[TTC Study] Chapter 2 of the Tao Teh Ching

[dawei]

Thoughts:

 

There is a common use of 亓 or 其 in many chapters -- a pronoun referring back to the subject, e.g.

 

聖人 The wise man

之才民前也 以身後之 Stands ahead of the people by putting himself behind them,

亓才民上也 以言下之 Above them by speaking as from below;

亓才民上也 民弗厚也 Above them, yet the people feel not his presence,

亓才民前也 民弗害也 Ahead of them, yet the people come not to harm

 

I think this is ch. 66 just for reference...

 

I am not bothered by the absence or presence of a character here or there, but I follow your point and appreciate the analysis.

 

It seems for ch. 2, whether the lines refer to the Sage or Ten Thousand? Which is maybe a moot point as the Sage has 'attained Dao', as Zhuangzi likes to say.

[dust]

A break has done my brain some good, I think. Scanning the slips just now, I've noticed a few things I didn't pick up on before.

 

I'd like to figure out why, in the first line of this chapter in the GD, there are 2 distinctly different characters for what we usually translate as "beauty". It's been transcribed as

美之为美

微之为微

 

But in the GD, the 美 / 微 character is not the same twice. Both of them have the same left-hand radical, but the right-hand is very much different in each. They are, respectively, 攴 and 女, as you can see below.

 

It seems quite unlikely that this is by accident. The characters look less alike in the Chu script than they would in modern Chinese, and the radicals have very different meanings. Is there something else that the writer was trying to communicate here? Or is it really just a very silly "typo" ?

Edited October 31, 2014 by dustybeijing

[Marblehead]

Henricks does not speak to this in his translation.

 

Looking at the attachment I would think that it is not a typo or copy error but different amplifiers to the base word.

[dust]

Henricks does not speak to this in his translation.

 

This goes towards confirming my fear that he hasn't been quite as thorough as he might have.

 

It's an easy thing to miss, but once picked up on, it's a hard thing to dismiss.

 

 

Looking at the attachment I would think that it is not a typo or copy error but different amplifiers to the base word.

 

Yeah, something like that. I really don't get it...

[Marblehead]

 

Yeah, something like that. I really don't get it...

Maybe some of our other Chinese readers will help us out along the way.

[dawei]

A break has done my brain some good, I think. Scanning the slips just now, I've noticed a few things I didn't pick up on before.

 

I'd like to figure out why, in the first line of this chapter in the GD, there are 2 distinctly different characters for what we usually translate as "beauty". It's been transcribed as

 

美之为美

微之为微

 

But in the GD, the 美 / 微 character is not the same twice. Both of them have the same left-hand radical, but the right-hand is very much different in each. They are, respectively, 攴 and 女, as you can see below.

 

It seems quite unlikely that this is by accident. The characters look less alike in the Chu script than they would in modern Chinese, and the radicals have very different meanings. Is there something else that the writer was trying to communicate here? Or is it really just a very silly "typo" ?

 

I agree they are two different characters and I think you have the right-hand side correct but I am suspicious of the left-side... so I don't think a typo.

 

And I am partly suspicious because that first character does show up in the MWD and BeiDa versions but not in Chapter 2.

 

Here is what Hendricks has as the original characters:

[dust]

I think my language was a bit unclear. Sorry.

 

What Henricks has there is precisely what I meant:

 

The left-hand of both is the same (apparently depicting an old person with long hair -- http://dict.shufaji.com/word-3367.html)

 

However, the right-hand radical on the first character is 支

 

and the right-hand radical on the second character is 女

 

In the first instance, if we added 彳on the left, we'd have 微 wei (tiny, insignificant)

 

But there is no 彳component, and I can't find a variant where 支 is replaced with 女

[dawei]

I think my language was a bit unclear. Sorry.

 

What Henricks has there is precisely what I meant:

 

The left-hand of both is the same (apparently depicting an old person with long hair -- http://dict.shufaji.com/word-3367.html)

 

However, the right-hand radical on the first character is 支

 

and the right-hand radical on the second character is 女

 

In the first instance, if we added 彳on the left, we'd have 微 wei (tiny, insignificant)

 

But there is no 彳component, and I can't find a variant where 支 is replaced with 女

 

I did understand... I am not sure if the character being used is really the GD one... and I don't think the variant is replace. I think it is a different character.

 

微 from 彳+ 𢼸

 

𢼸：妙也。从人从攴

[dust]

So what's the character mean??

[dawei]

So what's the character mean??

 

It can mean small.... but is also the name of an ancient Clan.

 

see: http://www.rtega.be/chmn/index.php?start=160&subpage=64

 

 

But I think I have uncovered the link between the two characters and they trace back to 'beautiful'. So the variant exchange may be well correct.

 

See: http://ctext.org/dictionary.pl?if=en&id=323123

 

媺 - note the similarity of this to the second character in question.

[dust]

 

媺 - not the similarity of this to the second character in question.

 

Yeah, until I noticed the difference between the 2, that's the character I'd been using

 

I'm still not sure, though, what the difference signifies. If they both mean beautiful, that's good, but....they're still written differently...!

[Marblehead]

Just a consideration:

 

Red Pine's reads:

 

All the world knows beauty

but if that becomes beautiful

this becomes ugly

 

 

Perhaps the difference in the characters is the difference between the words "beauty" and beautiful"?

[dawei]

Perhaps the difference in the characters is the difference between the words "beauty" and beautiful"?

 

I was at this thought as well...

 

or maybe it is just being playful with similar words...

 

as Ch. 1 said: "As one and the same / But differ in name”

[dust]

Perhaps a puzzle without a solution. I want a time machine.

[dawei]

I know one thing for sure... we're over-thinking it... but while we're at it, I'll share one more thought

 

One character has a female part while another doesn't...

 

As if to say: 'You can know beauty once you see beauty'; Where the former is just a concept of beauty and the latter is a real sense of beauty.

 

We can also recall that the 'rectification of names' was very important and so it seems there are plenty of examples where Laozi is rectifying words or concepts in his way.

 

 

If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. -- Confucius , analects

[Marblehead]

So do you think Lao Tzu was thinking of a particular beautiful woman when he wrote that? Maybe one of his assistant clerks?

[Mig]

As I noticed this chapter had very good interventions, I was wondering about the opposites in the first 2 lines

1. 天下皆知美之為美，

2. 斯惡已；

3. 皆知善之為善，

4. 斯不善已。

It starts with beauty and its opposite or maybe antonym: ugly

then it goes into kindness or good and its opposite is not kind, not good. It made me think that there is probably more in line 2 ugly or in line 4 negation + noun. Is it accurate to say they didn't have a word as an antonym for kind, good? Or is it more in the commentary I am missing already?

 

Then line

6. 有無相生，it starts with existence and non existence. In chapter one we have

故恆無欲也，以觀其眇

non existence desires

恆有欲也，以觀其所噭

existence desires

Why different position on those two you and wu?

[Marblehead]

HI Meg.  I have to leave this for someone else to speak to as I do not read Chinese.

 

All I will say is that Henricks uses the term "not good" but makes no comment why he did not use "bad".  But he does use "ugliness" and not "not beautiful".