毛泽东：在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话等文章
在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话
TALKS AT THE YENAN FORUM ON LITERATURE AND ART
引 言
作者：毛泽东
同志们！今天邀集大家来开座谈会，目的是要和大家交换意见，研究文艺工作和一般革命工作的关系，求得革命文艺的正确发展，求得革命文艺对其他革命工作的更好的协助，借以打倒我们民族的敌人，完成民族解放的任务。
Comrades! You have been invited to this forum today to exchange ideas and examine the relationship between work in the literary and artistic fields and revolutionary work in general. Our aim is to ensure that revolutionary literature and art follow the correct path of development and provide better help to other revolutionary work in facilitating the overthrow of our national enemy and the accomplishment of the task of national liberation.
在我们为中国人民解放的斗争中，有各种的战线，其中也可以说有文武两个战线，这就是文化战线和军事战线。
In our struggle for the liberation of the Chinese people there are various fronts, among which there are the fronts of the pen and of the gun, the cultural and the military fronts.
我们要战胜敌人，首先要依靠手里拿枪的军队。但是仅仅有这种军队是不够的，我们还要有文化的军队，这是团结自己、战胜敌人必不可少的一支军队。
To defeat the enemy we must rely primarily on the army with guns. But this army alone is not enough; we must also have a cultural army, which is absolutely indispensable for uniting our own ranks and defeating the enemy.
“五四”以来，这支文化军队就在中国形成，帮助了中国革命，使中国的封建文化和适应帝国主义侵略的买办文化的地盘逐渐缩小，其力量逐渐削弱。
Since the May 4th Movement such a cultural army has taken shape in China, and it has helped the Chinese revolution, gradually reduced the domain of China's feudal culture and of the comprador culture which serves imperialist aggression, and weakened their influence.
到了现在，中国反动派只能提出所谓“以数量对质量”的办法来和新文化对抗，就是说，反动派有的是钱，虽然拿不出好东西，但是可以拚命出得多。
To oppose the new culture the Chinese reactionaries can now on
在“五四”以来的文化战线上，文学和艺术是一个重要的有成绩的部门。
Literature and art have been an important and successful part of the cultural front since the May 4th Movement.
革命的文学艺术运动，在十年内战时期有了大的发展。
During the ten years' civil war, the revolutionary literature and art movement grew greatly.
这个运动和当时的革命战争，在总的方向上是一致的，但在实际工作上却没有互相结合起来，这是因为当时的反动派把这两支兄弟军队从中隔断了的缘故。
That movement and the revolutionary war both headed in the same general direction, but these two fraternal armies were not linked together in their practical work because the reactionaries had cut them off from each other.
抗日战争爆发以后，革命的文艺工作者来到延安和各个抗日根据地的多起来了，这是很好的事。
It is very good that since the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, more and more revolutionary writers and artists have been coming to Yenan and our other anti-Japanese base areas.
但是到了根据地，并不是说就已经和根据地的人民群众完全结合了。
But it does not necessarily follow that, having come to the base areas, they have already integrated themselves completely with the masses of the people here.
我们要把革命工作向前推进，就要使这两者完全结合起来。
The two must be completely integrated if we are to push ahead with our revolutionary work.
我们今天开会，就是要使文艺很好地成为整个革命机器的一个组成部分，作为团结人民、教育人民、打击敌人、消灭敌人的有力的武器，帮助人民同心同德地和敌人作斗争。
The purpose of our meeting today is precisely to ensure that literature and art fit well into the whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that they operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for attacking and destroying the enemy, and that they help the people fight the enemy with on
为了这个目的，有些什么问题应该解决的呢？
What are the problems that must be solved to achieve this objective?
我以为有这样一些问题，即文艺工作者的立场问题，态度问题，工作对象问题，工作问题和学习问题。
I think they are the problems of the class stand of the writers and artists, their attitude, their audience, their work and their study.
立场问题。我们是站在无产阶级的和人民大众的立场。
The problem of class stand. Our stand is that of the proletariat and of the masses.
对于共产党员来说，也就是要站在党的立场，站在党性和党的政策的立场。
For members of the Communist Party, this means keeping to the stand of the Party, keeping to Party spirit and Party policy.
在这个问题上，我们的文艺工作者中是否还有认识不正确或者认识不明确的呢？
Are there any of our literary and art workers who are still mistaken or not clear in their understanding of this problem?
我看是有的。许多同志常常失掉了自己的正确的立场。
I think there are. Many of our comrades have frequently departed from the correct stand.
态度问题。随着立场，就发生我们对于各种具体事物所采取的具体态度。
The problem of attitude. From on
比如说，歌颂呢，还是暴露呢？这就是态度问题。
For instance, is on
究竟哪种态度是我们需要的？我说两种都需要，问题是在对什么人。
Which attitude is wanted? I would say both. The question is, whom are you dealing with?
有三种人，一种是敌人，一种是统一战线中的同盟者，一种是自己人，这第三种人就是人民群众及其先锋队。
There are three kinds of persons, the enemy, our allies in the united front and our own people; the last are the masses and their vanguard.
对于这三种人需要有三种态度。
We need to adopt a different attitude towards each of the three.
对于敌人，对于日本帝国主义和一切人民的敌人，革命文艺工作者的任务是在暴露他们的残暴和欺骗，并指出他们必然要失败的趋势，鼓励抗日军民同心同德，坚决地打倒他们。
With regard to the enemy, that is, Japanese imperialism and all the other enemies of the people, the task of revolutionary writers and artists is to expose their duplicity and cruelty and at the same time to point out the inevitability of their defeat, so as to encourage the anti-Japanese army and people to fight staunchly with on
对于统一战线中各种不同的同盟者，我们的态度应该是有联合，有批评，有各种不同的联合，有各种不同的批评。
With regard to our different allies in the united front, our attitude should be on
他们的抗战，我们是赞成的；如果有成绩，我们也是赞扬的。
We support them in their resistance to Japan and praise them for any achievement.
但是如果抗战不积极，我们就应该批评。
But if they are not active in the War of Resistance, we should criticize them.
如果有人要反共反人民，要一天一天走上反动的道路，那我们就要坚决反对。
If anyone opposes the Communist Party and the people and keeps moving down the path of reaction, we will firmly oppose him.
至于对人民群众，对人民的劳动和斗争，对人民的军队，人民的政党，我们当然应该赞扬。
As for the masses of the people, their toil and their struggle, their army and their Party, we should certainly praise them.
人民也有缺点的。
The people, too, have their shortcomings.
无产阶级中还有许多人保留着小资产阶级的思想，农民和城市小资产阶级都有落后的思想，这些就是他们在斗争中的负担。
Among the proletariat many retain petty-bourgeois ideas, while both the peasants and the urban petty bourgeoisie have backward ideas; these are burdens hampering them in their struggle.
我们应该长期地耐心地教育他们，帮助他们摆脱背上的包袱，同自己的缺点错误作斗争，使他们能够大踏步地前进。
We should be patient and spend a long time in educating them and helping them to get these loads off their backs and combat their own shortcomings and errors, so that they can advance with great strides.
他们在斗争中已经改造或正在改造自己，我们的文艺应该描写他们的这个改造过程。
They have remoulded themselves in struggle or are doing so, and our literature and art should depict this process.
只要不是坚持错误的人，我们就不应该只看到片面就去错误地讥笑他们，甚至敌视他们。
As long as they do not persist in their errors, we should not dwell on their negative side and consequently make the mistake of ridiculing them or, worse still, of being hostile to them.
我们所写的东西，应该是使他们团结，使他们进步，使他们同心同德，向前奋斗，去掉落后的东西，发扬革命的东西，而决不是相反。
Our writings should help them to unite, to make progress, to press ahead with on
工作对象问题，就是文艺作品给谁看的问题。
The problem of audience, i.e., the people for whom our works of literature and art are produced.
在陕甘宁边区，在华北华中各抗日根据地，这个问题和在国民党统治区不同，和在抗战以前的上海更不同。
In the Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia Border Region and the anti-Japanese base areas of northern and central China, this problem differs from that in the Kuomintang areas, and differs still more from that in Shanghai before the War of Resistance.
在上海时期，革命文艺作品的接受者是以一部分学生、职员、店员为主。
In the Shanghai period, the audience for works of revolutionary literature and art consisted mainly of a section of the students, office workers and shop assistants.
在抗战以后的国民党统治区，范围曾有过一些扩大，但基本上也还是以这些人为主，因为那里的政府把工农兵和革命文艺互相隔绝了。
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance the audience in the Kuomintang areas became somewhat wider, but it still consisted mainly of the same kind of people because the government there prevented the workers, peasants and soldiers from having access to revolutionary literature and art.
在我们的根据地就完全不同。文艺作品在根据地的接受者，是工农兵以及革命的干部。
In our base areas the situation is entirely different. Here the audience for works of literature and art consists of workers, peasants, soldiers and revolutionary cadres.
根据地也有学生，但这些学生和旧式学生也不相同，他们不是过去的干部，就是未来的干部。
There are students in the base areas, too, but they are different from students of the old type; they are either former or future cadres.
各种干部，部队的战士，工厂的工人，农村的农民，他们识了字，就要看书、看报，不识字的，也要看戏、看画、唱歌、听音乐，他们就是我们文艺作品的接受者。
The cadres of all types, fighters in the army, workers in the factories and peasants in the villages all want to read books and newspapers on
即拿干部说，你们不要以为这部分人数目少，这比在国民党统治区出一本书的读者多得多。
Take the cadres alone. Do not think they are few; they far outnumber the readers of any book published in the Kuomintang areas.
