Line by Line - Verse 28, Lines 4-5

All come to him, yea, all beneath the sky.
Thus he the constant excellence retains;
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~

Being the stream of the universe,
Ever true and unswerving,
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~

Being the watercourse of the world
The eternal virtue does not depart
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~

With that power,
you'll always be right with Tao:
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~

Water (often in the form of streams) is a powerful metaphor in philosophical Taoism. Just as water undergirds the life of being, there is something mysterious that flows throughout the cosmos that makes existence possible.

How could this essence ever dry up?

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