Guarding the Way
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治人事天，莫若嗇。夫唯嗇，是謂早服；早服謂之重積德。重積德則無不克，無不克則莫知其極。莫知其極，可以有國；有國之母，可以長久。是謂深根固𦷾，長生久視之道。
In governing people and serving heaven, nothing is as good as being sparing. Now, being sparing alone is what we call gaining the Way early; gaining it early is called storing up virtue again and again. Store up virtue again and again, and then there is nothing you cannot overcome; when there is nothing you cannot overcome, then no one knows your limit. When no one knows your limit, you can hold a state; hold the mother of the state, and you can last long. This is called deep roots and a firm stalk: the way of long life and lasting sight.
Frugality as the root habit that lets a ruler, like a well-tended plant, outlast everything.
Being sparing means not spending yourself and not overreaching. Heshang Gong reads it as holding tight: a ruler spares the people, and a person spares their own essence and breath. Someone who lives this way is fit to hold a state, because he is working from its very root.
The closing phrase’s rare final graph, glossed through Heshang Gong’s own fanqie spelling as dì, points to “the stalk” where Wang Bi has “root-base”. That small difference completes the plant metaphor: the whole stem that carries the fruit, not just a root.
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