《道德经》中英文对照版(4)

第四章

　　道冲而用之，或不盈。

　　渊兮，似万物之宗。（挫其锐，解其纷，和其光，同其尘。）湛兮，似或存。

　　吾不知谁之子，象帝之先。

　　Chapter4

　　The Way is like an empty vessel

　　That yet may be drawn from

　　Without ever needing to be filled.

　　It is bottomless； the very progenitor of all things in the world.

　　In it all sharpness is blunted，

　　All tangles untied，

　　All glare tempered，

　　All dust[1] smoothed.

　　It is like a deep pool that never dries.

　　Was it too the child of something else？ We cannot tell.

　　But as a substanceless image[2] it existed before the Ancestor.[3]

　　[1]Dust is the Taoist symbol for the noise and fuss of everyday life.

　　[2]A hsiang， an image such as the mental images that float before us when we think.

　　[3]The Ancestor in question is almost certainly the Yellow Ancestor who separated Earth from Heaven and so destroyed the Primal Unity， for which he is frequently censured is Chuang Tzu.