Standing Alone
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小國寡民，使有什伯，人之器而不用，使民重死而不逺徙。雖有舟輿，無所乘之，雖有甲兵，無所陳之。使民復結繩而用之，甘其食，美其服，安其居，樂其俗。鄰國相望，雞狗之聲相聞，民至老不相往來。
A small state with few people: let there be units of ten and a hundred, yet the people’s tools are not taken for use. Let the people take death seriously and not move far away. Though there are boats and carts, there is no place to ride them; though there are armor and weapons, there is no place to set them out. Let the people go back to knotting cords and using them; let them find their food sweet and their clothes fine, be at ease in their homes, and delight in their customs. Neighboring states can see each other and hear the sound of each other’s chickens and dogs, yet the people reach old age without coming and going between them.
A small, self-sufficient state where neighboring villages hear each other’s roosters but, per this print, its people never travel to visit.
The small state keeps soldiers and equipment in reserve and never calls them into use, and in Heshang Gong’s own reading of the opening line the ruler leaves the people’s farm tools untaken. The more familiar reading of the same words, following Wang Bi’s slightly shorter text, sees tools that could do the work of ten or a hundred men sitting idle because nobody needs them.
The famous closing image lacks its usual ending here: the received Wang Bi text and the Mawangdui silk both add 死, “to old age and death”, where this base stops at “old age”.
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