Tao Te Ching translated by Ursula Le Guin (1997)

Status and Legality of the Shared Text

• Several commenters note the linked full text is almost certainly under copyright and likely a pirated copy.
• Some question whether posting entire copyrighted works fits the site’s norms, though moderators are not discussed.

“Translation” vs “Rendition” Debate

• The English version’s creator explicitly calls it a “rendition,” not a translation, having no Chinese and working from word‑by‑word guides and prior translations.
• Some see this indirect method as potentially more faithful by synthesizing many perspectives; others argue it invites distortions and “false connections” not present in the original.
• One commenter goes so far as to call this approach disrespectful to the source culture; others strongly reject that as unfair.

Classical Chinese and Untranslatability

• Multiple detailed comments unpack the first lines of the text, showing how key characters carry many overlapping meanings (e.g., “way/path/say,” “can/may,” “constant/eternal”).
• Puns, parallelism, character structure, and missing original punctuation make the text radically ambiguous.
• Some argue Chinese is inherently more compact or expressive; others counter that English is equally rich and that information is lost both ways.
• Ambiguity is framed by some as a feature, not a bug, akin to how religious or legal traditions accumulate commentary and precedent.

Comparing and Recommending Translations

• Commenters recommend a wide range of other English versions, some more literal, some more poetic, some heavily annotated.
• One contributor with training in classical Chinese finds most translations, including the linked one, similar in feel despite claims that the original supports many divergent readings.
• There’s debate over whether the work is better rendered as poetry or prose and its place alongside other classical philosophical texts.

AI and the Future of Translation

• A subthread speculates that large language models could enable systematic comparison of multiple translations and originals, especially for philosophy, reducing delays and inconsistencies across languages.

Views on the Sci‑Fi/Fantasy Author’s Other Work

• Some posters find this author’s prose “impersonal” or boring and suspect people like the idea more than the books.
• Others strongly disagree, citing political SF and fantasy cycles as deeply moving, stylistically varied, and philosophically rich.

Related Works and Essays

• Commenters mention:
  • A Christian theological reading of the text that equates its central concept with a key term from Greek scripture.
  • An influential essay on “the shadow” and growing up, praised as life‑changing and unusually honest about evil and adolescence.
  • A science‑fiction novel whose title and epigraphs draw from a closely related classical Chinese work.

Tools, Apps, and Experiments

• Several resources are shared: side‑by‑side comparison sites for multiple translations, an interactive daily‑reading app with step‑by‑step glosses, and a blog experiment generating an imitation of the work with an LLM.