Cao Chong weighs an elephant 曹衝稱象
One day， Sun Quan sent Cao Cao a present. It was a huge elephant. Cao Cao wanted to find out the weight of the elephant.一天孫權送給曹操一個禮物，一頭大象。曹操想知道大象的重量。
“What a huge animal it is! Can anyone tell me how to weigh it?” he asked the crowd around him.“好大的動物!認有辦法把這頭大象稱一稱?”他問他周圍的人們。
“Can we get a large scale?” asked a soldier. However， no one could find a scale large enough.一個士兵問“能給我們一個大秤嗎?”，但是，沒有人能找到一個足夠大的秤。
“Can we cut it up?” asked another soldier. “No. I don’t want to kill it，” said Cao Cao. Just then， young Cao Chong had a wonderful idea. “I can weigh the elephant!” he said “let me have a try.”
另一個士兵問道“我們能把它切開嗎?”曹操說“不，我不想殺了它”。這時，年幼的曹衝有了主意。“我能稱象”他說，“讓我試試”。
Cao Chong asked some soldiers to lead the elephant onto a boat. As the heavy animal walked onto it， the boat went lower into the water. Cao Chong drew a line on the side of the boat to mark how low it went. The elephant was then taken off the boat and the boat was filled with rocks until it went down again and water reached the line on the boat.
曹衝讓一些士兵把象帶到大船上。當這個龐大的動物走上船時，船在水中下沉了。曹衝在船的一邊畫了一條線，來標記水面所達到的位置。接下來把大象趕下船，再讓船裝載石頭，讓水面也達到記號的那條線。
Cao Chong then weighed the rocks. He added up the weight of all the rocks and said， “This is the weight of the elephant.”
曹衝接下來稱了各塊石頭的重量，把所有石頭的重量加了起來。然後他說“這就是大象的重量”。
Cao Cao was very happy with his son. “ My son is very clever， isn’t he” he said. Everyone agreed.曹操對他的兒子很滿意。他說，“我兒子很聰明，對嗎”。每個人都贊同他的話。
