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Chapter XXV
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1.There is a thing confusedly formed, 2. Born before Heaven and Earth. 3. Silent and formless, 4. It stands alone and unchanging, 5. Going everywhere without danger.6. It can be considered the Mother of Heaven and Earth.7. I do not yet know its name, 8. It is styled "Tao" -- 9. I nickname it "great". 10. " Great" means "passing",11. "Passing" means " far",12. "Far" means " return".13. Tao is great, Heaven is Great, Earth is great, and the King is also great.. 14. Within the state there are four great ones, and the King is one of them. 15. Man models on Earth, Earth models on Heaven, Heaven models on Tao, 16. and Tao models on what is naturally so.Interpretation: Another chapter on the elusiveness of Tao. Translation: Lines 10-13 only work because of a complex series of puns and rhymes. "Big" is *d'ad; "passing on" is *diad; and "far-reaching, pervasive", not expressed in the text, is d'at. Finally, yuan "far" rhymes with fan "returning", though the words are by no means synonymous. Text: The Guo Dien text has chuang "form" for wu "thing" in line 1, which makes sense since it's a bit sticky calling Tao a thing. Lines 13-16 are probably extraneous, especially lines 13-15. Crossreferences: "Confusion" hun-tun: Chs. 14, 15, 20, and 21. These chapters and some others form a group in my rearrangement, representing the older, more-spiritual, less-political layer. "Passing": Analects IX:16: ""Beside a stream, Confucius said 'What passes is just like this -- never ceasing, day or night'". The word commonly means "dying". Tao Huntun Names
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