Cobie

I find rule 3 the most difficult one to comply with. In Classical, each character is only one syllable. A whole stanza typically consists of only 16 syllables. It’s not really possible to convey the meaning in English in 16 syllables.

Obscurity violates rule 2 for transltions (as by 嚴 復 (yan2 fu4): 信 xìn - true to the meaning 達 dá - easy to understand 雅 yǎ - preserves the style of the original

I did already post that

Ursula le Guin’s DDJ https://wesleyac.com/dao/refs/leguin1998.pdf I see she translates 德 in 道德經 (dao4 de2 jing1) as “power”. Read enough, not for me.

Sinologist Paul Golding came to OD a few times, had a few convos. He was appalled by the UleG book. “… just think of the degree of cultural chauvinism necessary for someone to suppose that he or she can translate the Daode jing without knowing Chinese. (... Chinese people don't try to translate Shakespeare without knowing English.) The only way would be if you had convinced yourself that you already know what the text says. ...” (Paul Golding, 8 Those Who Don’t Know Speak: Translations of Laozi by People Who Do Not Know Chinese, from ‘After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy’ https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1wn0qtj.12

The Emperor in Ancient China, he could by decree command people to learn whatever he wanted them to learn. He could also change the meanings of characters at will. All of us here on TDB - we are mere plebs; we cannot expect other people to learn new stuff for us. And we have to use the meanings of characters as defined.

imo surely not.

It can be difficult to find an English word that means the same as the character and also is as concise as characters are. When English is not the first language, it ican be hard to know if a word one finds in the dictionary is actually well known enough. So I totally understand CD’s reluctance to give up on the quale grokking. But it is incomprehensible. Grok your quale ??? Ah … it’s a typo! It’s ’fock you quail’.

The characters and translation used by CD are (my highlights and layout): Classical did not use commas (these were inserted by CD). To define a term, they put e.g. 也者 between noun and definition. 無 used as a noun, only had the meaning of 'nothing(ness)'. 有 used as a noun had the meanings: existence; posession, having. "Tao at/as" is not in the characters (it was inserted by CD). Good practice is to put [square brackets] around what you insert into a translation.

@steve I think so, yes. And keeping to the same meaning imo makes the verse meaningless.

This line is not in the old scripts (Guodian, MWD).

I have not seen any translation using either “spinning” or “blended”. Classical was polysemic, 混 had various tones and various meanings. Sinologist Henricks’ translation of the Guodian (the oldest script known): His translation of the MWD (the next oldest script known): CD’s translation uses the Wang Bi script which is of a much later date; it used to be:

@steve because of the ploysemic nature of classical:

The characters here are: Twice the translator had to chose a meaning for 道 . The listing for 道 in Kroll: ~~~<>~~~ dao4 ~~~<>~~~ 1. way that leads somewhere, road, route, pathway, passage. 2. the Way; as image suggesting how things actually exist, fundamental reality, a constant Way in which the diverse ways of living and relating are essentially balanced and whole. a. conceptual term used by all schools of thought, with same root metaphor but varying connotations: Confucian ‘Way’ incl. norms of social responsibility and personal conduct exemplified by ideal worthies such as King Wen of the Zhou, the Duke of Zhou, etc.; Dao. ‘Way’ points to absolute and ineffable reality behind flux and modalities of the world, and advisability of taking it as model; Budd. ‘Way’ incl. possibility of release from the round-of-birth-and-death (samsara) and recognition of contingent and impermanent nature of human existence. b. 道士 dao4 shi4 gentleman of the Way, exemplar of the Confucian ‘Way’; also, expert in the ‘Way’, specialist in occult or mantic practices, syn. 方士 fang4 shi4; also (med.), Daoist adept, usu. associated with an organised Dao. community (see 5a below), priest. N.B. Contrast these with (med) 道人 dao4 ren2, man of religion, a Budd. monk (not Dao.). 3. way of doing something, course of action, method, proper procedure, practice; e.g. 所以 求 之 之 道 suo3 yi3 qiu2 zhi1 zhi0 dao4, the means by which one seeks it; 道場 dao4 chang2, place of practice, arena of the Way, altar, Budd. or Dao. chapel. a. guiding road, rule of conduct, principle, guidelines. b. doctrine, tenets, dicta; teachings. c. (Budd.) the Buddha-path, path to enlightenment. 4. skill or art of a particular kind, specialisation. 5. ideas and teachings esp. associated with the texts Zhuangzi and Laozi (or Daodejing); e.g. 道家 dao4 jia1, lineage of the Way, bibliographic category ref. to these and related texts, often defined as ‘philosophical Daoism’ in contrast to next. a. practices esp. associated with movements and texts relating to masters of self-cultivation, pursuit of immortality, and various organised religious communities, esp. those ultimately deriving from the Way of the Celestial Masters (tiashidao 天 師 道 [tian1 shi1 dao4]) founded in mid-2nd-c. CE; e.g. (med.) 道教 dao4 jiao4, teaching of the Way, from early 5th-c. CE a term assoc. with groups and texts just described, often defined now as ‘religious Daoism’. 6. say, speak; express, communicate orally; cue. 7. circuit, administrative area outside the usu. prefecture/district (junxian 郡縣 [jun4 xian4 prefecture county]) structure; in Han times ref. frontier areas mainly populated by non-Chinese; in Tang times also ref. frontier area but from 706 on more importantly to large units of province size throughput the state, each of which (10 at first) incl. many prefectures and governed by special commissioners (shi 使 [shi3 sent]). 8. (med.) understand, be aware of; think, presume. a. (med.) expect; have a sense that X is likely to happen. ~~~<>~~~ dao3 ~~~<>~~~ 1. (interchangeable) 導 dao3 1. lead, lead the way, show the way; conduct, guide. ~~~ Even after filtering out (e.g. ‘med.’, ‘Budd.’), I will still be left with a plethora of choices.

An interpretation is like a working hypothesis, it has to be abandoned when it does not fit all the characters.

Yes, definitely, one cannot read Classical without having an interpretation in mind.

@liminal_luke Read it just in time then. Made sense to me. You’re a good egg.

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A clean house is the sign of a broken computer. (unknown)

CD's time table for the history of the TTC

Be as "mental" as you like, but no one is allowed to make changes to the orignal set of characters.

“predates”. The quatrains go way back, long before even the time of Laozi. (The Book of Chuang Tzu, trans. Martin Palmer)

The traditional system of tetrasyllables and quatrains, predates the fourth- to third-century BC additions creating longer lines. (The Book of Chuang Tzu, trans. Martin Palmer)

No. The breaks are not up to the reader. The original DDJ used the traditional system of tetrasyllables and quatrains.

No. To be 'invisible' does not necessarily imply it does not exist; and to exist does not necessarily imply it's visible. E.g. an object that allows light to pass through, is not visible (e.g. glass).