Three men make a tiger, rumors can kill a person

In “Zhanguoce,” or “Intrigues of the Warring States,” a famous book compiled during the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25), there’s a story which is still widely told today for a popular idiom it generated.

In the story, an official of the State of Wei was about to leave for another state on a mission that might last for a few years. Before his departure, he asked the king: “Your majesty, if one man told you there’s a tiger in the market, would you believe it?”

“No,” said the king.

“If a second man said there’s a tiger in the market, would your majesty believe it?”

“I would be suspicious about it,” the king replied.

“Then, if three people said there’s a tiger in the market, would your majesty believe it?”

“Yes, I would believe it.”

“But in fact, there’s no tiger roaming in the market,” the official said. “So, when I’m away, there will be more than three people to slander me. I hope your majesty will see that.”

Unfortunately for the official, slander in his absence did take hold, and the king ignored his advice to disregard it and refused to see him when he returned.

This anecdote is the source of the popular Chinese idiom, sanren chenghu, or literally “three men make a tiger.”

三人成虎

sān rén chéng hǔ

It often reminds people of the remark “repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth,” which is often attributed to the Nazi propaganda head Joseph Goebbels.

In the same vein, there’s another Chinese saying, zhongkou shuojin, jihui xiaogu, which means literally “public clamor can melt metals and accumulation of defamation can eat away bones.”

In short, this saying means rumors can kill a person.

众口铄金，积毁销骨

zhòng kǒu shuò jīn, jī huǐ xiāo gǔ

So, both the Chinese idioms here may be compared with the English sayings, “if you throw enough mud at the wall, some of it will stick,” and “the tongue is not steel, yet it cuts.”