31–40 of 104 posts
Nope. This ain't it.
The very first sentence misses the point. (It might be a literal translation. Perhaps. But that's not the essence.) I couldn't go (pun intended) beyond the first sentence. There are much more "essential" translations out there.
From the bottom: > This is a rendition, not a translation. I do not know any Chinese. I could approach the text at all only because Paul Carus, in his 1898 translation of the Tao Te Ching, printed the Chinese text with each character followed by a transliteration and a translation. My gratitude to him is unending.
Having done a similar "rendition" to a book of poetry, I agree it is not the same as translating directly. It does open up a question about the fuzziness of "what is even translation?" Especially when we talk about translating historic writing. Yes, not knowing the source language is a huge barrier. But so is not knowing specific cultural touchstones or references in the text. In-depth translations usually transliter…
It's a fun book full of interesting linguistic trivia.
The patience would be needed to get through the 50 or so translations of the same poem, all different and "wrong" in some way.
From the bottom: > This is a rendition, not a translation. I do not know any Chinese. I could approach the text at all only because Paul Carus, in his 1898 translation of the Tao Te Ching, printed the Chinese text with each character followed by a transliteration and a translation. My gratitude to him is unending.
The transliteration of the Tao starts on page 159 and consists of columns of the characters each with a literal meaning and occasional comments by the translator. I found the first few chapters in that presentation very interesting, like a kind of puzzle (I don't read Chinese to any extent at all).
From the bottom: > This is a rendition, not a translation. I do not know any Chinese. I could approach the text at all only because Paul Carus, in his 1898 translation of the Tao Te Ching, printed the Chinese text with each character followed by a transliteration and a translation. My gratitude to him is unending.
Having done a similar "rendition" to a book of poetry, I agree it is not the same as translating directly. It does open up a question about the fuzziness of "what is even translation?" Especially when we talk about translating historic writing. Yes, not knowing the source language is a huge barrier. But so is not knowing specific cultural touchstones or references in the text. In-depth translations usually transliter…
Most translators of popular texts look closely at other translations to "triangulate" on meaning and authorial intent. Older translations may use archaic writing but have historical understanding, well-researched translations may be more precise about tricky words or concepts. More "writerly" translations tend to rebuild the work from the building blocks and produce a more cohesive whole. None of these are wrong approaches.
This is most likely a copyright violation. I follow these translations and I’ve seen no evidence that the publisher put it in the public domain.
I'm imagining a hoard of angry Taoists led by the ghost of Le Guin very upset that the wisdom was not paid for in accordance with the inscrutable decisions made by capitalist lawmakers.
For people who like The Big Lebowski, there's "The Tao of the Dude" https://dudeism.com/taoofthedude/
Love, Someone who studied Daoism for 16 years.
HN seems to like Tao Te Ching. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
I found these. Others? Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40886419 - July 2024 (118 comments) Tao Te Ching – Gia-Fu Feng, Jane English Translation (1989) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38058843 - Oct 2023 (99 comments) Tao Te Ching - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37686713 - Sept 2023 (170 comments) 175 translations of of the Tao Te Ching - https://ne…
HN seems to like Tao Te Ching. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Up voting and down voting comments is an affront to the Dao.
As another comment points out, Le Guin herself does not call this a translation, so we shouldn't misrepresent it (although it might be my favorite English version). However, it's not in the public domain. Her work deserves all the attention it can get, but I'd rather not see it pirated wholesale.
> However, it's not in the public domain. Her work deserves all the attention it can get, but I'd rather not see it pirated wholesale. I don't disagree. Does github have a way to report copyright violations? I just bought the real book from Powell's. Several buying options: https://www.ursulakleguin.com/lao-tzu-the-tao-te-ching
What would reporting this GitHub repo do? Is the late Ursula K. Le Guin going to get a check in the afterlife? Her historical stance on copyright was based on consent. What happens when the author passes away?
I picked up Tao Te Ching as an American teenager and was moved by how it cuts against the American faith in visible dominance and self-assertion, proposing a form of strength that is low, quiet, and unseen. It's much more than that of course, but that aspect had immediate impact on my thinking.