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Friday, March 25, 2011

Line by Line - Verse 25, Line 20

the Earth takes its law from Heaven;
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~

Earth follows heaven.
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~

Earth follows the laws of Heaven
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~

The earth is in touch with heaven.
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~
Simply put, as Derek Lin explains,
The earth itself follows the laws of astronomy -- the rules that govern the motions of heavenly bodies.
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3 comments:

  1. baroness radon3/26/2011 01:52:00 PM

    I would suggest that it is not simply put, but simplistically put. I mentioned earlier that an alternate translation of the character for "follow" is "imitate."

    See Red Pine's book for eloquent commentary by Ho-Shang Kung:
    "As for Earth imitating Heaven, Heven is still and immutable. It gives without seeking a reward. It nourishes all creatures and takes nothing for itself."

    This has nothing to do with astronomy.

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  2. Brandon3/26/2011 07:24:00 PM

    Sometimes I wonder if too much is being read into Lao Tzu's words. No disrespect baroness, but maybe it IS a lesson in astronomy. Putting things in their proper place, you know?

    Not that there can't be deeper meanings. What little I know of Chinese language tells me there's a lot of connections and implications in words and how they are used, multiple meanings and such. So I'm probably wrong.

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  3. baroness radon3/27/2011 02:14:00 PM

    No disrespect taken. Bur Derek Lin's interpretation leaves me with a "So what?" feeling. What's the point?

    ReplyDelete

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