English Original
This idiom originates from an old folk song. The final two stanzas are as follows:
A family had five brothers, all serving as attendants to a high minister. Every five days, they would return home for a reunion, adorning their horses and robes with gleaming gold. They vied with one another in ostentation and extravagance, drawing crowds of onlookers along the roadside.
There was a peach tree by a well, with a plum tree growing beside it. When insects came to gnaw at the roots of the peach tree, the plum tree invited them to gnaw at its own roots instead. In the end, the plum tree died, its wood ossified.
If even trees know how to sacrifice themselves for others, why cannot brothers do the same?
中文翻译
这个成语出自一首古老的民谣。其最后两段如下：
一户人家有兄弟五人，都在一位高官府中当差。每五天，他们会回家团聚一次，用闪闪发光的黄金装饰他们的马匹和衣袍。他们互相攀比，炫耀奢华，引得路人纷纷驻足围观。
井边有一棵桃树，旁边长着一棵李树。当虫子来啃食桃树的根时，李树邀请它们来啃食自己的根。最终，李树枯死了，木质变得僵硬如石。
连树木都懂得为他人牺牲，兄弟之间为何不能如此呢？