53

Were I sufficiently wise I would follow the Great Way and only fear going astray the Great Way is smooth but people love byways their palaces are spotless but their fields are overgrown and their granaries are empty they wear fine clothes and carry sharp swords they tire of food and drink and possess more than they need this is called robbery and robbery is not the Way

KU HSI-CH’OU says, “The Tao is not hard to know, but it is hard to follow.”

HO-SHANG KUNG says, “Lao-tzu was concerned that rulers of his day did not follow the Great Way. Hence, he hypothesized that if he knew enough to conduct the affairs of a country, he would follow the Great Way and devote himself to implementing the policy of doing nothing.”

LU HSI-SHENG says, “The Great Way is like a grand thoroughfare: smooth and easy to travel, perfectly straight and free of detours, and there is nowhere it doesn’t lead. But people are in a hurry. They take shortcuts and get into trouble and become lost and don’t reach their destination. The sage worries only about leading people down such a path.”

LI HSI-CHAI says, “A spotless palace refers to the height of superficiality. An overgrown field refers to an uncultivated mind. An empty granary refers to a lack of virtue.”

HAN FEI says, “When the court is in good repair, lawsuits abound. When lawsuits abound, fields become overgrown. When fields become overgrown, granaries become empty. When granaries become empty, the country becomes poor. When the country becomes poor, customs become decadent, and there is no trick people don’t try” (Hanfeitzu: 20).

SUNG CH’ANG-HSING says, “When the court ignores the affairs of state to beautify its halls and interrupts farm work to build towers and pavilions, the people’s energy ends up at court, and fields turn to weeds. Once fields turn to weeds, state taxes are not paid and granaries become empty. And once granaries are empty, the country becomes poor, and the people become rebellious. The court dazzles the people with its fine clothes, and threatens the people with its sharp swords, and takes from people more than it needs — this is no different from robbing them.”

LI JUNG says, “A robber is someone who never has enough and who takes more than he needs.”

WANG PI says, “To gain possession of something by means other than the Way is wrong. And wrong means robbery.”

Wang Nien-sun sees a problem with the standard version of line three, which reads: “only fear acting.” Wang suggests shih (act) is a mistake for yi (go astray), and I agree. This verse is absent in the Kuotien texts, but both Mawangtui texts have t’a (he), which is clearly a mistake, but it makes yi just as likely as shih. The three characters are nearly identical. In the last two lines, tao (rob) is followed by k’ua (grand) in the Fuyi edition and by the absence of text in the Mawangtui editions. I have read k’ua as a mistake for a nearly identical character, hsi, which functions like a comma and which provides a sharper delineation of the pun at work here. The words for robbery and Way are both pronounced tao.