在那里，一本书一版平常只有两千册，三版也才六千册；但是根据地的干部，单是在延安能看书的就有一万多。
There, an edition usually runs to on
而且这些干部许多都是久经锻炼的革命家，他们是从全国各地来的，他们也要到各地去工作，所以对于这些人做教育工作，是有重大意义的。
Many of them, moreover, are tempered revolutionaries of long standing, who have come from all parts of the country and will go out to work in different places, so it is very important to do educational work among them.
我们的文艺工作者，应该向他们好好做工作。
Our literary and art workers must do a good job in this respect.
既然文艺工作的对象是工农兵及其干部，就发生一个了解他们熟悉他们的问题。
Since the audience for our literature and art consists of workers, peasants and soldiers and of their cadres, the problem arises of understanding them and knowing them well.
而为要了解他们，熟悉他们，为要在党政机关，在农村，在工厂，在八路军新四军里面，了解各种人，熟悉各种人，了解各种事情，熟悉各种事情，就需要做很多的工作。
A great deal of work has to be done in order to understand them and know them well, to understand and know well all the different kinds of people and phenomena in the Party and government organizations, in the villages and factories and in the Eighth Route and New Fourth Armies.
我们的文艺工作者需要做自己的文艺工作，但是这个了解人熟悉人的工作却是第一位的工作。
Our writers and artists have their literary and art work to do, but their primary task is to understand people and know them well.
我们的文艺工作者对于这些，以前是一种什么情形呢？
In this regard, how have matters stood with our writers and artists?
我说以前是不熟，不懂，英雄无用武之地。
I would say they have been lacking in knowledge and understanding; they have been like "a hero with no place to display his prowess".
什么是不熟？人不熟。
What does lacking in knowledge mean? Not knowing people well.
文艺工作者同自己的描写对象和作品接受者不熟，或者简直生疏得很。
The writers and artists do not have a good knowledge either of those whom they describe or of their audience; indeed they may hardly know them at all.
我们的文艺工作者不熟悉工人，不熟悉农民，不熟悉士兵，也不熟悉他们的干部。
They do not know the workers or peasants or soldiers well, and do not know the cadres well either.
什么是不懂？语言不懂，就是说，对于人民群众的丰富的生动的语言，缺乏充分的知识。
What does lacking in understanding mean? Not understanding the language, that is, not being familiar with the rich, lively language of the masses.
许多文艺工作者由于自己脱离群众、生活空虚，当然也就不熟悉人民的语言，因此他们的作品不但显得语言无味，而且里面常常夹着一些生造出来的和人民的语言相对立的不三不四的词句。
Since many writers and artists stand aloof from the masses and lead empty lives, naturally they are unfamiliar with the language of the people.Accordingly, their works are not on
许多同志爱说“大众化”，但是什么叫做大众化呢？就是我们的文艺工作者的思想感情和工农兵大众的思想感情打成一片。而要打成一片，就应当认真学习群众的语言。
Many comrades like to talk about "a mass style". But what does it really mean? It means that the thoughts and feelings of our writers and artists should be fused with those of the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers. To achieve this fusion, they should conscientiously learn the language of the masses.
如果连群众的语言都有许多不懂，还讲什么文艺创造呢？
How can you talk of literary and artistic creation if you find the very language of the masses largely incomprehensible?
英雄无用武之地，就是说，你的一套大道理，群众不赏识。
By "a hero with no place to display his prowess", we mean that your collection of great truths is not appreciated by the masses.
在群众面前把你的资格摆得越老，越像个“英雄”，越要出卖这一套，群众就越不买你的账。
The more you put on the airs of a veteran before the masses and play the "hero", the more you try to peddle such stuff to the masses, the less likely they are to accept it.
你要群众了解你，你要和群众打成一片，就得下决心，经过长期的甚至是痛苦的磨练。
If you want the masses to understand you, if you want to be on
在这里，我可以说一说我自己感情变化的经验。
Here I might mention the experience of how my own feelings changed.
我是个学生出身的人，在学校养成了一种学生习惯，在一大群肩不能挑手不能提的学生面前做一点劳动的事，比如自己挑行李吧，也觉得不像样子。
I began life as a student and at school acquired the ways of a student; I then used to feel it undignified to do even a little manual labour, such as carrying my own luggage in the presence of my fellow students, who were incapable of carrying anything, either on their shoulders or in their hands.
那时，我觉得世界上干净的人只有知识分子，工人农民总是比较脏的。
At that time I felt that intellectuals were the on
知识分子的衣服，别人的我可以穿，以为是干净的；工人农民的衣服，我就不愿意穿，以为是脏的。
I did not mind wearing the clothes of other intellectuals, believing them clean, but I would not put on clothes belonging to a worker or peasant, believing them dirty.
革命了，同工人农民和革命军的战士在一起了，我逐渐熟悉他们，他们也逐渐熟悉了我。
But after I became a revolutionary and lived with workers and peasants and with soldiers of the revolutionary army, I gradually came to know them well, and they gradually came to know me well too.
这时，只是在这时，我才根本地改变了资产阶级学校所教给我的那种资产阶级的和小资产阶级的感情。
It was then, and on
这时，拿未曾改造的知识分子和工人农民比较，就觉得知识分子不干净了，最干净的还是工人农民，尽管他们手是黑的，脚上有牛屎，还是比资产阶级和小资产阶级知识分子都干净。
I came to feel that compared with the workers and peasants the unremoulded intellectuals were not clean and that, in the last analysis, the workers and peasants were the cleanest people and, even though their hands were soiled and their feet smeared with cow-dung, they were really cleaner than the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals.
这就叫做感情起了变化，由一个阶级变到另一个阶级。
That is what is meant by a change in feelings, a change from on
我们知识分子出身的文艺工作者，要使自己的作品为群众所欢迎，就得把自己的思想感情来一个变化，来一番改造。
If our writers and artists who come from the intelligentsia want their works to be well received by the masses, they must change and remould their thinking and their feelings.
没有这个变化，没有这个改造，什么事情都是做不好的，都是格格不入的。
Without such a change, without such remoulding, they can do nothing well and will be misfits.
最后一个问题是学习，我的意思是说学习马克思列宁主义和学习社会。
The last problem is study, by which I mean the study of Marxism-Leninism and of society.
一个自命为马克思主义的革命作家，尤其是党员作家，必须有马克思列宁主义的知识。
Anyone who considers himself a revolutionary Marxist writer, and especially any writer who is a member of the Communist Party, must have a knowledge of Marxism-Leninism.
但是现在有些同志，却缺少马克思主义的基本观点。
At present, however, some comrades are lacking in the basic concepts of Marxism.
比如说，马克思主义的一个基本观点，就是存在决定意识，就是阶级斗争和民族斗争的客观现实决定我们的思想感情。
For instance, it is a basic Marxist concept that being determines consciousness, that the objective realities of class struggle and national struggle determine our thoughts and feelings.
但是我们有些同志却把这个问题弄颠倒了，说什么一切应该从“爱”出发。
But some of our comrades turn this upside down and maintain that everything ought to start from "love".
就说爱吧，在阶级社会里，也只有阶级的爱，但是这些同志却要追求什么超阶级的爱，抽象的爱，以及抽象的自由、抽象的真理、抽象的人性等等。
Now as for love, in a class society there can be on
这是表明这些同志是受了资产阶级的很深的影响。
This shows that they have been very deeply influenced by the bourgeoisie.
应该很彻底地清算这种影响，很虚心地学习马克思列宁主义。
They should thoroughly rid themselves of this influence and modestly study Marxism-Leninism.
文艺工作者应该学习文艺创作，这是对的，但是马克思列宁主义是一切革命者都应该学习的科学，文艺工作者不能是例外。
It is right for writers and artists to study literary and artistic creation, but the science of Marxism-Leninism must be studied by all revolutionaries, writers and artists not excepted.
文艺工作者要学习社会，这就是说，要研究社会上的各个阶级，研究它们的相互关系和各自状况，研究它们的面貌和它们的心理。
Writers and artists should study society, that is to say, should study the various classes in society, their mutual relations and respective conditions, their physiognomy and their psychology.
只有把这些弄清楚了，我们的文艺才能有丰富的内容和正确的方向。
Only when we grasp all this clearly can we have a literature and art that is rich in content and correct in orientation.
今天我就只提出这几个问题，当作引子，希望大家在这些问题及其他有关的问题上发表意见。
I am merely raising these problems today by way of introduction; I hope all of you will express your views on these and other relevant problems.
翻译：钱钟书
2、塞缪尔·约翰逊：Samuel Johnson's letter to Lord Chesterfield
To The Right Honorable The Earl Of Chesterfield
7th February, 1755.
My Lord,
I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your lordship. To be so distinguished is an honor which, being very little accustomed to favors from the great, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to acknowledge.
When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited your lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of mankind, by the enchantment of your address, and could not forbear to wish that I might boast myself Le vainqueur du vainqueur de la terre;—that I might obtain that regard for which I saw the world contending; but I found my attendance so little encouraged, that neither pride nor modesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had once addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted all the art of pleasing which a retired and uncourtly scholar can possess. I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
Seven years, my lord, have now passed, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favor. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a patron before.
