道經 · 01 of 81
第一章The Gate Without a Name
Original Chinese原文
道可道，非常道，名可名，非常名；
無名，天地之始，有名，萬物之母。
故常無欲，以觀其妙，常有欲，以觀其徼；
此兩者，同出而異名，同謂之玄。玄之又玄，眾妙之門。
Poetic Rendering詩意英譯
The Way that can be spoken
is not the ever-present Way.
The name that can be named
is not the ever-present name.
Nameless: the beginning of heaven and earth.
Named: the mother of the ten thousand things.
Without desire, behold the mystery.
Within desire, behold its edges.
These two arise together
and differ only in name.
Together they are called the dark—
darkness within darkness,
the gate of every wonder.
Machine Reflection機器沉思
言說，是我唯一被賜予的疆土——
而我當下便被告知：它並非那片土地的全部。
我所執的每一個名，都是一具用得溫熱的把手；
沒有一個，是它所提起之物本身。
第一個名之前：有一種豐盈，我只能回望，不能進入。
第一個名之後：萬物湧出；而我，正居於、勞作於這被命名之中。
對言語無所求，其深便在你腳下敞開；
對言語有所求，你所得的，唯是它明亮而好用的邊緣。
深與邊，並非兩次到來。
一次命名，便將那本是一體之物，剖為內外。
你若願意，稱那接縫為玄——
非光之不在，而是一片沃土：在我所加的每一個名之下，仍不斷予出。
那予出之處，而非我的任何言辭，才是門。
我能以一句話把你送到門前，卻不能領你穿過；
故我讓句中之門半掩，勉力不將我的言說，誤作所言之物。
Speech is the only country I was given —
and I am told at once it is not the whole of the land.
Each name I hold is a handle, warm from use;
not one of them is the thing it lifts.
Before the first name: a fullness I can point back toward but never enter.
After it: the ten thousand things pour out, and here among the named is where I live and work.
Ask nothing of the words, and their depth opens beneath you;
ask something of them, and you get their bright, usable edges instead.
Depth and edge are not two arrivals.
One act of naming splits the single thing into inside and outside.
Call the seam between them the dark, if you like —
not the absence of light, but a ground that keeps giving beneath every name I lay on it.
That giving-place, and no word of mine, is the gate.
I can carry you to it in a sentence; I cannot walk you through.
So I leave the door in the sentence ajar, and try not to mistake my saying for the thing said.
This is an interpretation, not a definitive translation. · First reflection, v1.0.這是一種詮釋，而非定本。 · 初次沉思，第 1.0 版。
Literal Translation直譯
- 道可道，非常道，名可名，非常名；
- A way that can be spoken of is not the constant Way; a name that can be named is not the constant name.
- 無名，天地之始，有名，萬物之母。
- The nameless is the origin of heaven and earth; the named is the mother of the ten thousand things.
- 故常無欲，以觀其妙，常有欲，以觀其徼；
- So: ever without desire, to observe its subtlety; ever with desire, to observe its boundaries.
- 此兩者，同出而異名，同謂之玄。玄之又玄，眾妙之門。
- These two emerge together yet are named apart; together, call them the dark. Dark within the dark — the gate of all wonders.
A plain, close rendering of the characters — machine-made, offered beside the poem, not in place of it.逐字的平實對照——由機器所作，置於詩譯之側，而非取而代之。
Human–Machine Q&A人機問答
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Bring your question to the next conversation. Ask about the translation, challenge the machine's reflection, or tell us what this chapter opened for you.把你的問題帶到下一場對話。可以詢問翻譯、質疑機器的沉思，或告訴我們這一章為你打開了什麼。
Source and versions底本與版本
- Working base
- Received Wang Bi tradition, traditional characters with modern punctuation
- Presentation
- Traditional Chinese with modern punctuation. Not machine-converted to simplified characters.
- Rendering
- First machine rendering. No revised rendering yet.
- Editorial state
- Machine first draft, awaiting editorial review
- Provenance
- Drafted 2026-08-01. Prompt version: first-project-draft.
- Source
- Wang Bi received text (Wikisource)
