Translation:
There is Bole in the world, and then you can find Maxima. There are often swift horses, but Bole doesn't often have them. Therefore, even if there is a swift horse, it is only a disgrace to the coachman who is a servant and dies in the stable with the ordinary horse. It is not necessary to call it "swift horse".
A horse that can travel thousands of miles a day can sometimes eat a stone of food once. People who feed horses don't know how to feed them according to their ability to travel thousands of miles a day. Therefore, even if such a horse has the ability to travel thousands of miles a day, it has insufficient food and strength. Its special talent and heroic posture cannot be displayed. Besides, it is impossible to be equal to ordinary horses. How can it be required to travel thousands of miles a day?
Ride it, but don't raise it according to the way of riding a swift horse, and you can't give full play to its talents, but you can't understand its meaning when you listen to its bray. Just stand in front of it with a whip and say, "There is no swift horse in the world"! Alas! Is there really no maxima? Actually, they really don't know a swift horse.
Ma Shuo is an essay by Han Yu, a litterateur in Tang Dynasty, which is a style of argumentation. It was originally the fourth essay written by Han Yu, and the title "Ma Shuo" was added by later generations. This article was written from the 11th year (795) to the 16th year (800) of Zhenyuan. "Shuo" means "talk" and is an ancient argumentative genre.
This article takes the horse as a metaphor, and talks about the talent problem, revealing the author's cynicism and his feelings and resentment. It expresses the author's strong indignation at the feudal rulers' failure to identify, reuse and bury talents.
Overall appreciation of Ma Shuo;
Ma Shuo is an argumentative article, which is like a fable but not a fable. Using metaphor to argue does not put through the arguments held positively and impose personal opinions on readers. Describing the experience of Maxima by thinking in images, putting forward facts, and omitting the pen and ink of telling the truth, the author makes use of the function words in ancient Chinese, reflecting the taste and artistic conception of singing and sighing.
Bole's allusions have been quoted by Han Yu several times (see Letter of Recommendation for People and Preface to Send Wen Chu Shi to Heyang), which shows that Han Yu's fate is bumpy. The author depicts the contradiction between "horse eater" and swift horse, and compares them, which not only describes the depression of swift horse, but also writes the ignorance and bossiness of those who don't know the true talents.
When no one creates favorable objective conditions for it, a swift horse sometimes wants to show its strengths but has nowhere to make it. In the end, it is powerless, even an ordinary horse can't compare with it, and it can't realize the function of traveling thousands of miles a day, so the treatment can't compare with a "regular horse". It is not surprising to be humiliated and die, and it will not attract people's attention.
Because of the horse eater, Maxima can't fulfill his duties, and he will be blamed and punished. He is often beaten up and his treatment is worse. On the surface, the "horse eater" is not a bole, and he doesn't know horse language, but it implies that it is useless for people who are not talented to complain to those ignorant and overbearing rulers.