“Horses” by Lieh Tzu
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Duke Mu of Ch’in said to Po-lo:
‘You are getting on in years. Is there anyone in your family whom I can send to find me horses?’
‘A good horse can be identified by its shape and look, its bone and muscle. But the great horses of the world might be extinct, vanished, perished, lost; such horses raise no dust and leave no tracks. My sons all have lesser talent, they can pick a good horse but not a great one. But there is a man I know who carries and hauls, and collects firewood for me, Chiu-fang Kao As a judge of horses he is my equal. I suggest that you see him.’
Duke Mu saw the man and sent him away to find horses. After three months he returned and reported to the Duke.
‘I have got one. It is in Sha-ch’iu.’
‘What kind of horse?’
‘A mare, yellow.’
The Duke sent someone to fetch it; it turned out to be a stallion, and black. The Duke, displeased, summoned Po-lo.
‘He’s no good, the fellow you sent to find me horses. He cannot even tell one colour from another, or a mare from a stallion. What can he know about horses?’
Po-lo breathed a long sigh of wonder.
‘So now he has risen to this! It is just this that shows that he is worth a thousand, ten thousand, any number of people like me. What such a man as Kao observes is the innermost native impulse — behind the horse’s movements. He grasps the essence and forgets the dross, goes right inside it and forgets the outside. He looks for and sees what he needs to see, ignores what he does not need to see. In the judgement of horses of a man like Kao, there is something more important than horses.’
When the horse arrived, it did prove to be a great horse.
