All of them wanted to drink it by himself. So they set a rule: every one would draw a snake on the ground. The man who finished first would have the wine.
One man finished his snake very soon. He was about to drink the wine when he saw the others were still busy drawing.
"How slow you are!" said the man, adding, "I still have enough time to add feet to my snake."
However, before he could finish the feet, another man finished and grabbed the jar from him, saying, "Who has ever seen a snake with feet? Yours is not a snake. The wine should be mine!" Then he drank the wine.
That’s the story of "Draw a snake and add feet to it." It tells us going too far is as bad as not going far enough.
古时几个人分一壶酒。他们都想独自喝完那壶酒，所以就定了一个规矩：每人在地上画一条蛇，谁画得最快，这壶酒就归谁。
有一个人很快就把蛇画好了。他正打算喝这壶酒时，看见别人都还在忙着画，就得意扬扬地说：“你们画得好慢呀，等我再画上几只脚吧！”
结果，他的蛇脚还没加完，另一个人已经把蛇画好了。那人一下把酒壶夺了过去，说：“有谁见过长脚的蛇？你画的不是蛇，这壶酒应该是我的了。”说罢，就喝起酒来。
这就是“画蛇添足”的故事。
它告诉我们这样的道理：做得过分和做得不够都是不对的。
