Min the Regular Attendant (常侍) Has Me Compose on a Painting of Two Horses閔常侍令賦雙馬圖
鮫綃勻滑雪色平。粉墨丹鉛繪彩明。騧蒼二馬神且奇。一飛玉勒一牽行。君不見穆滿馭八駿。凌雲躡影一日直過萬里程。又不見伯樂未過虞坂時。驥服塩車兩耳垂。今看此二馬。同是虬與螭。一馬飛去可以朝燕暮秣越。夸父荷杖應難追。翠衫鞓帶紫髯翁。銀鞍赫赫黃金羈。跨塵奔逸電滅沒。王良造父徒爾爲。一馬局促自效轅下駒。俯首低徊莫縱馳。逐日霜蹄何處展。追風逸氣無由施。布袍童子牽且去。傍睞碧草行何遲。畫工畫此豈無謂。中有妙意人誰知。不唯賤畜乃尙爾。男兒窮達一如斯。用之騰躍九天衢。不用或自沈泥途。是亦逢時與否耳。若予者分甘伏櫪無長吁。下車剪拂會有人。時哉未來命矣夫。
The shark-silk (鮫綃) is even and smooth, flat as the light of snow, and the colors drawn in powder and ink, cinnabar and white lead, are bright. Two horses, a cream and a blue-grey, marvelous and strange besides: one flies with a jade bridle, one is led along. Have you not seen how King Mu (穆王) drove his eight steeds, crossing clouds and treading shadows, passing straight ten thousand li in a day? And have you not seen how, before Bo Le (伯樂) passed Yuban (虞坂), the thousand-li horse drew a salt cart with both ears drooping? Now I look at these two horses: both alike are coiling dragons and water-serpents. One could fly off to be foddered in Yan at morning and in Yue at evening, so that Kuafu (夸父), staff on shoulder, would be hard put to follow. A red-bearded old man in a blue jacket with a leather belt has set on it a silver saddle and a flashing golden bridle. It rides the dust and runs as lightning vanishes, and Wang Liang (王良) and Zaofu (造父) are no more than wasted effort. The other is cramped, making itself a colt beneath the yoke, head bowed and pacing about, unable to run its fill. Where shall it stretch the frost-like hooves that once chased the sun? There is no way to unfold the surpassing spirit that once chased the wind. A boy in hempen clothes leads it along; eyeing the green grass sidelong, how slow its going is. How should the painter have had no intent in painting this? There is a subtle meaning within, but who will know it? Not only are lowly beasts yet thus: a man's straits and success are just the same. Used, he leaps up nine thousand paces; unused, he may sink of himself into the muddy road. This too is only meeting one's time, or not meeting it. One like me takes it sweetly to lie by the trough as his lot befits, and does not sigh long. In the end there will be someone to come down from the carriage and groom and dust me off. The time has not come: it is fate.