Truly
The display of weapons is not auspicious.
People detest them.
When you have Dao, that’s not your way.
Wise people in their homes honor the left side. 5
When they have to bear arms, they honor the right.
Weapons, being inauspicious
Are utilized by wise people
Only under compulsion.
Remaining tranquil and quiet is always best. 10
Victory in war is nothing to celebrate.
To celebrate victory
Is to celebrate the slaughter of people.
That joy will poison your success in the world.
Joyful occasions honor the left side 15
Mournful occasions honor the right side.
The solider of second rank stands to the left
The soldier of first rank stands to the right
Just as if they were at a funeral.
The slaughter of people means sorrow and grief. 20
That’s why victory in war calls for mourning.
***
NOTES
line 4: More literally, “Having Dao, you don’t dwell there.” This line also ends poem 24.
lines 5 and 6, honor the left, honor the right: Chinese tradition associated the left with Earth and the right with Heaven, as Arthur Waley has explained.[1] The Yin Earth has tranquility and bestows it to others, thus the left is associated with peace; the Yang Heaven is active and its guidance brings success, thus the right is associated with war.
COMMENTARY
Poem 31 shares the dismay at militarism shown in poem 30. Here Laozi deliberately renounces what most soldiers take pride in, namely their weapons. With his declaration that the display of weapons is not auspicious, a great many people were being hit right where they live, quite literally. And they still are, as that form of home décor has never left us; our improvement 2500 years later is to display weapons that are far more deadly than those of the Warring States Period.
The emphasis on the left and the right, which runs throughout the poem, may at first seem limiting, insofar as its meaning rests on an ancient Chinese tradition, as discussed in the note above to lines 5 and 6. Still, the effect is to remind us that we have a choice in how we behave, we can choose one way or another at any time, we can always let go of all that and embrace this, as poems 12, 38, and 72 remind us. Laozi is of course also referencing Yin and Yang (see Introduction section IV.1), which means he’s discussing Dao, because Dao balances Yin and Yang. This poem is a call for balance: having weapons but not displaying them, using them only when unavoidable. With this theme of left/right balance, he threads together the two social evils discussed in this poem, pride in weaponry and joy in victory – two socially sanctioned forms of celebration highly common in those years as well as ours. Yet both forms of display require inuring yourself to the suffering of others, which only makes it easier to repeat and extend the cruelties.
FOOTNOTE
1. The Way and Its Power. Arthur Waley, translation and commentary. New York: Grove Press, 1958, pp. 250–251.
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 