Chapter 4

道沖，而用之或不盈。
淵兮，似萬物之宗；
挫其銳，解其紛，和其光，同其塵；
湛兮似或存。
吾不知誰之子？
象帝之先。

The Way is empty, and in use it never seems to fill.
Deep, it seems the ancestor of the ten thousand things;
it blunts the sharpness, unties the tangles, softens the light, becomes one with the dust;
clear and still, it seems almost to be there.
I do not know whose child it is.
It seems to precede the ruler of heaven.