All day long it will cry without its throat becoming hoarse;Since I have never been a parent, this line is outside of my personal experience. That said, enough of my friends and family members who ARE parents have shared with me the travails of a crying baby. I can certainly say it's a part of the parenting experience that I am happy I missed out on!
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~
He screams all day without becoming hoarse.
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~
They can cry the whole day and yet not be hoarse
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~
He can cry all day
and never lose his voice.
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~
To view the Index page for this series to see what you may have missed or would like to read again, go here.
It's about the pure new yang that expresses itself without tiring or damaging itself. As one ages, one does not have that bottomless store of energy.
ReplyDeleteCertainly you were that baby once.
I don't know. My mom used to tell me that I was a quiet baby -- didn't cry much.
ReplyDeleteI suspect you cried when taking your first breath...that's the point, the vitality of breath, which may become depleted as we age. We die when we stop breathing. It is why Taoists who are into physical cultivation place so much emphasis on the breath.
ReplyDeleteActually -- or so the legend goes -- I popped from the womb quoting Nietzsche! :-D
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