Best Zhuangzi Translations: Watson, Ziporyn, Graham, Palmer

The four translations covered

The translations compared here are Burton Watson's The Complete Works of Zhuangzi (Columbia University Press, 2013 revised edition) — the standard scholarly translation, widely read since the 1960s and the one most other translations argue with; Brook Ziporyn's Zhuangzi: The Essential Writings with Selections from Traditional Commentaries (Hackett, 2009), a partial translation of the inner and outer chapters accompanied by two thousand years of Chinese commentary; A.C. Graham's Chuang-Tzŭ: The Inner Chapters (George Allen & Unwin, 1981), a scholar's translation that covers only the seven inner chapters but pursues their meaning with unusual rigour; and Martin Palmer's The Book of Chuang Tzu (Penguin, 1996), a complete and accessible version aimed at general readers, less academic in apparatus but consistent in tone across the whole text.

Same passage: the butterfly dream (chapter 2)

The butterfly dream closes chapter 2 and is the most quoted passage in the Zhuangzi. Here is what each translator does with it.

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there lay Chou, unambiguously. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

— Zhuangzi, Chapter 2, translated by Burton Watson

Once Zhuangzhou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly fluttering around, happy and carefree, not knowing he was Zhuangzhou. Then he woke and found himself to be Zhuangzhou. But he did not know: was he Zhuangzhou who had just been dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming he was Zhuangzhou?

— Zhuangzi, Chapter 2, translated by Brook Ziporyn

Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly. On waking he did not know whether he was Chou who had dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming it was Chou.

— Zhuangzi, Chapter 2, translated by A.C. Graham

Once I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying itself. I had no consciousness of being Chuang Tzu. Suddenly I awoke and there I was, Chuang Tzu again. But I could not tell, had I been Chuang Tzu dreaming I was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I was now Chuang Tzu?

— Zhuangzi, Chapter 2, translated by Martin Palmer

Watson's formal English — "to all intents and purposes," "unambiguously" — creates a ceremonial distance that suits the passage without losing the strangeness. Graham is the most compressed: he strips the dream to its philosophical core and leaves no descriptive detail. What you get is the argument, clean. Ziporyn sits between them: readable, with enough texture to let the paradox land. Palmer reads the most naturally aloud, but "happily enjoying itself" edges toward whimsy the other translators avoid. What differs across the four is how much room each leaves for the reader to feel the uncertainty rather than simply understand it.

Same passage: Cook Ding (chapter 3)

The Cook Ding story opens chapter 3 and is the Zhuangzi's most famous illustration of effortless skill — the cook whose knife never dulls because he follows the natural spaces in the ox. Here is the moment the prince observes the work.

Cook Ding was cutting up an ox for Lord Wenhui. Every touch of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every move of his feet, every thrust of his knee — zip! zoop! He slithered the knife along with a zing, and all was in perfect rhythm, as though he were performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove or keeping time to the Ching-shou music.

— Zhuangzi, Chapter 3, translated by Burton Watson

Cook Ding was cutting up an ox for Lord Hui. Every push of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every step with his foot, every thrust of his knee — slap! plop! He wielded his chopper with a whoosh, and the rhythm of it all was perfectly attuned, now to the Dance of the Mulberry Forest, now to the Head of the Ching-shou melody.

— Zhuangzi, Chapter 3, translated by Brook Ziporyn

Ting the cook was cutting meat free from the bones of an ox for Lord Wen-hui. At every stroke of his hand, every heave of his shoulder, every step of his foot, every thrust of his knee, in the quick snatch of the thigh, in the slicing stroke of the ripping out — swish! swoosh! — he sliced and slit, cut and divided.

— Zhuangzi, Chapter 3, translated by A.C. Graham

Prince Hui's cook was butchering an ox. Every movement of his hands, shrug of his shoulders, step of his feet, thrust of his knees — swish! slither! — the cleaver crunched through; the rhythm was perfect, like the Dance of the Mulberry Forest, or like the notes of the Ching Shou.

— Zhuangzi, Chapter 3, translated by Martin Palmer

Watson delivers the onomatopoeia most exuberantly — "zip! zoop!" communicates something true about the text's delight in concrete sensation. Graham and Palmer both reach for "swish," which is the more restrained version of the same instinct. The sound-words are not decoration; the whole point of the passage is that skilled work has a physical music to it. Graham's version is the least celebratory, his prose moving quickly and efficiently, like the cook himself.

The translators, one paragraph each

Burton Watson (1925–2017) was a Columbia scholar of Chinese and Japanese literature whose first Zhuangzi appeared in 1964. His English is direct and unaffected — he does not reach for philosophical register when a plain sentence will do, and he is the translator most willing to let Zhuangzi's comedy work on its own terms. The jokes land. The absurdist thought experiments feel genuinely strange rather than solemnly ancient. Watson's translation is also the only complete version with consistent readability throughout — the outer and miscellaneous chapters, which other translators often handle with less energy, hold up.

Brook Ziporyn is a philosopher at the University of Chicago whose translation is a scholarly event as much as a reading experience. He covers the inner chapters and selected outer passages, each section surrounded by commentary from Wang Fuzhi, Guo Xiang, and other Chinese interpreters. Ziporyn also contributes his own philosophical apparatus, explaining how key terms like shi fei (this and that, right and wrong) function inside the text's logic. The result is the most intellectually dense of the four, and the most rewarding for a reader who wants to understand the Zhuangzi rather than simply be charmed by it.

A.C. Graham (1919–1991) is both translator and the canonical Anglophone Zhuangzi scholar — his Disputers of the Tao remains the most useful single overview of classical Chinese thought, and his translation choices flow from that scholarship. Graham was willing to argue, in print, that significant portions of the text attributed to Zhuangzi were composed by later hands, and his translation is organised around that argument: he separates the inner chapters (likely Zhuangzi's own) from the outer and miscellaneous materials, and labels the different schools he identifies within them. This makes his edition indispensable for understanding the text's compositional history. If you only had time for one academic Zhuangzi it would still be Graham, even though his edition reorganises the text by his compositional hypothesis rather than presenting it in the received order.

Martin Palmer (b. 1950) is a scholar of comparative religion who has worked extensively on Chinese religious and Taoist texts. His Book of Chuang Tzu is the most consistently readable complete version in English — the prose never becomes stiff, and the transitions between the text's many registers (philosophical argument, fable, dialogue, anecdote) are handled with care. He is less rigorous than Watson on specific word choices, but his version sustains energy across the whole text in a way more academic translations sometimes do not.

Which one for you

If you have never read the Zhuangzi, start with Watson. He is the only translator who keeps the complete text alive from the inner chapters to the outer ones, and his introduction prepares you for what the book is. The humour and the strangeness come through — which matters because a Zhuangzi that reads like a solemn wisdom text has already failed.

If you want commentary alongside the text, read Ziporyn next. His selection covers the passages that matter most, and the surrounding scholarship gives context no amount of secondary reading in English quite replaces.

If you want only the philosophy — the tightest argument, the most precise account of what Zhuangzi is claiming — read Graham. His Inner Chapters treats the text as a serious contribution to epistemology and philosophy of action. The trade-off: the organisation reflects Graham's own hypotheses about the text's composition, with the inner chapters as the core and selections from the rest grouped by his account of their authorship.

If you want a smooth, complete version readable without apparatus, Palmer is the answer. He is not always the most precise translator, but he sustains energy across the full length of the text.

Start with Watson. Return to Ziporyn when you want the text to argue back at you.