Chinese idioms from the Dao De Jing
祸福相依 (huò fú xiāng yī)
Reworked from chapter 58
祸福相依 (huò fú xiāng yī), “misfortune and fortune lean on each other”, condenses two lines of chapter 58 of the Dao De Jing and means that bad luck and good luck turn into each other.
Character by character
| 祸 | huò | disaster |
|---|---|---|
| 福 | fú | good fortune |
| 相 | xiāng | each other |
| 依 | yī | to lean on, to depend on |
| 祸福相依 | Misfortune and good fortune depend on each other, and one can turn into the other. | |
Where it comes from
The idiom is not in the text as such: it reworks the line 祸兮福之所倚，福兮祸之所伏.
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祸兮福之所倚，
Misfortune is what fortune leans on;
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福兮祸之所伏。
fortune is where misfortune hides.
How the meaning moved
The four characters 祸福相依 are not in the Dao De Jing. Chapter 58 says: “Misfortune is what fortune leans on; fortune is where misfortune hides. Who knows where it ends? There is no fixed rule.” The idiom joins the two lines in four characters: 祸 and 福, misfortune and fortune, 相, “each other”, and 依, “to lean on, depend on”, a modern word for the book's 倚. The form 祸福相倚 is also found, keeping the book's character.
The chapter goes on: “The upright turns again into the strange; the good turns again into the ill-omened. People have been lost in this for a long time.” Its point is that no state of things is fixed, so the sage does not push any quality to its extreme. The best-known illustration of the idea is the story of the old man at the frontier who lost his horse (塞翁失马), told in the Huainanzi. Today 祸福相依 is used to console someone after a setback, or to warn against rejoicing too soon.
Using it today
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祸福相依，这次没考上也许不是坏事，你可以好好想想自己真正想学什么。
huò fú xiāng yī, zhè cì méi kǎo shàng yě xǔ bù shì huài shì, nǐ kě yǐ hǎo hǎo xiǎng xiǎng zì jǐ zhēn zhèng xiǎng xué shén me.
Fortune and misfortune go together: failing the exam this time may not be a bad thing, since now you can think about what you really want to study.
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公司扩张太快，订单越多风险越大，真是祸福相依。
gōng sī kuò zhāng tài kuài, dìng dān yuè duō fēng xiǎn yuè dà, zhēn shì huò fú xiāng yī.
The company grew too fast: the more orders, the greater the risk. Fortune and misfortune really do go together.