Laozi · Daodejing · 第一章
Read the witness. Inspect a construction. Follow the evidence.
Original source spelling · punctuation belongs to the digital witness · pronunciation tools follow your language focus.
道可道，非恒道
A way that can be articulated is not an enduring way.
zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes · Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed · CC BY-SA 4.0A route through this passage
59 Han characters · 33 distinct forms · 14 units separated by the witness’s punctuation
- Establish the frame. Read the surrounding chapter. Who speaks, what is being discussed, and which earlier words supply the context?
- Test one unit.
無名、天地之始，
Mark a possible predicate and its participants. Record what you have supplied rather than found explicitly in the text. - Reconstruct the argument. Connect the units in your own words. Where does a description, question, contrast, or consequence depend on your interpretation?
Investigate 8 written forms in this passage
Matched by spelling. These are candidate reading procedures, not assigned grammatical analyses.
Watch recurrence: 名 × 6 之 × 5 恒 × 4 道 × 3 玄 × 3 可 × 2. Repetition of a graph need not mean repetition of a sense.
Computed from this exact witness · 1 contextual editorial excerpt also available. The guide is a set of reading prompts, not a translation. Sources & methods
Make this passage yours.
Use the reading guide above, build your interpretation, then test what you can recover. Your notes and schedule stay on this device.
1 · Explain it in your own words
2 · Recover the wording
Select a source unit, then hide the passage and reconstruct it. This checks textual recall, not understanding.
3 · Explain, then revisit
What edition-specific graph must be preserved here?
Compare the editorial answer
恒.
zimai editorial draft · not independently reviewed. Applies to 道可道，非恒道
.
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Read this beside…
Each connection states its purpose. Comparisons are editorial learning aids; shared wording alone does not prove influence.
Different contextual sensesA compact formula and a practitioner’s explanationThe opening formula and Cook Ding’s narrative offer different kinds of evidence for interpreting 道.
Question in commonUsing words to investigate wordsCompare the formula about naming with the trap analogy and its final wish for conversation. No direct borrowing is asserted.
Textual evidencePreserve the form before interpreting it恒 and 无 are visible source forms. Their preservation does not by itself explain their textual history.
Different contextual sensesNaming under convention and under a paradoxXunzi addresses how agreed usage makes a name fitting; Laozi questions the constancy of names that can be named. Their shared 名 is an invitation to compare predicates and aims, not a warrant to assign one theory of language to both.
A question to take further
Follow a connection
Shared teaching construction · an editorial learning connection, not evidence of common authorship or origin.
論語 · Keep different negatives apart未之有也論語 · Let parallel clauses constrain a reading巧言令色，鮮矣仁論語 · Let parallel clauses constrain a reading父在，觀其志；父沒，觀其行論語 · Keep different negatives apart不患人之不己知Edition, source, and reuse
- Work
- 老子 · Laozi · Daodejing
- Attribution
- Traditionally attributed to Laozi; composition and textual history are debated.
- Digital witness
- Kanseki Repository · KR5c0057 · base edition tls
- Contributors
- Kanseki Repository (Kanripo) contributors; upstream base-edition labels retained in each original file.
- Source position
- KR5c0057_001.txt, lines 14–25. LAO 1.1; tr. D.C. Lau 19i2: 3; here tr. Karlgren 1975
- Version
8f585085ff4ef2580eeb0f4376a763a62bcc7a95- Reuse
- CC BY-SA 4.0. Text extraction and teaching additions share this licence.
- Text policy
- Source spelling and punctuation retained. Encoding headers, page markers, paragraph markers, whitespace, and leading section numbers are removed from the reading view. No silent script conversion or textual correction.
- Teaching
- zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes. English renderings are excerpt-level reading aids, not a full published translation. Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed.
Source-file SHA-256: 894bdf4ba53c468c19770f3b8ae0bae5b32fe339ea3e6bf46ca4e807bdd888ea. A source comment that cites a translator is an upstream reference, not the attribution of a translation imported here.