When the World Has the Way (Daodejing 46)
Annotated translation of ch. 46: the warhorse retired to the dung-heap, the warhorse foaling at the frontier — one horse, two worlds — and then the chapter's three superlatives: no crime greater than the desirable, no disaster greater than not knowing enough, no fault greater than wanting to acquire. The sufficiency of knowing enough is the constant sufficiency.
Chinese text
天下有道，却走马以粪。天下无道，戎马生于郊。祸莫大于不知足；咎莫大于欲得。故知足之足，常足矣。
Pinyin
Tiānxià yǒu dào, què zǒumǎ yǐ fèn. Tiānxià wú dào, róngmǎ shēng yú jiāo. Huò mò dà yú bùzhīzú; jiù mò dà yú yù dé. Gù zhīzú zhī zú, cháng zú yǐ.
Literal rendering
When the world has the Way, the fast horses are retired to dung the fields. When the world lacks the Way, warhorses foal at the frontier. No disaster is greater than not knowing enough; no fault is greater than wanting to acquire. Therefore the sufficiency of knowing-enough is constant sufficiency.
Term-by-term notes
- One horse, two lives. The chapter’s opening is its whole politics in an image-pair: 却走马以粪 — the warhorse retired to the dung-heap (粪: to manure, the horse put to the fields) — against 戎马生于郊 — the warhorse giving birth at the frontier (the mare foaling on campaign, at the edge of the fields). The same animal, two worlds: in one it fertilizes, in the other it can’t even give birth at home. The site’s ch. 12 translation holds the book’s diagnostic tone for what makes the second world; this chapter is the political photograph of it.
- The superlatives and their register. 祸莫大于不知足，咎莫大于欲得 — the two clauses are a pair, and the site keeps their distinction: 祸 is disaster (what happens to you) and 咎 is fault (what you are guilty of); 不知足 is the state (not knowing enough) and 欲得 is the motion (wanting to acquire). The pair diagnoses both ends of the same engine: the wanting and the not-enough feed each other. The verified variant adds the third clause (罪莫大于可欲 — no crime greater than the desirable, the Zhihu text) and the site registers it without adjudicating, noting what the trio does if present: crime, disaster, fault — the object, the outcome, the guilt, in one ladder.
- The formula at the end. 知足之足，常足矣 — “the sufficiency of knowing-enough” — is the chapter’s closing machinery, and the site’s ch. 33 translation holds the positive form of the same idea (知足者富 — the one who knows enough is rich). Together the two chapters are the book’s sufficiency doctrine: ch. 46 diagnoses the engine of insufficiency (the wanting, the not-enough), ch. 33 names the cure (knowing enough is wealth). The ch. 32 translation holds the companion discipline on the naming side (知止 — know where to stop): the three knowings — enough, stop, sufficiency — are one family.
- The stop, not the flight. The chapter’s answer is not austerity-as-program but the knowing — 知足 is a state of knowledge, not a diet. The site’s still-water page holds the Zhuangzi’s version of the same verb (止 — the water that stops and mirrors); the Laozi’s 知止 and the Zhuangzi’s 止水 share the grammar: the stop is where the clarity begins, not where the life ends. The horse in the first image is not destroyed; it is re-employed — the chapter’s peace is a horse manuring a field, the same power turned to growth.
Sources
- Daodejing ch. 46, verified against three independent reproductions that agree on the received text (the Zhihu chapter study with glosses: 天下有道，却走马以粪。天下无道，戎马生于郊。罪莫大于可欲；祸莫大于不知足；咎莫大于欲得。故知足之足，常足矣; the Baidu Baike chapter page; the Shandong University chapter page), with the variant registered: the Zhihu text carries the first superlative 罪莫大于可欲 (no crime greater than the desirable) and the Baike text omits it — both registered without adjudication