> It's in Chapter 27 of Stephen Mitchell's translation. It's by far the most prominent recent English Dao.
If we talk about the first sentence in this chapter (http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?l=Daodejing&no=27) I fear I can't agree. Waley's translation reads "Perfect activity leaves no track behind it", which is way too far from "A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving". The Chinese text is straightforward and the context present no difficulties. Word to word meaning is "good, walk, no, tracks" and the actual meaning is about doing things the natural way, avoiding artifices, avoiding to leave "human prints" on the world, a very common rant in Daode Jing.
Agree with the rest of your comment. I'll add the rebellion against Western religion is frightening, because those who spit on Christianism today could be the fanatics of tomorrow.
You can't agree that the sentence quoted is from Mitchell's translation? I assure you it is.
I say nothing as to whether it's accurate or not. I wish I could read the original like you. One of my dreams, in fact, is to do so someday.
"Good walk no tracks" is actually a fine translation as far as I'm concerned. It communicates a great deal, leaves a lot of interpretation out. It has that quality of mystery-combined-with-practicality which is essential to the whole book. I wish they'd publish a literal translation like that. Maybe you should!
Incidentally, can you also understand the original text of the I Ching? And commentaries on it?
The I Ching is not exactly a text, it is more like a beautifully organized list of named symbols, with their first-hand commentaries (attributed to Confucius), and comments on these comments (like in HN threads). The overall picture draws an interesting landscape of evolving configurations, but I fear some comments on the symbols may have lost their meaning, so no, I can't understand I Ching.
Comments
> It's in Chapter 27 of Stephen Mitchell's translation. It's by far the most prominent recent English Dao.
If we talk about the first sentence in this chapter (http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?l=Daodejing&no=27) I fear I can't agree. Waley's translation reads "Perfect activity leaves no track behind it", which is way too far from "A good traveller has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving". The Chinese text is straightforward and the context present no difficulties. Word to word meaning is "good, walk, no, tracks" and the actual meaning is about doing things the natural way, avoiding artifices, avoiding to leave "human prints" on the world, a very common rant in Daode Jing.
Agree with the rest of your comment. I'll add the rebellion against Western religion is frightening, because those who spit on Christianism today could be the fanatics of tomorrow.
You can't agree that the sentence quoted is from Mitchell's translation? I assure you it is.
I say nothing as to whether it's accurate or not. I wish I could read the original like you. One of my dreams, in fact, is to do so someday.
"Good walk no tracks" is actually a fine translation as far as I'm concerned. It communicates a great deal, leaves a lot of interpretation out. It has that quality of mystery-combined-with-practicality which is essential to the whole book. I wish they'd publish a literal translation like that. Maybe you should!
Incidentally, can you also understand the original text of the I Ching? And commentaries on it?
The I Ching is not exactly a text, it is more like a beautifully organized list of named symbols, with their first-hand commentaries (attributed to Confucius), and comments on these comments (like in HN threads). The overall picture draws an interesting landscape of evolving configurations, but I fear some comments on the symbols may have lost their meaning, so no, I can't understand I Ching.