The ideal Way-farer, someone who really puts the Way into practice, is abstruse and profound. He is untouched by civilization and hence seems to be like solid wood or a muddy pool. He is hun dun, an expression which refers to the chaos time before the world came to be in its present form: the cosmic soup.
The good Way-farers of olden days were always unseen,
mysterious, communing with the abstruse, so deep they could not be fathomed.
{It is because they could not be fathomed, that,}
Therefore, I make this ode for them:
Careful, as he in winter fords a river;
Cautious, as he fears his neighbours;
Formal, as a guest;
Far off, as apart as when ice drifts apart;*
Hun like a wooden lump;*
Dun like a muddy dump.
{Open like a valley.}*
He who can make a muddy pool clear,
It shall then indeed be clear.
He who can make a woman his master,*
She shall then indeed give life.
He who keeps this Way does not want to overflow.
{Only because he does not overflow, can he lie hidden and incomplete.}*