Lao Tzu

[randy_byers]

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?

-- Lao Tzu (trans. S. Mitchell)

When I find myself in times of trouble, Taoist masters come to me. A few years ago I read several translations of Chuang Tzu. Now I'm starting to look at Lao Tzu more closely. One thing that immediately becomes apparent is that the Chinese text is a kind of Rorschach test for English translators. The sense of it varies vastly from one translation to another, and every translator projects their own preoccupations. There are also a huge number of English translations of Lao Tzu. Does anybody have any favorites? I've got one by Moss Roberts that includes commentary on the Chinese words, which I think is the kind of thing I'm looking for at the moment. I want to get a sense of the problems/ambiguities the translator is wrestling with. Some interesting comments on various translations here.

Comments

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

Ursula LeGuin did a translation/interpretation a few years ago, which has been languishing on my TBR shelves ever since. I'd be happy to lend it to you when next we meet.

It's not a translation as such; she worked with a translator, and based her choices on her skill as a writer and her experience with several translations of the text. (If I recall correctly, that is.)

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

I'd love to borrow that, thanks. Here's Crispin Sartwell's comment (linked above): "Similar in some ways to Mitchell's version, this has beautiful English, as one would expect of such an accomplished writer. It also has a sort of terseness and a sprightly rhythm that distinguish it from Mitchell, and emphasizes the feminist aspects of the text: the privileging of the female and the residual goddess thing it's got going. Very low on intro and commentaries, but what there is is sharp, and of course a clean presentation of the text is a valuable project as well."

I actually have read a bit of it already (in a bookstore).

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

And hey! It slowly percolates through my brain that we'll see each other -- tomorrow! I'll get it off the shelf right now.

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Thanks, dude!