It is a common metaphor that the text is a window onto the world that it depicts. In legalLegal text hermeneutics, the metaphor has been developed in two ways—the legalLegal text text as transparent or opaque—and the chapter proposes a third—the legalLegal text text as translucent. The claim that the legalLegal text text is transparent has been associated with more liberal methodologicalMethodological approaches. According to this view (often articulated by critics), the legalLegal text text does not markedly delimit meaning. Delimitation comes from the interpreters. By contrast, stress on the opacity of the legalLegal text text comes from those who give priority to the text rather than to any separable purpose lying behind the text. The chapter’s emphasis on the legalLegal text text as translucent builds on the hermeneutics of Paul Ricoeur and emphasizes the interrelation of text and context. To comprehend a legalLegal text text by reference to its context is to appreciate the light that the context brings to the text and renders the thickness and color of the text no longer opaque but translucent. The text is translucent to its context. The context is not outside the text but part of it. Attention to the text without regard for its external context may distort its meaning. The chapter exemplifies this perspective by drawing on legalLegal text scholarship and applies it briefly to analyses by the United States Supreme Court. The contribution frames the attention to the legalLegal text text by referencing the debate over the text as transparent, opaque, or translucent in literary and philosophic interpretation.