Tao Te Ching Translation?

[Anonymous No.11617918]

Whats the best Tao Te Ching translation?

[Anonymous No.11617938]

Stephen Mitchell is bretty good

[Anonymous No.11618043]

I'm partial to Ellen Chen's translation and commentary.

[Anonymous No.11618068]

>tfw everyone posts the only translation they read and recommends it as "great" or even "the best one"

[Anonymous No.11618076]

>>11618068
the two earlier posts in here didn't do that dumbass

[Anonymous No.11618107]

>>11618068
I threw in Ellen Chen because she gas done extensive research on the Tao Te Ching(18 page bibliography), and she even refers to other translators for comparison.

[Anonymous No.11618114]

The translation which you think is best is not the best translation.

[Anonymous No.11618248]

AMes and Hall

[Anonymous No.11618745]

>the tao that can be translated is not the eternal tao

[Anonymous No.11618756]

>>11618745
>the Tao that can be Tao is not the eternal Tao

[Anonymous No.11618758]

Gia-Fu Feng's version is pretty good and well regarded I think.

[Anonymous No.11618806]

>>11617918
I have Johnathan Star's translation. I like it because it gives his translation, a verbatim translation with notes and original chinese characters, a commentary on each verse, and a concordance with a list of chinese characters with their radicals according to Wade-Giles and Pinyin. It also compares translations from Chalmers, Legge, Alexander, Heysinger, Parker, Giles, Medhurst, Carus, and Mears.
Is it the "Best"? I dunno. I found it to be thorough, with plenty of references, and the original, literal, verbatim translation for comparison. Make the choice for yourself.

[Anonymous No.11619251]

>>11617938
"No!"

Mitchell is a poet who re-writes translations in English. He's "translated" Greek, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Sanskrit, Classical Chinese and Akkadian. There's no way he's qualified to translate all those languages, and I suspect he isn't to translate even one.

He makes nice English poetic versions, don't get me wrong, but I'm very skeptical about his skills as a translator.

[Anonymous No.11619351]

>>11617918
Lucky for you OP, I've just finished researching that exact topic. Here's the report from the deep archives of /lit/.
To be clear, it is:
Star>Ames&Co.>Lombardo&Co.>Jane English=Red Pine>D.C. Lau>Legge
also mitchell is a fag

[Anonymous No.11619392]

>>11619351
So it's consensus that legge version is he worst?

Damn I was going to read that version

[Anonymous No.11620437]

>>11618248
This.
>>11619351
Ames is better than Star.

[Anonymous No.11620553]

>reading only one translation