Chinese sayings: 48 (吠非其主)

 

吠非其主

fèi fēi qí zhǔ

"bark not [at] its master"

I'd written a blog a while back about the hunting dogs on the French farm near the Pyrénées:  that they only barked at people and cars outside the family, so the mistress of the farm didn't need to look up at the sound of every approaching car and human.

    I used to think it was only those dogs that did that, but obviously I don't know enough about dogs.

    There's a Chinese saying covering this already: 吠非其主, and going as far as back the Han dynasty.

司馬遷《史記·淮陰侯列傳》

司马迁《史记·淮阴侯列传》

The Biographies of the Marquis of Huaiyin (around the early Western Han period, 202 —8 BC) 

in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian

“跖之狗吠尧，尧非不仁，狗固吠非其主”，

(google translate)  

Quote 

The dog of Zhi barked at Yao, not because Yao was unkind, but because the dog barked at someone who was not its master. 

Unquote

(堯帝 / 尧帝 / Yáo Dì / Emperor Yao, traditionally c. 2356 – 2255 BCE, was a legendary Chinese ruler, considered by some sources as one of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors.)

See also They don't bark at family:  https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2025/01/they-dont-bark-at-family-france.html