The greatest rulers are only said to exist.
Second best are those who are known and loved.
After them are those who are feared.
Worst are those who are loathed.
When you show no faith in others 5
Who will show faith in you?
So hesitant are Sages!
They take care to weigh their words.
After they do their deeds and finish their work
People assume it all happened by itself. 10
***
NOTES
lines 5 and 6: These lines also appear in poem 23.
COMMENTARY
In describing the faces of rulership from best to worst, Laozi is also indicting a rising level of governmental interference with its citizens, from the best rulers, so non-intrusive that their very existence passes into legend, to the worst, so destructively intrusive that they become despised. Although raised somewhat obliquely in poem 17, this theme of government non-interference is a primary focus of poems 57 and 75. Here it leads Laozi to a direct question about showing faith, a natural progression: Who has greater faith in each other than the unknown ruler and the contented ruled, or less faith than the intrusive ruler and the resentful ruled? In the last four lines, he describes the type of people who could provide the form of rulership described in line 1 as the greatest. The Sages’ reticence in speech and disinterest in recognition or acclaim would lead to a ruler who was only said to exist, and a ruled who would regard the fruits of government as part of a natural process, something that is so of itself.
Links To:
The Classic of Dao and De by Laozi: Contents
For more on Daoism, see:
Film Dreams: Frank Capra
Music: KALW Radio Show #3, Ancient China in 20th-Century Music
Music: SFCR Radio Show #8, Daoism in Western Music, part 1
Music: SFCR Radio Show #9, Daoism in Western Music, part 2
NICOLE V. GAGNÉ 