这句谚语从字面意思上理解就是“不要给百合花上颜色。”

　　lily-one of several types of plant with large bell-shaped flowers of various colors, especially white. It’s often regarded as a symbol of virtue.

　　百合；百合花。品德的象征。

　　众所周知，

　　百合是一种非常美丽的花，无需再加以作何修饰，如果再给百合上颜色的话，不就是画蛇添足了吗？

　　莎士比亚的一段话，不仅生动地解释了“画蛇添足”，而且还给我们提供了许多类似的说法：

　　"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet, to smooth the ice, or add another hue unto the rainbow . . . is wasteful and ridiculous excess."

　　-- William Shakespeare

　　为纯金镀金，为百合着色，为紫罗兰填香，为冰面整饰，抑或是为彩虹增彩，皆属画蛇添足之可笑举动。

　　In fact, before Shakespeare, it used to gild the rose, or paint the golden rose on church architecture. But rose was later found to have the wrong type of symbolism and was then replaced by the more virtuous lily on the church decoration. And in the 1920s, there was this phrase“gild the lily”, but the more common saying is: don’t paint the lily.