Dao De Jing, chapter 7

[lnhammer]

[The deniability is still plausible, right?]

Heaven endures, earth abides.
The reason heaven and earth can endure and abide
Is because they don’t live for themselves
And thus can live enduringly.
Because of this, the sage withdraws himself yet comes foremost;
He distances himself yet is present.
Is it not because he is selfless
That he can achieve himself?

天长地久。
天地所以能长且久者，
以其不自生，
故能长生。
是以圣人后其身而身先；
外其身而身存。
非以其无私耶？
故能成其私。

If “heaven and earth” in l.2 is instead understood as the singular universe, l.3 becomes “Is because it doesn’t live for itself.” This slippage between collective and components is not the only wordplay in this passage, and I think I've strained the English too much trying to replicate some of it. Bah.

---L.

Comments

[sartorias]

It's that ambivalent 其, right?

[lnhammer]

That gave me fits, too. Such the multipurpose pronoun.

[de_eekhoorn]

Entirely plausible.

(As long as one's guilty pleasure is translating classical Chinese...)

I am certainly enjoying reading these.

[lnhammer]

I have no guilt whatsoever for translating the ghost poems, or the other Tang poems. This, though — the world does not need another one of this.