Chapter Four Of The Tao Te Ching
paulpengThe Original Text of the Tao Te Ching Chinese
道冲而用之或不盈。渊兮，似万物之宗；挫其锐，解其纷，和其光，同其尘。湛兮，似或存。吾不知谁之子，象帝之先。
The Dao is (like)the emptiness of a vessel;and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness.How deep and unfathomable it is,as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things!We should blunt our sharp points,and unravel the complications of things;we should attemper our brightness,and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others.How pure and still the Dao is,as if it would ever so continue!I do not know whose son it is.It might appear to have been before God.
【译文】道涌动而出施行于万物，却没有穷竭的时候。道，好像是来自于万物之主的宗庙，深远难识；又好像是来自于世代延续，已然隐晦难明。我不清楚道是什么时候产生的，好像是在创世之前。
Translation:
The Dao surges forth and operates in all things, yet it never exhausts itself. The Dao seems to emanate from the ancestral temple of the Lord of All Things—profound and elusive; it also appears to originate from the continuity of generations, already obscured and inscrutable. I do not know when the Dao came into being—it seems to have existed before the creation of the world.
【注】从陈鼓应先生说，“挫其锐，解其纷，和其光，同其尘"四句疑为五十六章错简重出，不译。
Note: Following Mr. Chen Guying’s interpretation, the four lines—"Blunting its sharpness, untying its tangles, softening its light, merging with its dust"—are suspected to be a misplaced repetition from Chapter 56 and are therefore not translated here.
