"la lame usera le fourreau"

This has me stumped, I think.

I imagine it's something like "the blade wears out the scabbard", d'you think?

It's a(nother) book on equitation, 1850 this time, talking about how important "blood" is. The whole sentence goes

Ce dernier aura toujours plus d'énergie, mais il n'aura pas les moyens de la dépenser convenablement, et, dans ce cas, la lame usera le fourreau ; néanmoins, tout imparfait qu'il sera ce cheval pourra rendre des services; c'est au sang qu'il devra cet avantage.

What d'ya reckon?

Many thanks in advance.

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on August 14, 2011 at 8:50pm

This one will always have more energy, but he will lack the means of making practical use of it. In such cases, the blade wears out the sheath -- however, as imperfect as he is this horse can be useful. It's in his blood.

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Permalink Reply by Mark Stanton on August 14, 2011 at 11:01pm

Thanks for that Stu. I guess it's not a French saying meaning something obscure, "the blade wears out the sheath" is pretty understandable.

I've got a real problem with this "blood" thing. Everyone (French) I've spoken to agrees that "pur sang" always means "thoroughbred", and so it almost seems that any reference to "blood" to do with horses means this. This example is a particularly strong case where it seems to mean a more general thing as you're suggesting.

On the other hand, this whole section is about racing, at a time when thoroughbreds were being imported into France like crazy because of their racing superiority.

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on August 14, 2011 at 11:09pm

I think it makes sense in the racing context. That last part, in a literal translation, is He owes that advantage to his blood.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on August 15, 2011 at 4:26pm

I don't think it's so common now, but "la lame use le fourreau", literally as you say "the sword wears the sheath", used to be a fairly common expression meaning something like "too much activity wears out the body". It's a similar sentiment to "slow and steady wins the race".

At the time of writing, I tihnk the meaning would have been quite familiar to the reader but it seems a bit more obscure now.

I think for a translation you could just say that the horse doesn't know how to spend his energy wisely and "this will be his downfall" or maybe something like "a little slower and steadier is needed to win the race"...