Interpretation of a line in the Zhuangzi 4.7

Question

In the Zhuangzi, how can we interpret the end of 4.7 part?

...夫支離其形者，猶足以養其身，終其天年，又況支離其德者乎！

"With a crippled body, he's still able to look after himself and finish out the years Heaven gave him. How much better, then, if he had crippled virtue!" (Burton Watson's translation)

"And if physical deformity was thus enough to preserve his body until the end of his days, how much more should moral and mental deformity avail!" (Lin Yutang's translation)

I can understand that deformity of body still may make one live together with Dao, but deformity of De? Looks like a paradox to me! And not one of those intended paradoxes we see many times in the second part.

Answer 1

My take on this verse is very different from the earlier answers.

First thing about Chinese philosophy is that you have to read it in its historical context. It was the Warring States Period during Zhuangzi's time, and at that time, many people committed gross atrocities (murder etc.). And these people were usually the nobles, or people with high social status.

In this verse, Zhuangzi is actually mocking at these people, using a story of a crippled person. To survive in a chaotic time, it is best to be a crippled person, rather than a healthy and successful person. Similarly, Zhuangzi argued that it is also best to have crippled virtue, rather than honest. He was being sarcastic.

Answer 2

I can understand that deformity of body still may make one live together with Dao, but deformity of De? Looks like a paradox to me! And not one of those intended paradoxes we see many times in the second part.

I am not sure why you are referring to Dao or the person De. This part is talking about a person called 支離疏 ( zhī lí shū ). Not a paradox, as I made my translation below, thanks to his deformity, he is lucky enough to finish out his life. That is my answer.

FYI:Translation by me ( whole part )

There is a person called 支離疏 ( zhī lí shū ). His backbone is bent and his chin is so long that it almost reaches his navel, his shoulder is so high that it is even above his head, his curled hair so high that it is pointing to the heaven. His armpit is like his thigh ( what?? by me ), his internal organs ( are so fat? ) so that they are above his head. If such a deformed person's job is sawing, washing, threshing, he is worth 10 people. The reason is, even if a war started, he can evade the conscription by his lord because of his deformity, can evade the duty of engineering works, so that he can relax while other 10 people must be engaged in war. Furthermore, he can receive 3鍾 ( Chinese measure ) of chestnuts and 10 bundle of woods as a mercy from his lord for poor folks and these deformed. Thanks to his deformation, he can live his life in peace, ( this part is my guess ), (even if his heart ( mind ) is different too) or ( even if a person's mind other than he is different ) ( I am not sure which is correct ), he is so lucky to finish his life ( in peace )!

Source

I translated personally from Japanese one, so better way for you might be to go to Chinese site or Japanese ( a probable secondary source ) site for the meaning.

Answer 3

Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu) was a philosopher of paradox; with a generally skeptical viewpoint, like Socrates, Diogenes or Hume in the West. Much of his work questions or playfully parodies the dogmatism of Kongzi (Confucius) and his disciples. His work is distinguished from his contemporaries by his sharp and mischievous sense of humor.

Just as the Tao Te Ching has passages praising emptiness and nothingness, Zhuangzi repeatedly praises things that are devalued or that seem useless or worthless. In this case, he praises a person with severe birth defects as being fortunate in avoiding the disaster of compulsory military service.

The punchline is that he suggests that being morally deformed would be even more desirable than being physically deformed. This is a direct dig at the Confucian ideal of perfecting virtue as the pathway to all good things. (Also compare and contrast his parable of the thieves which centers around a converse paradox of Confucian virtue --that it arguably makes a bad person worse.)

Answer 4

From the James Legge translation:-

221:1 The deficiency of their faculties--here mental faculties--would assimilate them to the useless trees in the last two paragraphs, whose uselessness only proved useful to them.

Seems straightforward enough, given the preceding text:

7. Nan-po Dze-khî in rambling about the Heights of Shang, saw a large and extraordinary tree. The teams of a thousand chariots might be sheltered under it, and its shade would cover them all! Dze-khî said, 'What a tree is this! It must contain an extraordinary amount of timber! When he looked up, however, at its smaller branches, they were so twisted and crooked that they could not be made into rafters and beams; when he looked down to its root, its stem was divided into so many rounded portions that neither coffin nor shell could be made from them. He licked one of its leaves, and his mouth felt torn and wounded. The smell of it would make a man frantic, as if intoxicated, for more than three whole days together. 'This, indeed,' said he, 'is a tree good for nothing, and it is thus that it has attained to such a size. Ah! and spirit-like men acknowledge this worthlessness (and its result). ...'