Friday, August 05, 2011

老子

我在看 sicko 的光碟時看到 Tony Benn 提到老子,

"Years ago I came across a quotation by an old Chinese philosopher called Lao Tzu, who said, as to the best leaders - the people do not notice their existence. The next best - the people honour and praise. The next best - they hate. The next best - they fear. But when the best leader's work is done - the people say we did it ourselves. And that is my reading of how progress occurs."

我當時感覺有點奇怪, 這是老子的那一篇? 後來我去找了一下:

"太上,不知有之;
其次,親而譽之;
其次,畏之;
其次,侮之;
信不足焉,有不信焉。
悠兮其貴言。
功成、事遂,
百姓皆謂:我自然。"
(老子道德經第十七章)

我以前讀到的時候沒有多想. 聽到 Tony Benn 說 "我自然" 是 "they did it ourselves" 時, 我真是嚇一跳. 事後想想, 還真對. 一般來說, 我聽到自然的時候到想到是 nature. 但是中文的自然兩字合在一起, 實在是自己的樣子的意思! 這只是證明, 沒有把讀到的東西在用自己的話語講出來, 很難真的變成自己的東西, 永遠只能模模糊胡. 而白話文在這一將近一百年來的演變, 不知道在這裡是否有所說明?

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