a scholar in the Eastern Han Dynasty, and similar stories were also found in The Book of Jin, Le Guang Zhuan. The original intention was to mistake the bow shadow reflected on the glass for a snake, and later it was a metaphor for fear caused by paranoia.