歧路亡羊

歧路亡羊

学者杨子的邻居丢了一只羊，叫了亲戚朋友又请了杨子的仆人一起去找羊。

杨子问：“丢了一只羊，为什么要找这么多的人去追呢？”
邻居说：“因为路上有很多岔路啊！”
过了一会儿，人们回来了。“找到羊了吗？”，杨子问。
“没有”，大家回答，“路上有岔路，岔路上又有岔路。我们不知该往哪儿找，只好回来了。”

杨子听了沉默不语。他的学生不明白老师在想什么，跑去问老师的朋友心都子。心都子说：“你们的老师在担心你们的学业呀。这件事让他想到你们的学习和研究上有很多困难。如果你们找不到正确的学习方向和方法，最终将没有任何成就，就像大家找不到这只跑丢了的羊。”

这个成语用来形容事情复杂多变，没有正确的方向，人们很容易迷失或偏离正道，找不到真理。

One neighbor of Yang Zi (yáng zí 杨子), a famous scholar lost a sheep. He asked all his relatives , friends as well as all his servant for help.

Yang Zi asked, "Why do you send so many people out just for one lost sheep?"
His neighbor said, "Because there are a lot of branch road."
After a while, all the people came back. "Have you found the sheep?" Yang Zi asked.
"No," they answered, "Each road has branch roads and each branch has its forked roads. We just do not know which road to follow. So we give up."

On hearing this, Yang Zi became silent. His student did not understand what the teacher was pondering. He passed the question to Xin Du Zi, a friend of Yang Zi. Xin Du Zi replied, "Your tutor is worrying about your study. What have happened reminds him of the difficulty of learning and researching. He thinks that if you fail to find the right orientation and method of study, you can accomplish nothing, just like those people trying to find the lost sheep."

The idiom is used to show that when confronted with so many choices and complicated things, one who seeks truth is likely to get loss or go astray without a correct method.