风马牛不相及

[kavanin]

Can you please help me understand the meaning, or function, of 风 in this 典故? 风马牛不相及

 

Here is the explanation given by the book, but I can't see any reference to 风 in it except for the reference to the 典故 itself (parentheses are mine).

 

公元前656年，齐国（Qíguó）打败了蔡国（Càiguó），接着又去攻打楚国（Chǔguó）。楚国便派使者到齐国说：“你们处在北海，我们处在南海，两地相距这么远，就是牛和马走失了也不会跑到对方的领地去，你们为什么要来攻打我们呢？”齐国便找各种借口来说明自己出征有理。楚国使者听后表示：“对于这种无理的征讨，一定会誓死抵抗。”齐国权衡利害关系，只好与楚国讲和。后人用“风马牛不相及”来表示事物之间没有任何联系，互不相关。

[Demonic_Duck]

多功能成语词典：“风：畜类雌雄相诱；风马牛：跑失的马牛；及：到；不相及：不会互相跑失到对方去。”

 

现代汉语规范词典：“风：雌雄相诱，一说走失；及：遇到。意思是说即使雌雄相诱，马和牛也不会凑到一起。”

[kavanin]

Thank you very much for your help.

 

I find it to hard to use 雌雄相诱 because 马牛 are two different kinds of animals and I can't think of a situation in which a horse and a cow can 诱 each other (in my opinion, if they were 驴和骆驼 there wouldn't be much of a problem), but I think I can take 跑失 or 走失 since 走失 was also used in the explanation. Maybe about 1400 years ago it was a widely known meaning in 楚国 or 齐国 or both. Or maybe it was not 风 but  亡 and somebody made a mistake in transcribing, writing or copying (as in 歧路亡羊).

[BanZhiYun]

To be honest, I don't think a 典故 in 现代汉语 is a good idea, so you should have a look at the 原文／文言文:
 

《左传·僖公四年》

四年春，齐侯以诸侯之师侵蔡。蔡溃。遂伐楚。楚子使与师言曰：“君处北海，寡人处南海，唯是风马牛不相及也。不虞君之涉吾地也，何故？”
　　管仲对曰：“昔召康公命我先君大公曰：‘五侯九伯，女实征之，以夹辅周室。’赐我先君履，东至于海，西至于河，南至于穆陵，北至于无棣。尔贡包茅不入，王祭不共，无以缩酒，寡人是征。昭王南征而不复，寡人是问。”对曰：“贡之不入，寡君之罪也，敢不共给。昭王之不复，君其问诸水滨。”师进，次于陉。

I'd advise to look at 《古汉语常用字典》 or 《汉语大字典》 for the meaning of 风 during 春秋战国 (since 《左传》was written back then). I believe that'd be your best bet at getting the meaning of 风 in this case.

[BanZhiYun]

Okay, if we do a simple syntax analysis (as we can do with all 成语, since they are 固定的短语, you can do 句法分析 on all 短语 in Chinese), we can see that 风马牛不相及 is a 主谓结构; 风马牛 is 主语, 不相及 is 谓语 on the first level. Then on second level, in 主语 you have 风马牛, where we can see that 风 is 动词。So we can conclude that 风 means 走失 (according to 王力's 《古汉语常用字字典》). I'd also say  that 雌雄想诱 is probably an added meaning to it and that it's wrong, I was just checking 王力‘s 《古汉语常用字字典》 and it never said that 风 had that meaning. Hope this helped!

[kavanin]

Thank you very much. Your explanation helps a lot.