“A snake in the grass”in other languages

Same idea, different pictures

English and Urdu hide a snake close by: in the grass, or in your own sleeve, aasteen ka saanp, where you'd never think to look. The English one goes back to Virgil, whose shepherds warn that “a snake lurks in the grass”.

Malay makes it a guardian gone bad: you trusted the fence, and the fence ate the rice. Japanese is a description rather than a picture: hara ga kuroi, a black belly, for someone who hides scheming thoughts behind a pleasant face.