害群之马A Harmful Member of the Herd

A Harmful Member of the Herd（成语 害群之马 英文）


A boy herdsman had this to say:"Now, to rule the land, as I see it, is no different from herding horses. You also have to get rid of anyone who does harm to the horses"(1)


________remark__________
(1) It was meant to be anybody harmful to "the whole group", but our much used idiomatic expression has been "One of the horses harmful to the herd", which seems to be a variation of the original story. In Huainan Zi we can find a saying:"To rule a state is like weeding the fields, getting rid of that which is alien and harmful to the seedlings", and at the same time there is a saying in The Book of Han "Always get rid of the evil one so that he may not do harm to the group".


害群之马

少年说：“治理天下，跟牧马哪里有什么不同呢！也就是去除过分、任其自然罢了！”