In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is
to conceal them;
The piquancy of the paradox evaporates in translation. 無形 is
perhaps not so much actual invisibility (see _supra_, § 9) as
“showing no sign” of what you mean to do, of the plans that are
formed in your brain.
conceal your dispositions, and you will be safe from the prying of the
subtlest spies, from the machinations of the wisest brains.
深閒 is expanded by Tu Mu into 雖有閒者深來窺我. [For 閒, see XIII,
note on heading.] He explains 知者 in like fashion:
雖有智能之士亦不能謀我也 “though the enemy may have clever and
capable officers, they will not be able to lay any plans against
us.”