A Taoist parable calling words the “chaff of the ancients”

In my last post, I started exploring the relationship between Taoist thought and the nature of human language.

The topic is huge and there’s so much material to reference, but the post was already too long, so I had to cut out several juicy quotes for later posts. Here’s a parable from Zhuangzi that further explores the issues of words and the expression of understanding:

Duke Huan was reading in the hall and a cartwright was making a wheel in the yard in front. Laying down his chisel, he went up and spoke to Duke Huan.

“May I ask what Your Royal Highness is reading?”

“I am reading the works of the sages,” was the reply.

“Are those sages living?”

“No, they died long ago.”

“Then what you are reading is merely the chaff left over by the ancients.”

“I am reading,” said the King. “What does a cartwright know about things like books? Explain yourself. If you can give a good account of your remark, I shall let you go, and if not, you shall die.”

“Let me take an example from my own profession,” replied the carpenter. “When I make the spokes too tight, they won’t fit the wheel, and when I make them too loose, they will not hold. I have to make them just right. I feel them with my hands and judge them with my heart. There is something about it which I cannot put down in words. I cannot teach that feeling to my own son, and my son cannot learn it from me. Therefore, at the age of seventy, I am good at making wheels. The ancients perished long ago and that something which they could not communicate perished with them. Therefore, what Your Majesty is reading is the chaff of the ancients.”