Is there an English equivalent for the Persian proverb "to play with the tail of a lion"?

Question

The Persian proverb to play with the tail of a lion is used informally to say that a certain situation is very dangerous. By saying it, we alert the listener that the act which they are about to do is likely to result in their death.

Example: Driving too rapidly in a busy road is like [playing with the tail of a lion.]

Is there a proverb that would express the same thing in English?

---

I have already heard the expression to play with fire, but it doesn't quite work because the Persian proverb has a bit of a chiding tone- the speaker wants both to alarm and ridicule the listener. The aim is to say that the act is at the same time dangerous and foolish.

Answer 1

Playing with fire is similar. However, it implies only that the activity is highly dangerous (or foolish), but not necessary lethal.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/play_with_fire

There is also sailing close to the wind - which means taking unnecessary risks. I'd guess this is also less serious than the OP's example.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sail-close-to-the-wind

If someone is really endangering their life, we'd say they're dicing with death

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dice_with_death

Answer 2

Don't poke the bear / Poking the bear

Urban Dictionary : A phrase of warning used to prevent oneself or others from asking or doing something that might provoke a negative response from someone or something else.

Answer 3

I honestly think that playing with a lion's tail is perfectly acceptable. Colorful, descriptive English is rife with fun similes like that.

Skating on thin ice is like what you are looking for, but I think it misses the absurdity of playing with the lion's tail and replaces it with complacent obliviousness to one's predicament. For a similar reason, I think that playing with fire is also a little off, in that it connotes ignorant defiance of danger rather than bravado.

A more mundane, but commonly used phrase is taking one's life into their own hands. It generally means that someone will put his/herself into a dangerous situation where their own actions or skill are the only thing that will allow them to escape unscathed. I think this fits your example fairly well - Driving too rapidly on a busy road is like taking your life into your own hands.

Answer 4

tickling the dragon's tail; Wikipedia, Louis Slotin.

Louis Slotin was a physicist on the Manhattan Project who died in 1946 nine days after his screwdriver slipped in the course of a criticality experiment.

Criticality testing involved bringing masses of fissile materials to near-critical levels to establish their critical mass values. Scientists referred to this flirting with the possibility of a nuclear chain reaction as "tickling the dragon's tail", based on a remark by physicist Richard Feynman, who compared the experiments to "tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon".

This phrase may be familiar only to physicists and nuclear engineers, but to them the picture of assembling by hand the elements of of a nuclear critical mass, and stopping just short of criticality, is the ultimate game of chicken.

See also Physics Stack Exchange, https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/148569/why-did-tickling-the-dragons-tail-by-louis-slotin-not-cause-an-explosion, Why did “tickling the dragons tail” by Louis Slotin not cause an explosion?

Answer 5

Dancing with the devil.

My father was a policeman who used this expression all the time to describe the behavior of some of his "clients". Particularly the ones who almost got themselves killed doing stupid things.

Answer 6

The most simple expression I know of for this is to tempt fate

If you tempt fate or providence by doing something, you take a silly risk by doing it and depend too much on your good luck:

Cambridge Dictionary

So, as per your example:

Driving too rapidly in a busy road is tempting fate

Answer 7

I like the other answers here, but the playful connotation in the OP makes the question a bit tricky. I'll submit flirting with disaster as another option.

It still emphasizes the danger much moreso than the playfulness, but flirting is a pretty light and casual activity. It's also a more modern and less formal version of courting disaster, which makes it feel a little less focused on the danger (to me).

---

EDIT: Responding to a request for references, I looked up the phrases on Google's NGram viewer and found my assertion that "flirting with disaster" is more modern was pretty undercut! At least with regard to books published in English between 1800 and 2008 or so.

NGram Viewer

I still say that flirting with disaster is more common in speech, if nothing else, if only because flirting is in common modern use and courting is much less common. I also think that the Molly Hatchet song, Flirting with Disaster (released 1979) has probably been driving a lot of my familiarity with the phrase.

Answer 8

To fly too close to the sun, in reference to the Greek myth of Icarus is another option. It has more of a humorous connotation of foolishness than to play with fire. However, it can also connote ambitiousness or greediness which may not be appropriate.

Answer 9

An idiomatic expression which mirrors the lion metaphor and comes close is: ride a tiger

TFD(idioms):

ride a tiger

To find yourself in a precarious situation.
The phrase comes from “He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.” Which is to say, once you find yourself in a dangerous circumstance, getting out of it can be even more potentially hazardous, whether to your health or your career.

Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price Copyright © 2011 by Steven D. Price

Answer 10

There's a very similar phrase, "to beard the lion" (sometimes expanded with "in his den")

Confront a danger, take a risk, as in I went straight to my boss, bearding the lion

Answer 11

"Mess with the bull you get the horns." At no point are you in control, of either bull or lion. There are numerous humorous uses of it in popular culture ("The Breakfast Club", "The Pacifier"). Quora had a good write-up for it

Answer 12

Jim Croce said it best in "You Don't Mess Around with Jim":

You don't tug on superman's cape

You don't spit into the wind

You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger

And you don't mess around with Jim

It must be said that I've heard "don't piss into the wind" at least as often as "don't spit into the wind," which presumably was sanitized for radio.

Answer 13

Catch a 'tiger by the tail'. (Something too difficult to manage or cope with. Dictionary.com)

Answer 14

Dicing with death seems to convey the meaning you want. I have found no definitive derivations but this discussion suggests that it was only written down in the 1940s although the idea of gaming against death is much older.

Answer 15

to court trouble or courting trouble

Using court as seeming to be asking for circumstances fraught with danger.

Answer 16

Dancing with the Devil (in the pale moonlight).

Belling the cat. (Though used mostly with things left undone.)

Playing with dynamite.

Jousting with edged tools. (Or playing with edged tools.)

Answer 17

Late addition to the list, but another idiom that may be relevant to the context is:

Belling the cat

To undertake or agree to perform a risky, dangerous, or impossible job or task. It comes from a fable (often and likely incorrectly attributed to Aesop) called "Belling the Cat," in which a group of mice decide that one will harness a bell to a murderous cat so that its jingle will warn them of its presence, though none want to take on the dangerous role.

Answer 18

I believe "poke a tiger with a short stick" comes closest in both meaning and spirit.

On a somewhat related note, it's pretty sad there used to be both tigers and lions in Iran until fairly recently, but both species are now gone.

Answer 19

More idiomatic than proverbial, but the person has a death wish

Answer 20

Cruising for a bruising

slang

Acting in a way that is likely to result in punishment or harm. Often shortened colloquially as "cruisin' for a bruisin'."

Oh, you're cruising for a bruising if you keep talking to me like that!

Did you hear the way he insulted the boss during our meeting? He's really cruisin' for a bruisin'.

[The Free Dictionary]

Answer 21

There already is a very similar idiom, although a fairly rare one:

twisting the lion's tail.

The definition from Collins Dictionary

(American English) to tax the patience of or provoke a person, group, nation, or government, esp. that of Great Britain.

And of course, the lion was chosen as the animal because it is the symbol of the United Kingdom.

Answer 22

Poking a sleeping dragon in the eye

Playing with fire

Poke the bear

All can mean the same thing ultimatley