匠石運斤

　　In Yingdu, the capital city of the state of Chu, a man put a piece of white plaster(石膏，灰泥)of the size of a fly on top of his own nose, and asked an artisan(工匠) named Shi to back it off with an axe.

　　The artisan brandished the axe with sound of whistling wind, it turned out that the plaster had been knocked down without hurting the man's nose. The Ying man hadn't showed any fear on his face, not even blinkered his eyes.

　　King Songyuanjun heard of this story, and asked the artisan to perform it again. The artisan Shi said, "Yes, I did do that before. But the man who could let me perform that skill died long ago."

　　楚國的京城郢都有一個人在自己的鼻尖上抹了一點像蒼蠅翅膀大小的一塊白粉，讓一個叫石的匠人用斧頭把它砍下來。

　　匠石掄起帶著呼呼風聲的斧頭砍下去。結(jié)果白粉完全除掉了，而鼻子卻一點兒沒有受傷。郢人不僅臉上未變，連眼睛都沒有眨一下。

　　宋元君聽說這事后，讓匠人給自己再表演一次。匠石回答說：“我確實曾經(jīng)砍過，但是能讓我施展技術(shù)的配合默契的那個人如今已經(jīng)死去很久了。”