In 1959 Julius Evola published a translation and commentary on the Tao Te Ching under the title Il Libro del Principio e della sua Azione [The Book of the Principle and its Action]. His interpretation is based on his knowledge of Tradition.

Many years prior he had written an alternative translation that was based more on his studies of German Idealism than on Tradition.

Chapter 2 →

Chapter 1

The Tao that can be named
Is not the eternal Tao
The Name that can be pronounced
Is not the eternal Name
(As the) Nameless it is the principle of Heaven and Earth
With the Name [that is: determined as Heaven and Earth] it is the origin of the myriad particular beings
So: the one who is detached
Perceives the Mysterious Essence
Which is obscured by desire
The gaze is stopped by the limit [he sees only the phenomena of appearances of the Principle]
Now of the two [the Nameable and the Unnamable, being and non-being]
One essence, only the name is different
Their identity is mysterious
It is the unfathomable depth
Beyond the threshold of the ultimate mystery

The two aspects of the Principle are indicated here, the one transcendent (unnameable, without form — equivalent to non-Being, the Emptiness, the unmoved), the other immanent (nameable, with form — equivalent to Being, fullness, the movable). Other Taoist designations: The “Former Heaven” (hsien t’ien) and the “Later Heaven” (hou t’ien). The first determination of the Tao (called also “the great Mutation”) is Heaven-and-Earth which are cosmic symbols of the Yang and the Yin. This Dyad produces all the modifications, therefore the myriad particular beings, of their paths and of their destinies (“The Great Flux”, the “current of forms”).

The unmanifested and the manifested, the formless and the formal, the Former Heaven and the Later Heaven, are not distinct temporally (as if at a certain moment something similar to a “creation” intervened), but in logico-metaphysical terms. Transcendence is immanent, the fullness coexists with the emptiness, non-being is the source of being: identity, that constitutes the ultimate mystery of Taoist realization.

See Lieh Tzu:

The chain of productions and transformations is interrupted, the producer and the transformer producing and transforming without it — the producer is unmovable, the transformer comes and goes. And the motionless and the mobile endure always. … Analyzing the production of the universe, the opening up of the sensible from the non-sensible, the seed of the calm generative action of Heaven and Earth, the ancient Sages distinguished these stages: the Great Mutation, the Great Origin, the Great Commencement, the Great Flux.

Chinese text and literal translation

Chapter 1 (第一章)