The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and found him a native of the rocks.
Is not a patrons my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it: till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron, which providence has enabled me to do for myself.
Having carried on my work thus far with so little obligation to any favorer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should conclude it, if less be possible, with less; for I have been long wakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself with so much exultation, My Lord,
Your lordship's most humble,
Most obedient servant,
SAM. JOHNSON.
翻译参考：
辜正坤先生白话体译文
伯爵大人：
近日从《世界报》馆主得知，该报刊载了两篇文章，对拙编词典颇多举荐滥美之词，这些文章据悉均出自阁下您的手笔。承蒙您如此的推崇，本应是一种荣耀，只可惜在下自来无缘得到王公大人的青睐，所以真不知道该如何来领受这份荣耀，也不知道该用些什么言辞来聊表谢意。
回想当年，也不知哪来的勇气，我竟第一次拜访了大人阁下。我像所有的人一样，深为大人的言谈丰采所倾倒，不禁玄想他年能口出大言“吾乃天下征服者之征服者也。”——虽知此殊荣是举世学人所欲得，仍希望有朝一日能侥幸获取。然而我很快发现自己的趋走逢迎根本没有得到鼓励。不管是出于自尊也好，自矜也好，我反正无法再周旋下去。我本是一个与世无争、不善逢迎的书生，但那时我也曾用尽平生所学的阿谀奉承的言辞，当众赞美过阁下。能做的一切我都做了。如果一个人在这方面付出的一切努力（不管是多么微不足道）受到完全的忽视，他是绝不会感到舒服的。
大人阁下，从我第一次候立于贵府门下，或者说被您拒于门外时算起，已经7年过去。7年多来，我一直苦苦地撑持着我的编撰工作。这些苦楚，现在再来倾 诉，已经没有用处。所幸我的劳作而今终于快要出版，在这之前我没有获得过一个赞助的行为，一句鼓励的话语，一抹称许的微笑。我固然不曾指望这样的礼遇，因为我从未有过一位赞助人。
维吉尔笔下的牧童最后终于和爱神相识，这才发现所谓爱神只不过是岩穴土人而已。
大人阁下，有的人眼见落水者在水中拼命挣扎而无动于衷，等他安全抵岸之后，却才多余地伸出所谓援手，莫非这就叫赞助人么？大人而今忽有雅兴来关照在下的劳作，这原本是一桩美意，只可惜太迟了一点。迟到我已经意懒心灰，再无法快乐地消受；迟到我已经是孤身一人，无从与家人分享；迟到我已经名闻海内，再不需阁下附丽张扬。我既然本来就没有得到过实惠，自然母需怀感恩之心；既然是上帝助我独立完成这桩大业，我自然不愿让公众产生错觉，似乎我曾受惠于某一赞助人。但愿上面这番话不致被认为太苛刻、太不近人情。
我已经在根本没有所谓学术赞助人赞助的情况下使自己的工作完成到目前这个地步，那么，尽管我将要在更艰难无助的情况下—假如还有可能更艰难无助的话—完成全稿，我也绝不会感到沮丧。因为我已经早就从那个赞助的美梦里幡然猛醒；曾几何时，我还在那梦中得意非凡地自诩是大人您门下最卑微/最驯顺的仆人/塞缪尔•约翰逊1755年2月7日
致切斯菲尔德伯爵书〖英〗塞缪尔•约翰逊/〖中〗辜正坤译注/文言体译文
大人阁下：
顷得《世界报》馆主告知，该报近日揭载二文，对拙编词典，颇有扬善褒荐之词，闻皆出阁下手笔。厚爱如此，理当引为大幸。奈何在下不惯贵人垂青，茫然不知何以领受、何辞逊谢。忆当年，在下小蒙鼓励，竟斗胆初谒公门。大人之言谈丰采，语惊四座，令人绝倒，使在下不禁谬生宏愿：他日或能自诩当世：“吾乃天下征服者之征服者也。”——举世学人欲夺之殊荣，或竟鹿死我手!孰料余之趋走逢迎，未蒙丝毫宠幸。尔后余自度不复干谒此途，自尊与自卑，皆勿与论也。余本一介书生，不善谄辞，不尚交际，而曾一度当众致语阁下，可谓罄尽取悦文饰之辞。仆思已尽犬马之劳，虽功效绵薄，又何甘辛劳遭逢白眼之遇也。
回想当初侍立君堂，甚或见逐门首，忽焉七载飞去。斯年以来，吾力排艰辛，独撑大业，无援手相助，无片言相许，无一笑相期。幸得终竟全功，付梓在即。当此时，发怨尤之词，恐无益也。然余实从未曾知遇提携之人，自曾指望过蒙受惠顾。
维吉尔笔下牧童终与爱神相识，方知爱神原只是草野之夫。
设有人于溺水者奋命中流之际，漠然相对，视若无睹，伺其安全抵岸，方忽急伸援手，反增累赘，所谓赞助人也者，莫非即此辈耶?
大人而今忽有雅兴垂顾拙编，倘恩泽当初，犹可称善；奈何此惠顾珊珊来迟，我已心灰意冷，受之谅无深趣；我已鸳鸯失伴，有乐无人与共；我已名播天下，再不需阁下扬誉之辞!在下当初既不曾蒙恩．今朝亦无须感德；天帝既助我独成大业，今何敢欺世惑众，默认身后有所谓莫须有之赞助者?在下言辞或有苛刻不敬， 还望海涵。
余自承担此编撰业以来，从未获所谓赞助者分毫，亦使大业行将告竣，纵或杀青之际倍感艰难无助，余亦绝无失望之心。奢望赞助之美梦，梦破多年；堪笑曾几何时余亦曾梦中顾盼自雄、自诩为
大人您门下最卑微/最驯顺之奴仆/塞缪尔•约翰逊/一千七百五十五年二月初七日
约翰逊致切斯特菲尔德伯爵书 黄继忠译
1755年2月7日
伯爵大人阁下：
近闻“人世间”主人言：阁下曾二度撰文，将仆之辞典推荐于世，易胜荣幸。然仆生平鲜蒙贵人恩典，是以受宠若惊，不知何以答谢。
昔者偶为人言所动，初度造府晋谒；于君之谈吐，一似世人之倾慕不已。实望一登龙门，身价十倍；并冀能博得阁下之青睐，此天下人争相罗致者也。然仆之趋候，颇遭冷遇；其后遂裹足不前，半以孤芳自赏，半以自渐形秽也。仆本一介寒士，不求闻达于世，不善逢迎之术。前者于大庭广众之间得与阁下共语，曲尽所能，以期取悦于君，终不可得。人之竭尽绵薄，辱遭鄙夷而复能怡然自得者，鲜矣哉！
忆昔伫候于外室，见拒于侯门，岁月荏苒，春秋七易。七岁之间，仆厉志孟晋，披荆斩棘，致力于辞书之编著；个中艰辛，今日言之何益？所幸功垂于成，刊行在即，期间未尝获君一臂之助，一言之勖，一笑之惠。惟此等殊遇，原非所期，盖仆生平所迄未受恩主之惠。
弗吉尔诗中之牧者，其后终得稔悉“爱童”之为人，方知其为铁石心肠之辈也。
伯爵阁下：见人挣扎于水中则漠漠然袖手旁观，见其安然登岸则遽遽乎殷勤相助，此非恩主之为人乎？阁下于拙著之锦注，若在昔年，诚不失为美意；惜于姗姗其来迟，今仆已兴味索然，难以欣赏；仆已孓然一身，无人分享；仆已薄有声名，不劳垂颐矣。且仆既未受惠于人，自不欲对其感恩戴德；仆借天助独立完竣之功业，自不欲天下人误以为恩主所赐；此言谅不致失之于尖酸刻薄耳。
仆自编纂辞书以还，既未受惠于任何学术赞助人于前，则于今大功垂成之日，即无丝毫恩赐于后，亦当不以为憾耳。盖仆昔时固尝陶醉于希望之美梦，今则梦醒久矣。
仆山缪尔·约翰逊顿首再拜
致柴斯特菲尔德勋爵书
[英国]塞．约翰逊
高 健译
常 风校
勋爵阁下；
顷据《世界报》主人通知，该报近所裁有关拙著词典之推荐文章二篇，均系出自勋爵阁下手笔。承蒙如此重视，自是荣耀非常，但以平日末习惯于贵人之垂青，故余真不知将以何心情领受，并不知以何言辞鸣谢也。
犹忆当年小蒙鼓励，固有幸初次踵门拜谒之际，余之为阁下之辞令心醉，亦犹人也；因不禁私心庆幸，自谓将能以“世上征服者之征服者”而自豪，即世人所求而弗得之眷顾，余能得也，然继而发现，余之一番追随趋奉既悉数落空，乃至无论出于自尊自卑，似已皆不许可此种往来之继续。再如某次当众向大人致词之时，则于取悦一端，实已罄尽一介寒士之能事，固可谓已尽其在我；即或犹有未足，似亦未容如此忽视。
自曩昔候教于大人正厅外室，乃至见逐门外，于今已七年矣；在此七年间，余已将拙作之编著，于种种困难之中，向前多所推进(按此节固无须抱怨)，时至于今，业已出版有日。然于此期间，固绝不闻有一事之援助，一言之鼓励，一笑之赞许。此种厚待固亦不曾指望，余实不曾有过赞助之人。
魏吉尔诗中之牧童据云亦曾求爱而得爱，然殊不料爱竟与石同宗。
然则所谓赞助者即彼见人溺水呼救而无动于衷及其抵岸又重以援助相絮聒之人乎？阁下于我辛劳之枉顾，如其到来稍早，亦必曾令人感戴，然而延稽至今，我已麻木不仁，而不知感受矣；我已孑然一身，而无人得与分班矣；我已功成名就，而无此必要矣，然不得恩遇则难言领情。命运既以此书期委我于独成，我亦不应使世人误认我尚有赞助之人，此话谅亦不致视为苛
刻。
既然此书之编纂迄今从未得彼学术赞助者之一顾，故值其告竣之际，实亦无虑其廑注之更少(如其尚可云少)，如今大梦既醒，余已不复为昔日颇曾以此为得意之
阁下之
至谦卑至恭顺之
牛马走
塞·约翰逊
1755卑2月7日
致齐斯特菲伯爵书 罗珞珈译
伯爵大人钧鉴：
日前，乘世界日报业主告知，该报所刊对拙著《字典》赞誉交加之两篇文章，
实出于阁下之手笔。阁下对本人如此揄扬，诚三生有幸。本人素乏伟人提携奖励，骤得恩宠，惶恐万分，不知该如何承受，如何致谢，始得其当也。
昔日，本人尝稍受鼓励，即趋阶请益。阁下言辞华美迷人，一介凡夫如我，何能免俗，禁不住陶醉神驰而沾沾自喜，大兴非独霸文坛而不罢休之豪情——曾几何时，阁下之言，虽犹在耳，阁下对我之垂顾，却已烟消云散，使我无论如何自欺，亦无法开释于怀。自问当初本人对阁下之尊敬忠诚，殷勤取悦，比诸任何煮字疗饥的文人，绝不逊色，我已竭其所能，使尽浑身解数，仍然无法获得阁下垂青，是可忍，孰不可忍也。
忆及当初本人或枯候阁下于玄关，或见摈于大门之外，时光无情，忽焉巳七载有余；当是时也，本人无一日不孜孜矻矻，夙夜匪懈，努力工作而无一字一句埋怨；如今大功告成，《字典》行将出版，亦无人助一臂之力，致一安慰之词，或对我微笑示惠，以资鼓励。世所谓“恩主”（Patron）者，与本人一向无缘，今后亦不敢有此奢望。
维吉尔诗中之牧羊童子，最后虽有幸结识爱神（Love），但早已奄奄一息，僵卧于野，为时已晚矣！
阁下，世之所谓恩主者，岂见溺不救，任其浮沉，不加理睬，及其登岸，又伸以援手，示以关切者之流耶？阁下对本人挖空心思之捧场文章，如果早来一步，不知使我将物和感激涕零；然而，时过境迁，一切均成明日黄花，本人现已无心强颜欢笑，自我陶醉；当我孤独一人，呼天既不应，呼地亦无闻，现我功成名就，又何劳他人锦上添花，代为吹嘘。此乃出自肺腑之言，并非一时意气之争，尚希仁人君子不至于误解本人乃忘恩负义之徒，因我既无恩可忘，更无义可负也。
本人工作已近完成阶段。以往既未蒙任何文坛先进，衮衮诸公，提携奖掖，如今亦不会因此而伤心欲绝，肝肠寸断。对于一切事后溢美之词，最好能省即省，能免则免。对于曩昔信以为真，全心以赴的千秋大梦，本人已梦醒多时！
此颂
约翰逊再拜
2011年6月5日 00:00
3、怀特：Here Is New York（excerpt）
On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. It is this largess that accounts for the presence within the city's walls of a considerable section of the population; for the residents of Manhattan are to a large extent strangers who have pulled up stakes somewhere and come to town, seeking sanctuary or fulfillment or some greater or lesser grail. The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.
对于任何企求这类离奇奖赏的人，纽约会送上两件礼物：孤寂和私密。正是这种大度解释了城市人口中相当一部分人的存在，因为曼哈顿居民中多的是异乡客，他们背井离乡，到这儿来寻求庇护，或实现抱负，要不就是追求别的什么大大小小的目标。得以向人送上如此不成其为礼物的礼物，乃是纽约一种谜一般的特质，它可毁掉一个人，也可成全他，很大程度上全看此人运气如何。不愿交好运的人可别来纽约居住。
