When you attain De in its fullest measure
You become like a baby in his cradle.
Insects and snakes don’t bite him.
Wild animals don’t claw him.
Birds of prey don’t attack him. 5
His bones are pliant, his muscles are tender
Yet his fingers can curl into a tight grip.
Not knowing sexual union
Yet attaining full erection –
Jing in its perfection! 10
Wailing all day yet never growing hoarse –
Harmony in its perfection!
To know harmony is to be constant.
To know constancy is to be brilliant.
To increase life is to be blessed. 15
To direct Qi with the mind is to be powerful.
Coming on strong and then aging away.
We call this not Dao.
What’s not Dao soon comes to an end.
***
NOTES
line 10, Jing: Vitality. See Introduction section IV.2. Poem 21 also references Jing.
line 16, Qi: Energy. See Introduction section IV.2. Poems 10 and 42 also reference Qi.
lines 17–19: These lines also end poem 30.
COMMENTARY
Although he begins by discussing De, Laozi proceeds to interweave several themes of the Dao De Jing in poem 55. There’s the praise of infancy, also cited in poems 10 and 20; the freedom from predation enjoyed by those who have no place in them for death, as poem 50 phrases it; and of course the poem’s closing admonition, which is also the ending of poem 30. Laozi mentions two of the Three Treasures here, Jing and Qi; yet the poem creates a parallel structure not between Qi and Jing, but between harmony and Jing. Harmony, ho, is referenced in seven poems of the Dao De Jing. In poem 42 it is associated with Qi; here, with Jing; and in poem 56, when we’re told to harmonize with light, Shen, spirit, the third Treasure, is clearly being implied. (We’re also told to do that in poem 4, and while I’ve used a different English rendition in that poem, the phrase’s reiteration further indicates this deeper meaning of light.) The reason harmony is so important is because it leads to constancy, and constancy gets you everything.
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 