Laozi · Complete work
Chapter 4
Chapter 4 of 81. Read it here for reference, or continue through the entire work without leaving the reader.
Open the complete readerOriginal Classical Chinese
道沖而用之或不盈。淵兮似萬物之宗。挫其銳，解其紛，和其光，同其塵。湛兮似或存。吾不知誰之子，象帝之先。
Mouseia
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the original source for fidelity, modern clarity, beauty, symbolism, and structure.
The Way is empty, yet in use it may never fill.Abyssal—it seems the ancestor of the ten thousand things.It blunts their sharpness, untangles their knots, softens their glare, and joins their dust.Deep and still—it seems perhaps to exist.I do not know whose child it is; it appears before the Sovereign.
OpenTao
Complete CC BY 4.0 translation made directly from the received Chinese text; source line structure preserved.
The Way is a hollow cup: put it to use, and perhaps it never fills.Deep as a bottomless pool, it seems the forebear of all things.It blunts the edge, loosens the tangle, softens the glare, and mingles with the dust.Still and clear in its depths, it seems as if it might remain.I do not know whose child it is; it appears to precede even the ancestral god.
James Legge (1891)
Complete public-domain translation made directly from the original source text.
1. The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel; and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness. How deep and unfathomable it is, as if it were the Honoured Ancestor of all things!
2. We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things; we should attemper our brightness, and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others. How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue!
3. I do not know whose son it is. It might appear to have been before God.