The Tao and the Bard: A Conversation

By Phillip DePoy

The Tao Te Ching or Book of the Way of Virtue is a touchstone of Eastern philosophy and mysticism. It has been called the wisest book ever written, and its author, Lao Tzu, is known as the Great Archivist. Shakespeare, the Bard, was the West’s greatest writer and even invented human nature, according to some. The Tao and the Bard is the delightful conversation between these two unlikely spokesmen, who take part in a free exchange of views in its pages. Here, in his own words, Lao Tzu offers the eighty-one verses that comprise the Tao, and, responding to each verse, the Bard answers with quotations from his plays and poems. In sometimes surprising ways, Shakespeare’s words speak to Lao Tzu’s, as the two trade observations on good and evil, love and virtue,  wise fools and foolish wisdom, and being and the “nothing from which all things are born.” Here is a new take on an old dialogue between East and West, with the reader invited to take part—whether to parse the meanings closely or sit back and enjoy the entertainment.

Lao Tzu: Is the world unkind?/Nature burns up life like a straw dog.
Skakespeare: Allow not nature more than nature needs,/Man’s life is as cheap as beasts . . . (Lear, King Lear)

Lao Tzu: Tao is elusive./Looking you never see,/listening you never hear,/grasping you never hold.
Shakespeare: The eye sees not itself/But by reflection, by some other things. (Brutus, Julius Caesar)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcade
• Release date: May 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781611459258

Phillip DePoy

Phillip DePoy is the director of the theatre program at Clayton State University and author of several novels, including The Witch's Grave and A Minister's Ghost. He lives in Decatur, Georgia.

Book preview

One

LAO TZU:

The Tao that can be said in words is not the Tao.

Words cannot describe it.

SHAKESPEARE:

Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.

Troilus, Troilus and Cressida, act V, scene iii

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet: Words, words, words.

Hamlet, act II, scene ii

Words are but wind.

Dromio, The Comedy of Errors, act III, scene i

COMMENT: The word sun doesn’t give any warmth or light. Only the sun can do that. Saying the word is only meant to suggest the thing itself. Of course, in the case of Lao Tzu or Shakespeare, the irony of using words to say something that can’t be said in words is significant. Lao Tzu’s writing is a foundation of Eastern thought. Shakespeare’s plays are among the greatest uses of any Western language.

Two

LAO TZU:

In each perception of good,

there are the seeds of evil.

SHAKESPEARE:

There is some soul of goodness in things evil.

Henry, Henry V, act IV, scene i

LAO TZU:

What is true and what is not true exist together.

Great and small are complementary,

before and after make sequence,

long and short are relative.

SHAKESPEARE:

The bold and coward,

The wise and fool, the artist and unread,

The hard and soft, all seem affined [affiliated] and kin.

Troilus and Cressida, act I, scene iii

COMMENT: The world is defined by opposites. Every ancient spiritual text begins with the separation of light from darkness, water from land, man from woman. Lao Tzu seems to insist that opposites create each other: once anything is described as right, that necessarily implies something else that’s wrong. As for Shakespeare, his greatest characters all contain elements of both good and evil: Othello is filled with love and rage; Hamlet suffers cowardice and bravery; Macbeth knows murder and remorse. That’s what makes them true.

Three

LAO TZU:

Be silent while you work

and keep control over all.

SHAKESPEARE:

I like your silence, it the more shows off your wonder.

Paulina, The Winter’s Tale, act V, scene iii

COMMENT: If words aren’t the way to tell the truth, silence ought to have its say.