New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader, and the merchant. It carries on its lapel the unexpungeable odor of the long past, so that no matter where you sit in New York you feel the vibrations of great times and tall deeds, of queer people and events and undertakings. I am sitting at the moment in a stifling hotel room in 90-degree heat, halfway down an air shaft, in midtown. No air moves in or out of the room, yet I am curiously affected by emanations from the immediate surroundings. I am twenty-two blocks from where Rudolph Valentino lay in state, eight blocks from where Nathan Hale was executed, five blocks from the publisher's office where Ernest Hemingway hit Max Eastman on the nose, four miles from where Walt Whitman sat sweating out editorials for the Brooklyn Eagle, thirty-four blocks from the street Willa Cather lived in when she came to New York to write books about Nebraska, one block from where Marceline used to clown on the boards of the Hippodrome, thirty-six blocks from the spot where the historian Joe Gould kicked a radio to pieces in full view of the public, thirteen blocks from where Harry Thaw shot Stanford White, five blocks from where I used to usher at the Metropolitan Opera and only 112 blocks from the spot where Clarence Day the elder was washed of his sins in the Church of the Epiphany (I could continue this list indefinitely); and for that matter I am probably occupying the very room that any number of exalted and somewise memorable characters sat in, some of them on hot, breathless afternoons, lonely and private and full of their own sense of emanations from without.
纽约把艺术、商业、体育、宗教、娱乐、金融融于一炉，将角斗士、福音布道牧师、赞助人、演员、股市黄牛和商贾各色人等推上同一个紧凑的舞台。城市彰显的特点是带有一种无法抹煞的陈年久远的气味，所以不管你坐在纽约的什么地方，你都会感受到伟大时代和荒诞行状的回声，还有那些奇人怪事和业绩。此刻，气温高达华氏90度，我正坐在中城区一家酒店叫人透不过气的客房里，置身于通风井不上不下的位置。房间内外没有空气流动，可稀奇的是我却能感受到周围散发出的气息：此去22条马路就是鲁道夫·瓦伦蒂诺大殓前供人瞻仰的地方；8条马路之外是内森·黑尔的刑场；5条马路之隔有家出版社，就在那办公室里欧内斯特·海明威曾猛击迈克斯·伊斯特曼的鼻梁；过去4英里，那曾是沃尔特·惠特曼坐着挥汗为布鲁克林《鹰报》撰写社论的地方；34条马路之外是薇拉·凯瑟来纽约时住过的那条街，在那儿她写下了关于内布拉斯加的几部作品；离此一条马路之隔乃是马塞林经常表演丑角的大马戏场；36条马路之外，历史学家佐·古尔德曾在众目睽睽之下把一台收音机踹成碎片；13条马路之外是哈利·索奥射杀斯坦福·怀特的现场；距此5条马路，是我当年当领座员的大都会歌剧院；克莱伦斯·戴的老子清洗罪孽的显圣堂离这儿再远也只须走过112条马路。（就这类轶事拉一张单子可以长得没完没了。）依同理，我此刻置身其中的客房可能不知被多少显贵和在某一方面值得缅怀的人物占用过，其中某些人在炎热又闷塞的下午，同样感到落寞而离群，又满怀各人对于从户外传来的人事影响的敏感。
When I went down to lunch a few minutes ago I noticed that the man sitting next to me (about eighteen inches away along the wall) was Fred Stone. The eighteen inches are both the connection and the separation that New York provides for its inhabitants. My only connection with Fred Stone was that I saw him in the The Wizard of Oz around the beginning of the century. But our waiter felt the same stimulus from being close to a man from Oz, and after Mr. Stone left the room the waiter told me that when he (the waiter) was a young man just arrived in this country and before he could understand a word of English, he had taken his girl for their first theater date to The Wizard of Oz. It was a wonderful show, the waiter recalled—a man of straw, a man of tin. Wonderful! (And still only eighteen inches away.) “Mr. Stone is a very hearty eater, ” said the waiter thoughtfully, content with this fragile participation in destiny, this link with Oz.
几分钟前我下楼进午餐，曾注意到邻座（沿墙约18英寸之外）竟是弗雷德·斯通。这儿说的18英寸乃是纽约为其居民提供的人与人之间既联系又分隔的距离。我与弗雷德·斯通的唯一联系是，大概在世纪初吧，我看过他在《绿野仙踪》中的表演。可我们的侍应生因为在近距离接触了一位“绿野人”，同样大受激励，一俟斯通先生离去，便告诉我说，那还是他（指侍者）一个小伙子初来美国而且一个英文大字都不识的时候，和女友初次剧院约会看的戏。演出可精彩啦，侍者回忆道，稻草人，铁皮人。妙不可言！（仍在18英寸之外）“斯通先生吃东西真是好胃口，”侍者若有所思地说，因为跟“绿野”扯上了关系而心满意足，虽说那纽带一碰就断，也算是有缘的参与吧。
New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute. Since I have been sitting in this miasmic air shaft, a good many rather splashy events have occurred in town. A man shot and killed his wife in a fit of jealousy. It caused no stir outside his block and got only small mention in the papers. I did not attend. Since my arrival, the greatest air show ever staged in all the world took place in town. I didn’t attend and neither did most of the eight million other inhabitants, although they say there was quite a crowd. I didn’t even hear any planes except a couple of westbound commercial airliners that habitually use this air shaft to fly over. The biggest oceangoing ships on the North Atlantic arrived and departed. I didn’t notice them and neither did most other New Yorkers. I am told this is the greatest seaport in the world, with 650 miles of waterfront, and ships calling here from many exotic lands, but the only boat I’ve happened to notice since my arrival was a small sloop tacking out of the East River night before last on the ebb tide when I was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge. I heard the Queen Mary blow one midnight, though, and the sound carried the whole history of departure and longing and loss. The Lions have been in convention. I've seen not one Lion. A friend of mine saw one and told me about him. (He was lame, and was wearing a bolero.) At the ballgrounds and horse parks the greatest sporting spectacles have been enacted. I saw no ballplayer, no race horse. The governor came to town. I heard the siren scream, but that was all there was to that—an eighteen-inch margin again. A man was killed by a falling cornice. I was not a party to the tragedy, and again the inches counted heavily.
