伯乐和千里马
Bole and the thousand-li horse (伯乐相马)
Name: ________________ Date: ________
太行山的山路又陡又窄。一匹老马拉着一辆装满盐的马车，一步一步往上爬。它的蹄子磨破了，膝盖一次次跪倒，尾巴湿透了，身上的汗不停地往下淌，滴在地上。走到半山腰，它再也拉不动了，只能停在那里，进也不是，退也不是。
这时，一个人正好从这条山路经过。他看见这匹马，愣住了，赶紧从自己的马车上跳下来，扶着马哭了起来。他解下身上的麻布衣服，轻轻地盖在马背上。那匹马低着头，鼻子里喷出一股热气，又抬起头，长长地叫了一声。那声音一直传到天上，像铜钟和石磬一样清亮。
一匹拉盐的老马，为什么会这样叫？因为它终于遇到了懂它的人。原来，这是一匹千里马，本来能日行千里，可是一直没有人认出它，它只好年复一年地拉着沉重的马车。而那个下车哭它的人，就是春秋时期最懂马的人伯乐。
据说伯乐本名孙阳，因为他看马的眼光实在太准，人们就用天上专门管理马匹的星官“伯乐”来称呼他。这个故事记载在《战国策》里。讲故事的人自己也怀才不遇，他想借这匹马告诉春申君：有才能的人如果得不到赏识，就会像这匹马一样，被埋没在沉重的车子后面，一辈子默默无闻。
一千多年以后，唐朝的韩愈写了一篇很短的文章，叫《马说》，里面有一句话后来家喻户晓：“千里马常有，而伯乐不常有。”他说，很多千里马遇不到伯乐，只能被普通人养在马棚里，吃不饱，力气不足，最后跟普通的马一起默默地死去。养马的人拿着鞭子站在它面前，叹着气说：“天下根本没有千里马啊！”韩愈反问：真的没有千里马吗？恐怕是他们根本不认识千里马罢了。
从那以后，“伯乐”就成了一个常用词。今天，中国人说一位老师或者老板是自己的“伯乐”，意思是他第一个看出了自己的才能。也许每个人心里都有一匹默默拉车的千里马，等着那个肯为它停下来的人。
Key words
| Word | Pinyin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 窄 | zhǎi | narrow |
| 匹 | pǐ | classifier for horses, mules and bolts of cloth |
| 尾巴 | wěiba | tail |
| 退 | tuì | to return; to refund (as in 退货) |
| 扶 | fú | to support with the hand; to help up |
| 盖 | gài | lid; cover; to cover |
| 传 | chuán | to pass on; to transmit |
| 天上 | tiānshàng | in the sky; in heaven |
| 据说 | jùshuō | it is said; reportedly |
| 记载 | jìzǎi | to record; to write down; record; account |
| 老板 | láobǎn | boss; owner (of a shop or business) |
| 滴 | dī | playful spelling of the particle de (as in 好滴) |
English (for the teacher)
The road over the Taihang mountains was steep and narrow. An old horse was hauling a cart loaded with salt, climbing step by step. Its hooves were worn raw, its knees buckled again and again, its tail was soaked through, and sweat streamed down its body and dripped onto the ground. Halfway up the mountain it could pull no more; it could only stand there, unable to go forward or back.
Just then a man came along the mountain road. He saw the horse and froze, then quickly jumped down from his own carriage, held the horse and began to weep. He took off his linen robe and laid it gently over the horse's back. The horse kept its head low and blew a warm breath from its nostrils, then raised its head and gave a long neigh. The sound rose all the way to the sky, clear as a bronze bell or a stone chime.
Why would an old horse hauling salt cry out like that? Because at last it had met someone who understood it. It was a thousand-li horse, one that could run a thousand li in a day, but nobody had ever recognised it, so year after year it had to haul heavy carts. And the man who climbed down and wept for it was the greatest judge of horses of the Spring and Autumn period: Bole.
Bole's real name is said to have been Sun Yang; his eye for horses was so sharp that people called him after Bole, the star official in heaven in charge of horses. This story is recorded in the Zhanguo ce, the Strategies of the Warring States. The man who told it was a gifted man nobody had noticed, and through this horse he wanted to tell Lord Chunshen that a talented person who is never appreciated ends up like this horse, buried away behind a heavy cart and unknown all his life.
More than a thousand years later, Han Yu of the Tang dynasty wrote a very short essay called “On Horses”, with a line in it that everyone came to know: “Thousand-li horses are common, but Boles are not.” He said many thousand-li horses never meet a Bole and are kept in the stable by ordinary people, never get enough to eat, lack strength, and in the end die quietly alongside ordinary horses. Their keeper stands before them with a whip and sighs, “There are simply no thousand-li horses in the world!” Han Yu asks back: are there really no thousand-li horses? More likely they just can't recognise one.
Ever since, 伯乐 has been an everyday word. Today, when Chinese people call a teacher or a boss their 伯乐, they mean the first person to see their talent. Perhaps everyone has inside them a thousand-li horse quietly pulling a cart, waiting for the one person willing to stop for it.