Word
The Chinese compound panlong combines pan 蟠 "coiling; curling; curving; bending; winding; twisting" and long 龍 or 龙 "dragon". Longpan 龍蟠 "dragon coiling", the reverse of panlong, is a literary metaphor for "person of unrecognized talent" (see the Fayan below).
Panlong "coiled dragon" can be written 蟠龍 or 盤龍, using pan 蟠's homophonous variant Chinese character pan 盤 or 盘 "tray; plate; dish". Another example of this graphic interchangeability is panrao 蟠繞 or 盤繞 "twine round; surround; fill". Two Classical Chinese panlong 盤龍 idioms are panlongpi 盤龍癖 ("coiling dragon habit") "gambling addiction" (alluding to 5th-century gambler Liu Yi 劉毅 or Liu Panlong 劉盤龍) and panlong-wohu 盤龍臥虎 (lit. "coiling dragon crouching tiger") "talented people remaining concealed". In Fengshui and Four Symbols theory, the Dragon and Tiger are symbolic opposites. Take for instance, longtan-huxue 龍潭虎穴 ("dragon's pond and tiger's cave") "dangerous places" or Wohu canglong 臥虎藏龍 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Read more about this topic: Panlong (mythology)
Famous quotes containing the word word:
“Sometimes a word will start it, like
Hands and feet, sun and gloves. The way
Is fraught with danger, you say, and I
Notice the word “fraught”....”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“She speaks poniards, and every word stabs.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“And for tired eyes every light is too bright, and for tired lips every breath too heavy, and for tired ears every word too much.”
—Georg Büchner (1813–1837)