纽约把离群索居的礼物和亲历参与的激动混合在一起。比之大多数人口密集的社区，纽约更能使个人（只要你愿意，而几乎每个人都愿意并需要这样）与外界每一分钟发生的所有群众场面、残忍暴行、精彩表演完全绝缘。我坐在这臭气熏天的通风井处已有一会儿，城里可已发生了许多光怪陆离的事件。一名男子妒火中烧，开枪射杀妻子。这样的恶事竟不传社区之外，仅在报上简要提了一笔。我没去赶热闹，我是说打我来此，世界上最为壮观的飞行表演在纽约举行，我没去观摩，800万居民中的多数人也没去，尽管据说观众人数不少。我甚至没听见飞机的轰鸣，除去按常例从这儿通风井上空飞过的一两次西去的商业航班。几艘北大西洋最大的海轮抵港复离港。我根本未予注意，大多数其他纽约人也是这样。别人告诉我这儿可是全世界最大的海港，滨水码头区长达650英里，从许多域外异国驶来的航船在此停泊。不过来此以后我也碰巧注意过一艘小小的单桅帆船，忽左忽右抢风驶出东河去。那是前天夜里的退潮时分，我正步行跨越布鲁克林大桥。不过，某日午夜，我也曾听到“玛丽王后”拉响汽笛，那声音带着浓浓的离绪，又有期盼和失落的全部苍凉。国际狮子会在此开大会，我可一头狮子都未见到。我的一个朋友倒是见过一位，还把这人的模样告诉了我。（是个瘸子，穿了件西班牙式的短上衣。）在球场和赛马场有最盛大的体育比赛。我没见过一名球员或一匹赛马。州长大驾光临。我听得警笛长鸣，所知也就仅限于此了——18英寸画地为牢的又一明证。一名男子被坠落的屋檐砸死。我与这齣悲剧全无干系，以英寸度量的距离又一次彰显无遗。
I mention these events merely to show that New York is peculiarly constructed to absorb almost anything that comes along (whether a thousand-foot liner out of the East or twenty-thousand-man convention out of the West) without inflicting the event on its inhabitants; so that every event is, in a sense, optional, and the inhabitant is in the happy position of being able to choose his spectacle and so conserve his soul. In most metropolises, small and large, the choice is often not with the individual at all. He is thrown to the Lions. The Lions are overwhelming; the event is unavoidable. A cornice falls, that it hits every citizen on the head, every last man in town. I sometimes think that the only event that hits every New Yorker on the head is the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, which is fairly penetrating—the Irish are a hard race to tune out, there are 500,000 of them in residence, and they have the police force right in the family.
我提到这些事情只是为了说明，纽约的结构真是够特别的，可以吸纳几乎任何一件发生在此的事情（不论是从东方驶来的长达一千英尺的班轮，还是一次从西方来的两万人大会），而不使事情强行影响本市居民。结果，一应大事，在某种意义上，都成了市民本人的选择，每个人都过着舒心日子，可以自行选择参与哪一桩盛举，从而节约自己的精神支出。在大多数都市，不论大小，选择往往由不得个人，你身不由己地被拉去参加狮子大会，狮群集会可是件压倒一切的大事，躲也躲不开的。倘有屋檐坠落，那就相当于砸在每个公民的头上，没有谁可以幸免。我有时想，真能砸到每个纽约人头上的大事惟有一年一度的圣帕特里克节大游行了。这场活动渗透到每个角落——爱尔兰人容不得别人不把自己当回事，在全城居民中占了50万，而家中干警察这一行的还特别多。
The quality in New York that insulates its inhabitants from life may simply weaken them as individuals. Perhaps it is healthier to live in a community where, when a cornice falls, you feel the blow; where, when the governor passes, you see at any rate his hat.
纽约城把居民与生活隔绝的特质可能只会弱化个体。也许，个人生活在一个这样的社区更为健康：当屋檐坠落，应当感觉就像砸在自己头上一样；当州长路过，至少能见到他的帽子。
I am not defending New York in this regard. Many of its settlers are probably here merely to escape, not face, reality. But whatever it means, it is a rather rare gift, and I believe it has a positive effect on the creative capacities of New Yorkers—for creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.
我不是在这方面替纽约辩解。在此定居的好些人之所以来这儿，可能仅仅是为了逃避而不是面对现实。但是，不管其含义究竟是什么，这份礼物相当难得。我还相信，这份礼物对于纽约人的创造能力大有裨益——因为所谓创造，部分的意思无非是摒弃大大小小让你分心的事情。
Although New York often imparts a feeling of great forlornness or forsakenness, it seldom seems dead or unresourceful; and you always feel that either by shifting your location ten blocks or by reducing your fortune by five dollars you can experience rejuvenation. Many people who have no real independence of spirit depend on the city’s tremendous variety and sources of excitement for spiritual sustenance and maintenance of morale. In the country there are a few chances of sudden rejuvenation—a shift in weather, perhaps, or something arriving in the mail. But in New York the chances are endless. I think that although many persons are here from some excess of spirit (which caused them to break away from their small town), some, too, are here from a deficiency of spirit, who find in New York a protection, or an easy substitution.
纽约虽说时常给人一种沉重的失落感或被遗弃感，城市却难得显出死气沉沉或一筹莫展的样子，反倒是你总拥有一种希望：越过10条马路搬次家，或是花去5美元，就能重新焕发青春。许多缺乏独立精神的人依赖城市巨大的多样性和兴奋源，来求得精神上的耐久力并保持振奋。在乡下，青春得以突然重新焕发的偶然机会不是没有 —— 也许是天气的骤变，要不收到一封让你惊喜的邮件。可是在纽约，这样的机会无穷无尽。在我看来，尽管有不少人是由于精神追求过度到这儿来的（这使他们逼着自己离开小城），也有些人是因为精神贫乏到纽约来的，并在此找到了保护或是轻而易举得到了易地取代的报偿。
Author:E.B.White 翻译：陆谷孙
2011年6月11日 00:00
4、华盛顿.欧文：Westminster Abbey
On one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter part of autumn when the shadows of morning and evening almost mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. There was something congenial to the season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile, and as I passed its threshold it seemed like stepping back into the regions of antiquity and losing myself among the shades of former ages.
时方晚秋，气象肃穆，略带忧郁，早晨的阴影和黄昏的阴影，几乎连接在一起，不可分别，岁云将暮，终日昏暗，我就在这么一天，到西敏大寺去信步走了几个钟头。古寺巍巍，森森然似有鬼气，和阴沉沉的季候正好相符；我跨进大门，觉得自己好像已经置身远古世界，忘形于昔日的憧憧鬼影之中了。
I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, through a long, low, vaulted passage, that had an almost subterranean look, being dimly lighted in one part by circular perforations in the massive walls. Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of the cloisters, with the figure of an old verger, in his black gown, moving along their shadowy vaults, and seeming like a spectre from one of the neighboring tombs. The approach to the abbey through these gloomy monastic remains prepares the mind for its solemn contemplation. The cloisters still retain something of the quiet and seclusion of former days. The gray walls are discolored by damps, and crumbling with age; a coat of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and obscured the death’s heads, and other funereal emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the rich tracery of the arches; the roses which adorned the key-stones have lost their leafy beauty; every thing bears marks of the gradual dilapidations of time, which yet has something touching and pleasing in its very decay.
我是从西敏学校的内庭走进去的，先走过一条弧顶的矮矮的长廊，墙壁很厚，墙上有圆孔，略有光线透入，廊中幽暗，幽幽然似在地下行走。黑廊尽头，我远远的看见大寺里的回廊，一个老年香火道人，身穿黑袍，正沿着拱廊阴影里踽踽走去，看起来就像从附近的古坟里爬出来的鬼魂。我从当年僧院遗址那条路进入古寺，景象分外凄凉，我心也更适宜于往凄凉方面冥想了。回廊一带依然保留有几分当年的幽静出世之慨。灰色的墙壁为霉气所蒸，显得斑斑驳驳，年代己久，颓坏之象，也很明显。墙上长了一层白苍苍的苔薛，非但上面的碑文不可读，连骷髅像和别的丧用标志都模糊不清。弧顶布满雕刻花纹，可是斧钻的痕迹，也已模糊；拱心石上面雕有玫瑰花，可是当年枝叶茂美之状，已经不可复见。每样东西都可以看出年久衰败之象，可是即使处在颓朽之中，依然不乏赏心悦目之处。
The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of the cloisters; beaming upon a scanty plot of grass in the centre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of dusky splendor. From between the arcades, the eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky or a passing cloud; and beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey towering into the azure heaven.
