It is a fact of the text too essential to be glossed over. In Red Pine's translation (and, by all indications, in the original), Lao Tzu is much more fatalistic, and, while that fact might mitigate against the popularity of a translation, it is arguably important for the modern reader to know. The higher the ideals, the lower the results. If a country is governed with repression, Mitchell's version of verse #58, for example, reads: Being authored by Red Pine, the reader may depend upon it being as literal as the textual variations will allow and as true to the original tone as the enormous differences between the two languages will allow.Ī comparison, at various points, with the Stephen Mitchell Tao Te Ching helps to clarify two very different approaches to translation. (It is actually a revision of the translation he published in 1996.) It does not seem impertinent to suspect that it is the finest of the myriad English language translations to date. Now, some 20 years later, Red Pine presents lovers of The Tao his own translation of the 81 verses of Lao-tzu's Taoteching. Even without a grasp of the original Chinese, it was clear that Mitchell's version glossed over the less palatable aspects of the text when it did not leave them out altogether. More worrisome was the fact that the 6th century B.C.E. Not all of the analogies which underlay the modernization seemed precise. The translation also contained references to Friedrich Neitzche's 'will to power.' 'When a country goes counter to the Tao,' he writes, in verse 46, 'warheads are stockpiled outside of cities.' It is not likely that many warheads were stockpiled in 6th century B.C.E. It clearly had as its goal the modernization of the Tao Te Ching-it was a translation across time as well as language. Upon reading his Tao Te Ching I felt once again joyfully shot through with the Tao.īut there were certain concessions one had to make in order to be satisfied with Mitchell's translation. I held Mitchell in high regard for his translation of another book which had profoundly affected me: The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.

In 1988, Stephen Mitchell, published his own translation of the Tao Te Ching. The slim volume set on my shelf, occasionally consulted, for more years still. I reread the Tao Te Ching regularly for a couple of years, mulled over its implications. Whoever it was, she or he gave me Lao Tzu as an abiding influence on my life. Lau, I believe, though I am not absolutely certain. The translator that introduced the Tao to me was D.

Of course, I found these 'facts' highly questionable, myself, the persistent discomfort that they caused me unnecessary. Like so many young seekers, when I first came upon the Tao Te Ching I sensed that I had stumbled onto a profound alternative to a world that seemed so sure of so many 'unquestionable facts' that it amounted to a pattern of emotional violence.

Lao tzu stephen mitchell