Chapter 74 · The Great Carpenter of Death

Tao Te Ching (Legge, 1891) · chapter title added by Learn the Dao

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The chapter’s first line

The people do not fear death;

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This chapter in plain modern English — David Kooi’s rendering ↓

The people do not fear death; to what purpose is it to (try to) frighten them with death? If the people were always in awe of death, and I could always seize those who do wrong, and put them to death, who would dare to do wrong? There is always One who presides over the infliction of death. He who would inflict death in the room of him who so presides over it may be described as hewing wood instead of a great carpenter. Seldom is it that he who undertakes the hewing, instead of the great carpenter, does not cut his own hands!

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Chapter 74, in a second rendering

The Master Carpenter's Tools

Dao De Kooi — an original rendering by David Kooi

If people aren't afraid to die, what's the point of threatening them with death? And suppose they were, and I went around executing the troublemakers - who'd dare step out of line? But there's already something that handles the dying. Stepping in to do its job for it is like grabbing the master carpenter's tools to do the cutting yourself. Mostly you just take off your own hand.

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