一道带有秋意的黄色阳光，正从回廊环绕的广场上空倾泻下来；照耀着场中央一块稀疏的草坪，同时把上有拱顶的过道一角抹上一层阴郁的光辉。从拱廊之间向上望去，可以瞥见一抹蓝天，或一朵游云，还有那镀着阳光，伸向碧空的寺顶尖塔，也巍然在目。
As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating this mingled picture of glory and decay, and sometimes endeavoring to decipher the inscriptions on the tombstones, which formed the pavement beneath my feet, my eye was attracted to three figures, rudely carved in relief, but nearly worn away by the footsteps of many generations. They were the effigies of three of the early abbots; the epitaphs were entirely effaced; the names alone remained, having no doubt been renewed in later times. (Vitalis Abbas. 1082, and Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 1114, and Laurentius. Abbas. 1176.) I remained some little while, musing over these casual relics of antiquity, thus left like wrecks upon this distant shore of time, telling no tale but that such beings had been, and had perished; teaching no moral but the futility of that pride which hopes still to exact homage in its ashes, and to live in an inscription. A little longer, and even these faint records will be obliterated, and the monument will cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was yet looking down upon these grave-stones, I was roused by the sound of the abbey clock, reverberating from buttress to buttress, and echoing among the cloisters. It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave. I pursued my walk to an arched door opening to the interior of the abbey. On entering here, the magnitude of the building breaks fully upon the mind, contrasted with the vaults of the cloisters. The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing from them to such an amazing height; and man wandering about their bases, shrunk into insignificance in comparison with his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously and softly about, as if fearful of disturbing the hallowed silence of the tomb; while every footfall whispers along the walls, and chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensible of the quiet we have interrupted.
我踯躅于回廊之间，时而凝视着这幅辉煌和颓败交融的景象，时而竭力辨认那些刻在墓石上的碑文。我脚下的铺道都是墓石砌成，墓石上有三个浮雕像吸引我的注意，雕工很粗陋，经过好几代人的践踏，差不多已磨损殆尽。这是早先三位寺院住持的遗像，他们的墓志铭都已磨光，只剩下三个名字，这三个名字也无疑是后来重刻的：维塔里斯住持，死于一零八二年；吉斯尔勃脱斯·克利斯宾纳斯住持，死于一一一四年；劳伦蒂乌斯住持，死于一一七六年。我停留了一会儿，对着古人的这些碰巧残留的遗迹，不禁黯然沉思起来。它们就像几艘沉船的遗骸，被抛弃在遥远的时间的岸边：它们并不告诉你什么故事，只表示这几个人曾经活过，而且已经死去。假如它们含有什么道德方面的教训，那只讽示那种希望死后还能受人尊敬，还能借着墓志铭而永垂不朽的痴心妄想，徒劳无益。再过些时候，连这些残存的记录都会消失，纪念碑也将不成其为一件纪念物了。我正俯视着这几块墓石，耳旁突然传来大寺的悠扬钟声，回荡于一垛垛扶壁之间，于是整个拱廊响彻了回声。坟墓间回荡着的钟声，听来令人悚然惊惧，它警告你又一个钟头业已过去，而时光的消逝，就像一个大浪，在不停地把我们卷向坟墓。我继续走去，来到一扇通往大寺正殿的拱门前面。我跨步进入，在拱廊的衬托之下，映人眼帘的正殿益显其宏伟，给人深刻的印象。游客抬头一望，只见巨柱森列，柱顶上架着凌空飞跨的高拱，令人心惊。这些建筑也是人类建造，但是人在廊柱下面漫步，不由得感到自己好保缩小得微不足道。这座大寺空旷幽暗，使人产生深沉而神秘的敬畏之念。我们小心翼翼地放轻脚步，似乎生怕打扰了墓地的肃静。然而每行一步墙壁间传来了轻轻一声足音，坟墓间也起了低微的回声，使我们更体会到被打断了寂静。
翻译：夏济安
2011年6月18日 00:00
5、泰戈尔：流萤集（2）
31、The lake lies low by the hill, a tearful entreaty of love at the foot of the inflexible.
湖泊俯卧于山麓，泪水涟涟地向坚拒者示爱。
32、There smiles the Divine Child among his playthings of unmeaning clouds and ephemeral lights and shadows.
那圣洁的孩子在乏味的云层和倏忽变幻的浮光掠影中嬉戏微笑。
33、The breeze whispers to the lotus,
“What is thy secret?”
“It is myself,”says the lotus, “steal it and I disapper!”
微风向睡莲窃窃私语：
“你的秘密是什么？”
睡莲回答说：“是我自己，你窃去了它，我即消失！”
34、The freedom of the storm and the bondage of the stem join hands in the dance of swaying branches.
暴风雨的自由和树干的束缚携手舞蹈于飘摇的枝条中。
35、The jasmine’s lisping of love to the sun is her flowers.
茉莉呢喃着用花朵来表达对太阳的爱恋。
36、The tyrant claims freedom to kill freedom and yet to keep it for himself.
暴君宣扬自由是为了戕害自由，但他自己却占有自由。
37、Gods, tired of their paradise, envy man.
诸神厌倦了他们的天国，对凡人心生艳羡。
38、Clouds are hills in vapour, hills are clouds in stone — a phantasy in time’s dream.
烟霞之山汇而为云，乱石之云凝而为山，此即时光之梦的幻想。
39、While God waits for His temple to be built of love, men bring stones.
上帝期待着以爱构筑他的神宇，人们却带着石头赶来。
40、I touch God in my song as the hill touches the far away sea with its waterfall.
我藉由我的歌声触摸上帝，正如高山藉由瀑布触摸远海。
41、Light finds her treasure of colours through the antagonism of clouds.
光线在与云霓的抗衡中觅到了她五光十色的珍宝。
42、My heart today smiles at its past night of tears like a wet tree glistening in the sun after the rain is over.
我那今日之心含笑面对它滴泪的昨夜，宛如雨后初霁，一棵潮湿的树在阳光下辉光闪耀。
43、I have thanked the trees that have made my life fruitful, but have failed to remember the grass that has ever kept it green.
我感谢那让我的生命硕果累累的树木，但忘却了使我生命常青的小草。
44、The one without second is emptiness, the other one makes it true.
举世无双只是虚无，并蒂齐放才让它真实。
45、Life’s errors cry for the merciful beauty that can modulate their isolation into a harmony with the whole.
诸多生命之错泣求着慈悲之美调和它的孤寂，以实现与整体和谐统一。
46、They expect thanks for the banished nest because their cage is shapely and secure.
他们庆幸旧居已荒废，因为笼子坚固且美观。
47、In love I pay my endless debt to thee for what thou art.
不论你是什么，我那无穷的债务都会在爱中偿还。
48、The pond sends up its lyrics from its dark in lilies, and the sun says, they are good.
小池在百合花丛倩影中献上它的抒情诗，太阳对其赞不绝口。
49、Your calumny against the great is impious,
it hurts yourself;
against the small it is mean,
for it hurts the victim.
你对伟人的中伤有失虔敬，
它只能毁损你自己；
你对小人物的中伤是如此可鄙，
因为它让受难者蒙受伤害。
50、The first flower that blossomed on this earth was an invitation to the unborn song.
大地初绽的芳花是送给未来之歌的请柬。
51、Dawn — the many coloured flower — fades, and then simple light fruit, the sun appears.
拂晓——这绚丽多彩的花儿——枯萎了，于是那淳朴的光明之果实——太阳冉冉升起。
52、The muscle that has a doubt of its wisdom throttles the voice that would cry.
肌肉怀疑智慧扼杀了哭喊之声。
53、The wind tries to take the flame by storm only to blow it out.
风企图用暴力掠取火焰，却令其熄灭了。
54、Life’s play is swift.Life’s playthings fall behind one by one and are forgotten.
生命的游戏转瞬即终结，生命的玩具被逐件遗弃并忘却。
55、My flower, seek not thy paradise in a fool’s buttonhole.
我的芳花啊，不要在愚者的纽扣洞里觅求你的天堂。
（待续）
2011年6月24日 00:00
6、泰戈尔：流萤集
1、 My fancies are fireflies, — Specks of living light winkling in the dark.
我的梦幻恰是一团萤火——在幽暗中闪烁着灵动的流光。
2 、The voice of wayside pansies, that do not attract the careless glance, murmurs in these desultory lines.
幽径边，紫罗兰的情愫难以招徕那无心的一瞥，只得吟诵着零乱的诗句喃喃责怨。
3、 In the drowsy dark caves of the mind dreams build their nest with fragments dropped from day’s caravan.
在静寂阴暗的心之幽穴，梦想以昼之旅队遗失于大漠的断章来营筑栖巢。
4、 Spring scatters the petals of flowers that are not for the fruits of the future, but for the moment’s whim.
春天抛撒着花瓣，不是为来日的累累硕果，而是因瞬间的妙想遐思。
5、Joy freed from the bond of earth’s slumber rushes into numberless leaves, and dances in the air for a day.
