:: DAO DE JING · PRAEFATIO ::
道德經 · Dao De Jing
Received Wang Bi text · James Legge’s English, 1891
The opening chapter puts language itself in question: a way that can be spoken is not the constant Way. For this reading, the Chinese stays in sight. James Legge’s nineteenth-century English stands beside it as one named interpretation, not as a replacement for what the text says.
The text in this room
This is the received eighty-one-chapter Wang Bi textual line, with Wang Bi’s commentary removed. It is not an ancient autograph, the first form of the book, or a reconstruction of one. Earlier Guodian and Mawangdui witnesses preserve different forms; they are not silently blended into this copy.
The two languages are aligned by chapter, not by invented word-for-word equivalence. Chapter divisions, headings, punctuation, spacing, and the reading interface are editorial aids. Legge’s English keeps its historical voice and its credit.
Provenance & thanks
- Chinese text
- The fixed Chinese Wikisource revision 2354026 of Dao De Jing (Wang Bi text) supplies the eighty-one chapters. Only the base text is reproduced; Wang Bi’s notes and other page material are excluded. This is a digital transcription, not a facsimile of a Wang Bi-era manuscript. The historical work is public domain; Wikisource supplies its site text under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- English
- James Legge, The Tao Teh King, or The Tao and Its Characteristics, in The Texts of Taoism, Sacred Books of the East XXXIX (Oxford, 1891). The English follows Project Gutenberg #216, which credits digital production to Gregory Walker and David Widger.
- This setting
- The historical Chinese text and Legge’s translation are public domain in the United States. The Wikisource transcription is attributed above under its site’s CC BY-SA 4.0 terms. Pairing, navigation, and layout are this Scriptorium’s modern work, offered freely under its non-commercial covenant; no part is sold.
Thanks to the transcribers who kept both texts findable. The page is meant to let the reader look back and forth between them.