第四十二章
物損而益
原文
道生一，一生二，二生三，三生萬物。萬物負陰而抱陽，沖氣以為和。人之所惡，唯孤、寡、不谷，而王公以為稱。故物或損之而益，或益之而損。人之所教，亦我而教人。強梁者不得其死——吾将以為教父。
英譯
Things May Gain When They Seem to Lose
The divine law,
the only origin of the world,
contains both Yin and Yang.
They co-exist to achieve a harmony,
in which all things come into being.
All things turn from Yin to Yang
and gain a new harmonious body by mixing.
What people hate most is "the sole", "the few" and "the barren",
but the rulers use these words to call themselves.
Therefore, for everything,
when it seems to lose, it may increase;
when it seems to increase, it may lose.
Other people teach me like this,
and I teach others in the same way.
There is no burial place for a cruel man,
which I take as a lesson.
說明
1、“道生一，一生二，二生三，三生萬物”的英譯
從道家的思想上講，“一”為虛無之氣，“二”為陰陽。一、二合而為“三’‘而生出了“萬物”。許淵沖直譯成“One is the child of the divine law. After one come two, after two come three, after three come all things.”，似乎沒有點出老子真正要表達的意思；Arthur Waley譯成“Tao gave birth to the One; the One gave birth successively to two things, three things, up to ten thousand.”，倒也中規中矩，但對“二”“三”的了解欠妥，譯成了事物的具體數量“two things”、“three things”。辜正坤用了增譯法，譯成“Tao begets（産生）the One; the One consists of Two in opposition(the Yin and Yang);The Two begets the Three; the Three begets all things of the world”，較好地闡釋了老子的“宇宙生成論”。
我們使用了意譯法，譯成“The divine law, the only origin of the world, contains both Yin and Yang. They co-exist to achieve a harmony, in which all things come into being. ”，用only對應“一”，用Yin、Yang對應“二”，用harmony對應第“三”者，以求讀者更準确地了解老子的本意。
2、“強梁者不得其死——吾将以為教父”的英譯
“強梁者不得其死”是指“強橫逞兇的人不得好死”；“吾将以為教父”的意思是“我把這句話當作施教的宗旨”。很顯然，Arthur Waley的譯文“Show me a man of violence that came to a good end, and I will take him for my teacher.”與原意有出路，但反過來看似乎也有點道理。辜正坤的譯文是“‘The violent will not come to a good end.’ This I will take as the first lesson when I teach.”；許淵沖譯成“The brute（殘暴的人） will die a brutal（殘忍的） death. I will teach this as a lesson.”。兩位譯者了解準确，用this 代指前面内容。前半部分，我們譯成“There is no burial place for a cruel man（殘忍的人死無葬身之地）”，後半部分，我們譯成了一個非限制性定語從句“which I take as a lesson”，“which”代指主句整句話的内容，這樣更便于了解。