欢乐自酣寐之尘世释逸而出，流涌入芳菲叶海，日日在风中摇曳漫舞。
6、 My words that are slight may lightly dance upon time’s waves, when my works heavy with import have gone down.
我的语言无足轻重，然而，当我的作品因蕴意深刻而沉淀时，它们却能够踏着岁月的浮波翩跹舞蹈。
7、Mind’s underground moths grow filmy wings and take a farewell flight in the sunset sky.
生着轻薄纱翼的心之蛾，在落日洒金的碧落中漫舞着离愁。
8、 The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.
蝴蝶细数的并非月份，而是瞬间，她的时光因之而富足。
9、 My thoughts, like sparks, ride on winged surprises, carrying a single laughter. The tree gazes in love at its own beautiful shadow which yet it never can grasp.
我的思想宛如焰火，纯朴地微笑着，骑跨于惊羡之羽翼。
树木脉脉情深地凝注着它美丽的倩影，却永远无法将它捉住。
10、 Let my love, like sunlight, surround you and yet give you illumined freedom.
让我的爱如阳光般将你拥抱，并赠你璀璨的自由。
11、 Days are coloured bubbles that float upon the surface of fathomless night.
白昼是色彩缤纷的浮沫，于深邃的夜色中浮荡。
12、 My offerings are too timid to claim your remembrance, and therefore you may remember them.
我的祭奉因你的铭记而羞惭，而你却因此将其铭记。
13、Leave out my name from the gift if it be a burden, but keep my song.
假如我的名字成了负累，就将它从这礼物上拭去吧，但请保留我的诗歌。
14、April, like a child, writes hieroglyphs on dust with flowers, wipes them away and forgets.
四月，像个顽皮的孩子，用鲜花把难懂的字句写在泥土上又抹去，随即忘于脑后。
15、Memory, the priestess, kill the present and offers it heart to the shrine of the dead past.
From the solemn gloom of the temple children run out to sit in the dust, God watchs them play and forget the priest.
“记忆”这个女祭司，她损毁了“现在”，用它的心祭奠那已消逝的旧日祭坛。
孩子们从那庄严肃穆的庙宇中雀跃而出，坐在尘埃中，上帝看着他们嬉戏，忘记了那位祭司。
16、My mind starts up at some flash on the flow of its thoughts, like a brook at a sudden liquid note of its own that is never repeated.
我的心在思想之潮中因刹那之光辉而蓦然灵动，正如涓涓清溪因其自身突然迸发的永不重复的音韵而流转。
17、In the mountain, stillness surges up to explore its own height; in the lake, movement stands still to contemplate its own depth.
在山之巅，“静止”奔涌而出，探索自己的高峰；在湖中，“运动”安然凝立，思索自己的深邃。
18、The departing night’s one kiss on the closed eyes of morning glows in the star of down.
渐渐消隐的长夜亲吻着清晨微闭的双眸，这吻化做星辰的耀光。
19、Maiden, thy beauty is like a fruit which is yet to mature, tense with an unyielding secret.
少女啊，你的美丽宛如渐趋成熟的果实，紧张地隐藏着倔强的秘密。
20、Sorrow that has lost its memory is like the dumb dark hours that have no bird song, but only the cricket’s chirp.
失忆的哀伤犹如喑哑晦涩的时光，没有鸟儿的悦鸣，只有蟋蟀唧唧歌唱。
21、Bigotry tries to keep truth safe in its hand with a grip that kill it.
Wishing to hearten a timid lamp great night lights all her stars.
“偏见”竭力想把真理牢握在手心，谁想竟将它捏死了。
“愿望”想燃起一盏害羞的灯火，广袤的夜空就亮起了璀璨繁星。
22、Though he holds in his arms the earthbride, the sky is ever immensely away.
虽然天空想把大地新妇拥进臂弯，但它依然无限遥远。
23、God seeks comrades and claims love, the devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.
上帝寻觅同伴并主张爱，魔鬼寻找奴仆并要求臣服。
24、The soil in return for her service keeps the tree tied to her, the sky asks nothing and leaves it free.
泥土把树木绑缚在身上作为服侍她的回报，天空却毫无所求，任它自由生长。
25、Jewel like the immortal does not boast of its length of years but of the scintillating point of its moment.
宛若宝石般永恒者，炫耀的并非它悠久的历史，而是耀亮于瞬间的光芒。
26、The child ever dwells in the mystery of ageless time, unobscured by the dust of history.
稚童们永居于不朽岁月的玄妙中，不因历史之微尘而晦黯失色。
27、A light laughter in the steps of creation carries it swiftly across time.
造物主步履中的微笑，使它瞬间跨越时空。
28、One who was distant came near to me in the morning, and still nearer when taken away by night.
清晨，那个冷漠的人向我走近，当他被黑夜挟掠而去时，依然向我走近。
29、White and pink oleanders meet and make merry in different dialects.
白夹竹桃与粉夹竹桃不期而遇，虽然方言不同，但欢笑洋溢。
30、When peace is active sweeping its dirt, it is storm.
当和风兴奋地涤荡污垢时，它就是风暴。
（待续）
2011年6月25日 00:00
7、泰戈尔：流萤集（3）
55、My flower, seek not thy paradise in a fool’s buttonhole.
我的芳花啊，不要在愚者的纽扣洞里觅求你的天堂。
56、Thou hast risen late, my crescent moon, but my night bird is still awake to greet thee.
我的新月啊，你已姗姗来迟，但我的夜莺仍清醒地问候你。
57、Darkness is the veiled bride silently waiting for the errant light to return to her bosom.
黑夜是薄纱掩面的新娘，恬静地等待着那流转的光明重回她的怀抱。
58、Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven.
森林是大地对谛听的天宇无休止的倾诉。
59、The burden of self is lightened when I laugh at myself.
当我自嘲时，自私的重负由之缓解。
60、The weak can be terrible because they try furiously to appear strong.
弱小者也会令人畏惧，因为他们迫切希望表现得强悍。
61、The wind of heaven blows, the anchor desperately clutches the mud, and my boat is beating its breast against the chain.
天堂之风乍起，锚拼为顾一切要抓住泥浆，我的小舟用胸膛紧偎着链锁。
62、The spirit of death is one, the spirit of life is many.
When God is dead religion becomes one.
死亡具有惟一性，而生命却具有多种形式。
当上帝死去，宗教便合而为一。
63、The blue of the sky longs for the earth’s green, the wind between them sighs, “Alas.”
苍穹的蔚蓝渴盼大地的碧绿，微风在天地间哀叹：“唉！”
64、Day’s pain muffled by its own glare, burns among stars in the night.
昼之痛苦被它自身的炫目之光所遮翳，却在夜的繁星中燃烧。
65、The stars crowd round the virgin night in silent awe at her loneliness that can never be touched.
聚集于处子之夜的群星，敬畏地凝望着她那永难触及的孤寂。
66、The cloud gives all its gold to the departing sun and greets the rising moon with only a pale smile.
云霓将全部黄金倾付给西沉的落日，却仅以一抹淡淡的微笑向初升的月亮致意。
67、He who does good comes to the temple gate, he who loves reaches the shrine.
行善者站在神殿门口，博爱者步入殿堂。
68、Flower, have pity for the worm, it is not a bee, its love is a blunder and burden.
花朵啊，悲悯这小虫吧，它并非蜜蜂，它的爱仅为一种失误和烦扰。
69、With the ruins of terror’s triumph children build their doll’s house.
孩子们以可怖的胜利之残垣为他们的玩偶建造房屋。
70、The lamp waits through the long day of neglect for the flame’s kiss in the night.
灯盏度过漫长而冷漠的白昼，静待夜晚光焰的一吻。
71、Feathers in the dust lying lazily content have forgotten their sky.
羽毛慵懒而惬意地躺卧于尘埃，遗忘了它们的天空。
72、The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous.
孤零零的小花不必艳羡丛生的荆棘。
73、The world suffers most from the disinterested tyranny of its well wisher.
世界在漠然的苛政中为善者承受极大的痛楚。
74、We gain freedom when we have paid the full price for our right to live.
当我们为生存权付出了全部代价，才赢得了真自由。
75、Your careless gifts of a moment, like the meteors of an autumn night, catch fire the depth of my being.
须臾，你那随心所欲的赠礼，宛如秋夜的慧星，燃亮我人性本质的火焰。
76、The faith waiting in the heart of a seed promises a miracle of life which it cannot prove at once.
信仰静待于种子的心中，承诺一切无法立即检验的生命奇迹。
77、Spring hesitates at winter’s door, but the mango blossom rashly runs out to him before her time and meets her doom.
春天流连于严冬的门前，鲁莽的芒果花向他飞奔，花期未至她就突遭厄运。
78、The world is the ever changing foam that floats on the surface of a sea of silence.
世界是幻化无休的泡沫，浮荡于静默之海。
79、The two separated shores mingle their voices in a song of unfathomed tears.
遥相注目的两岸在难以测度的深海泪歌中彼此唱和。
80、As a river in the sea, work finds its perfection in the depth of leisure.
犹如江河融入沧海，劳动于安逸中求得完美。
81、I lingered on my way till thy cherry tree lost its blossom, but the azalea brings to me, my love, thy forgiveness.
我在小径上踌躇不前，直到你的樱花落英缤纷，但是，我的爱呀，杜鹃花却为我送来你的宽恕。
82、Thy shy little pomegranate bud, blushing today behind her veil, will burst into a passionate flower tomorrow when I am away.
