A horse can travel thousands of miles, and a stone can eat it all. People who eat horses don't know that they can travel thousands of miles and still eat. This is a horse. Although it has the ability to travel thousands of miles, it looks beautiful only because of lack of food and physical strength, and it is impossible to wait with an ordinary horse. Why not ask it to travel thousands of miles?
Translation:
A horse that has traveled thousands of miles can sometimes eat a stone of grain after a meal. People who feed horses don't know that they can travel thousands of miles to feed them (like ordinary horses). Such a horse, even if it has the ability to travel thousands of miles a day, is not full of food and lacks strength, and its talent and excellent quality cannot be shown. If it wants to be like an ordinary horse, how can it be required to walk thousands of miles a day?
Central idea:
Ma Shuo is an argumentative essay, which is like an allegory rather than an allegory. Using metaphor to debate can't clearly express opinions, nor can it impose personal opinions on readers. The author describes the experience of Maxima with image thinking, presents facts, saves pen and ink to tell the truth, and uses function words (auxiliary words, exclamations and conjunctions) in ancient Chinese, which embodies the interest and artistic conception of singing and sighing. Bole's allusions have been quoted by Han Yu many times (see Preface to Letter of Recommendation, Sending Wen He Yang), which shows that Han Yu's fate is bumpy.