How can you scare people with death
If they aren’t frightened of it?
And suppose death did scare them.
Who then would kill predators?
The great executioner, never far 5
Sees to it that all the dying gets done.
Truly
When you attempt the great executioner’s work
We call this standing in for the master carver.
The master carver’s stand-ins tend to cut their hands. 10
***
NOTES
line 4: More literally, “If there were criminal acts, who would dare to seize and kill them?”
line 6: I have elaborated here. The line more literally reads, “Does the killing.”
COMMENTARY
As he does in poem 73, Laozi here mentions death in the first line. The difference with poem 74, however, is that death remains the focus of the entire poem, beginning with capital punishment – something Laozi regards as useless in controlling a population inured to violence and death. Of course the Sage, approaching death from the perspective of unity, isn’t frightened by it either. Tellingly, Laozi follows his acknowledgement of the necessity for lethal force in protecting society with a reminder that we are all better off when we aren’t trying to kill someone. Such affairs tend to backfire, as poem 30 phrases it.
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 