The Dao De Jing (Tao Teh Ching) is probably the most famous and widely translated of all ancient Chinese texts with the possible exception of the Yi Jing (I Ching). I use the more phonetic of the spellings for my version. The eighty-one passages are attributed to a fellow known as Laotze, which roughly translates as "Old Child" or "Old Boy." More than likely this is not the work of one person, but probably an anthology of many wise sayings. If the person referred to as Laotze was historical, he may have been a court archivist of the kings of Chou.
There are almost as many English translations as there are readers of the Dao De Jing. I have been most influenced and moved by the translations of Witter Bynner, Wing-Tsit Chan, and D.C. Lau. Other helpful and enlightening translations are the perennial favorite Gia-Fu Feng & Jane English, Ellen Chen, John C. H. Wu, R. L. Wing (out of print), and a recent one by Jonathan Star. The Wing translation includes great illustrations and Chinese calligraphy, the original Chinese text and intriguing ways of navigating the text. The Star translation includes a meticulouly charted character-by-character translation of the entire original text and an exhaustive commentary that virtually prepares you to make your own translation. I certainly encourage you to check out any of these translations and others as well. You might also, after looking a sizable number of translations, render one of your own. That's what I did in 1992. It was a great creative learning experience. I compared as many translations as I could find and even looked into the Chinese language as much as I could. Some translations are poetic, some are literal and a bit dry. Most all are enlightening in their own special way. I offer mine as another angle on this great work.
I have sectioned the work off in nine passage segments in keeping with the sacredness of the 9x9 division probably done by scholars who handled the 5,000 characters along the way.
PASSAGES:
1-9
10-18
19-27
28-36
37-45
46-54
55-63
64-72
73-81