tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Sun Jan 11 12:58:43 2004

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Tao Te Ching Chp. 5

Agnieszka Solska ([email protected]) [KLI Member] [Hol po'wI']

5K
pung lughajbe' chal tera' je:
bIHvaD lo'laHtaHbe' wa'netlh Dol. [A]
pung ghajbe' yajchu'wI':
ghaHvaD lo'laHtaHbe' nuvpu'. [A]

SuSDeq [B] rur chal tera' je joj.
chIm 'ach Dejbe'.
reylu'chugh [B] reH vay' chenqa'moH.

tlhoy Dajatlhchugh tugh HoS Danatlh.
qaqmeH ghu' botlhDaq yIratlh.

5E
Heaven and earth have no compassion:
The myriad things have no lasting value for them.
The sage has no compassion:
The people have no lasting value for him.

The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows.
Though empty, it does not collapse.
Work it and it will always yield more.
Waste your breath and your strength is soon gone.
It is better to hold firm to the core.

[A] These two lines actually say:

Line 2:    They regard/treat/see the people as straw dogs.
Line 4:    He regards/treats/sees the people as straw dogs.

There is a reference here to an ancient Chinese custom of using dogs made of 
straw as sacrifices. Apparently, "After they had been used, they were thrown 
away and there was no more sentimental attachment to them" (Wing-Tsit Chan, 
_The Way of Lao Tzu_, Indianapolis and New York: Bobbs Merrill Co., 1963, p. 
108).

There seems to be no Klingon custom that would correspond to this practice 
and since we have no words for "straw", "grass" or "dog", a literal 
translation was out of the question. In addition, the currently known 
vocabulary lacks words for "see as/regard as/treat as/consider to be" etc. 
Of course, there are words and expressions that can easily handle those 
meanings, i.e. {qel}): consider, {vuD} opinion, {... 'e' Har} believe that 
..., {... 'e' Qub} think that ... , but they can only be applied to animate 
subjects, such as the sage and not to Heaven and Earth. I decided that the 
only solution was to try and convey the meaning *implied* by the two lines. 
My solution is far from being perfect but I hope it is acceptable.

[C] The word {SuSDeq}, glossed as "windbag, bellows", refers to a a type 
Klingon musical instrument (KGT, p. 75). In my Klingon version the musical 
reference is continued in {rey}, which means to "squeeze and stretch out a 
windbag instrument". Different references appears in the English text: here 
a bellows is mentioned, i.e. a device that is part of a musical instrument 
and which blows air into it to produce sound. Such a device can be worked, 
i.e. put into operation. I tried to continue the "bellows" motif by using 
the phrase "waste your breath" rather than "speak too much".

'ISqu'
http://www.geocities.com/taoteching_klingon

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