Wong Tai Sin lot 70 of 100
The old man at the frontier loses his horse
Middling (中平). Grade as given on the named web transcriptions. We have not seen it on a temple printing, and we do not know that the temple prints one.
可比當年一塞翁
雖然失馬半途中
不知禍福真何事
到底方明事始終
Compare that old man at the frontier long ago.
He lost a horse partway along the road,
yet who knows whether it is fortune or disaster?
Only at the very end does it become clear how things went from start to finish.
What this lot says
The verse turns on the well-known idea that a loss may not be a loss, and that you cannot tell until the whole matter is over.
It is a middling lot. It asks you not to judge a setback too early.
A lot is a prompt for reflection. It cannot promise a result, and it is no substitute for medical, legal or financial advice.
The story behind it
The old man at the frontier loses his horse (塞翁失馬)
A traditional allusion named with this lot. We have not traced the story to a source we could read, so we do not retell it here.
Where this text comes from
This verse is a traditional temple text with no known author, here read from named web transcriptions. We compared the sites character by character and show every difference. We could not establish whether the sites are independent of one another, and we have not read a temple printing.
Fortune Sticks (fortunesticks.org) (the text shown above)
可比當年一塞翁 / 雖然失馬半途中 / 不知禍福真何事 / 到底方明事始終
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Luckeyes (算命眼, luckeyes.com)
可比當年一塞翁 / 雖然失馬半途中 / 不知禍福真何事 / 到底方明事始終
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Andy.hk (加賀風水)
可比當年一塞翁 / 雖然失馬半途中 / 不知禍福真何事 / 到底方明事始終
Retrieved 2026-11-09
English translation and commentary are by Cast & Chart.