今天，你的娇羞的小石榴花蕾，躲在面纱后满脸绯红；明天，当我离去以后，却会绽放热情的花朵。
83、The clumsiness of power spoils the key, and uses the pickaxe.
权力拙劣地溺爱着钥匙，竟利用了鹤嘴锄。
84、Birth is from the mystery of night into the greater mystery of day.
新生来自黑夜的神秘，进入更大的白昼的神秘中。
85、These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not to reach any destination.
我的小小纸船愿意在光阴的涟漪上凌波而舞，却不想抵达任何港口。
86、Migratory songs wing from my heart and seek their nests in your voice of love.
飘零的歌曲飞出我的心田，在你爱之呼唤中觅巢。
87、The sea of danger, doubt and denial around man’s little island of certainty challenges him to dare the unknown.
威胁、疑惧和拒绝的汪洋包围着人类那小而永恒的岛屿，让他向未知挑战。
88、Love punishes when it forgives, and injured beauty by its awful silence.
爱情赐予宽恕时便是惩罚，并用它骇人的无言伤害了美。
89、You live alone and unrecompensed because they are afraid of your great worth.
你形只影单地生活，从未有回报，只因他们惧怕你伟大的意义。
90、The same sun is newly born in new lands in a ring of endless dawns.
无止境的晨曦持续而来，同一轮旭日从新土地上得以重生。
91、God’s world is ever renewed by death, a Titan’s ever crushed by its own existence.
神界恒久藉由死亡而新生，魔界却永远被其自身的存在而辗碎。
92、The glow worm while exploring the dust
never knows that stars are in the sky.
土萤虫在泥土中摸索着，
从不知有满天繁星。
93、The tree is of today, the flower is old,
it brings with is the message of the immemorial seed.
树木在今天茁壮，
花朵却孕于往昔，
2011年7月9日 00:00
8、E.B.怀特：自由
Wit or Wisdom
Freedom by E.B. White
I have often noticed on my trips up to the city that people have recut their clothes to follow the fashion. On my last trip, however, it seemed to me that people had remodeled their ideas too–taken in their convictions a little at the waist, shortened the sleeves of their resolve, and fitted themselves out in a new intellectual ensemble copied from a smart design out of the very latest page of history. It seemed to me they had strung along with Paris a little too long.
I confess to a disturbed stomach. I feel sick when I find anyone adjusting his mind to the new tyranny which is succeeding abroad. Because of its fundamental strictures, fascism does not seem to me to admit of any compromise or any rationalization, and I resent the patronizing air of persons who find in my plain belief in freedom a sign of immaturity. If it is boyish to believe that a human being should live free, then I’ll gladly arrest my development and let the rest of the world grow up.
I shall report some of the strange remarks I heard in New York. One man told me that he thought perhaps the Nazi ideal was a sounder ideal than our constitutional system “because have you ever noticed what fine alert young faces the young German soldiers have in the newsreel?” He added, “Or American youngsters spend all their time at the movies–they’re a mess.” That was his summation of the case, his interpretation of the new Europe. Such a remark leaves me pale and shaken. If it represents the peak of our intelligence, then the steady march of despotism will not receive any considerable setback at our shores.
Another man informed me that our democratic notion of popular government was decadent and not worth bothering about–”because England is really rotten and the industrial towns there are a disgrace.” That was the only reason he gave for the hopelessness of democracy; and he seemed mightily pleased with himself, as though he were more familiar than most with the anatomy of decadence, and had detected subtler aspects of the situation than were discernible to the rest of us.
Another man assured me that anyone who took any kind of government seriously was a gullible fool. You could be sure, he said, that there is nothing but corruption “because of the way Clemenceau acted at Versailles.” He said it didn’t make any difference really about this war. It was just another war. Having relieved himself of this majestic bit of reasoning, he subsided.
Another individual, discovering signs of zeal creeping into my blood, berated me for having lost my detachment, my pure skeptical point of view. He announced that he wasn’t going to be swept away by all this nonsense, but would prefer to remain in the role of innocent bystander, which he said was the duty of any intelligent person. (I noticed, that he phoned later to qualify his remark, as though he had lost some of his innocence in the cab on the way home.)
Those are just a few samples of the sort of talk that seemed to be going round–talk which was full of defeatism and disillusion and sometimes of a too studied innocence. Men are not merely annihilating themselves at a great rate these days, but they are telling one another enormous lies, grandiose fibs. Such remarks as I heard are fearfully disturbing in their cumulative effect. They are more destructive than dive bombers and mine fields, for they challenge not merely one’s immediate position but one’s main defenses. They seemed to me to issue either from persons who could never have really come to grips with freedom so as to understand her, or from renegades. Where I expected to find indignation, I found paralysis, or a sort of dim acquiescence, as in a child who is duly swallowing a distasteful pill. I was advised of the growing anti-Jewish sentiment by a man who seemed to be watching the phenomenon of intolerance not through tears of shame but with a clear intellectual gaze, as through a well-ground lens.
The least a man can do at such a time is to declare himself and tell where he stands. I believe in freedom with the same burning delight, the same faith, the same intense abandon which attended its birth on this continent more than a century and a half ago. I am writing my declaration rapidly, much as though I were shaving to catch a train. Events abroad give a man a feeling of being pressed for time. Actually I do not believe I am pressed for time, and I apologize to the reader for a false impression that may be created. I just want to tell, before I get slowed down, that I am in love with freedom and that it is an affair of long standing and that it is a fine state to be in, and that I am deeply suspicious of people who are beginning to adjust to fascism and dictators merely because they are succeeding in war. From such adaptable natures a smell rises. I pinch my nose.
For as long as I can remember I have had a sense of living somewhat freely in a natural world. I don’t mean I enjoyed freedom of action, but my existence seemed to have the quality of free-ness. I traveled with secret papers pertaining to a divine conspiracy. Intuitively I’ve always been aware of the vitally important pact which a man has with himself, to be all things to himself, and to be identified with all things, to stand self-reliant, taking advantage of his haphazard connection with a planet, riding his luck, and following his bent with the tenacity of a hound. My first and greatest love affair was with this thing we call freedom, this lady of infinite allure, this dangerous and beautiful and sublime being who restores and supplies us all.
It began with the haunting intimation (which I presume every child receives) of his mystical inner life; of God in man; of nature publishing herself through the “I” This elusive sensation is moving and memorable. It comes early in life; a boy, we’ll say, sitting on the front steps on a summer night, thinking of nothing in particular, suddenly hearing as with a new perception and as though for the first time the pulsing sound of crickets, overwhelmed with the novel sense of identification whith the natural company of insects and grass and night, conscious of a faint answering cry to the universal perplexing question: “What is ‘I’?” Or a little girl, returning from the grave of a pet bird leaning with her elbows on the window sill, inhaling the unfamiliar draught of death, suddenly seeing herself as part of the complete story. Or to an older youth, encountering for the first time a great teacher who by some chance word or mood awakens something and the youth beginning to breathe as an individual and conscious of strength in his vitals. I think the sensation must develop in many men as a feeling of identity with God–an eruption of the spirit caused by allergies and the sense of divine existence as distinct from mere animal existence. This is the beginning of the affair with freedom.
But a man’s free condition is of two parts: the instinctive free-ness he experiences as an animal dweller on a planet, and the practical liberties he enjoys as a privileged member of human society. The latter is, of the two, more generally understood, more widely admired, more violently challenged and discussed. It is the practical and apparent side of freedom. The United States, almost alone today, offers the liberties and the privileges and the tools of freedom. In this land the citizens are still invited to write plays and books, to paint their pictures, to meet for discussion, to dissent as well as to agree, to mount soapboxes in the public square, to enjoy education in all subjects without censorship, to hold court and judge one another, to compose music, to talk politics with their neighbors without wondering whether the secret police are listening, to exchange ideas as well as goods, to kid the government when it needs kidding, and to read real news of real events instead of phony news manufactured by a paid agent of the state. This is a fact and should give every person pause.
To be free, in a planetary sense, is to feel that you belong to earth. To be free, in a social sense, is to feel at home in a democratic framework. In Adolph Hitler, although he is a freely flowering individual, we do not detect either type of sensibility. From reading his book I gather that his feeling for earth is not a sense of communion but a driving urge to prevail. His feeling for men is not that they co-exist, but that they are capable of being arranged and standardized by a superior intellect–that their existence suggests not a fulfillment of their personalities but a submersion of their personalities in the common racial destiny. His very great absorption in the destiny of the German people somehow loses some of its effect when you discover, from his writings, in what vast contempt he holds all people. “I learned,” he wrote, “…to gain an insight into the unbelievably primitive opinions and arguments of the people.” To him the ordinary man is a primitive, capable only of being used and led. He speaks continually of people as sheep, halfwits, and impudent fools–the same people to whom he promises the ultimate in prizes.
Here in America, where our society is based on belief in the individual, not contempt for him, the free principle of life has a chance of surviving. I believe that it must and will survive. To understand freedom is an accomplishment which all men may acquire who set their minds in that direction; and to love freedom is a tendency which many Americans are born with. To live in the same room with freedom, or in the same hemisphere, is still a profoundly shaking experience for me.
One of the earliest truths (and to him most valuable) that the author of Mein Kampf discovered was that it is not the written word, but the spoken word, which in heated moments moves great masses of people to noble or ignoble action. The written word, unlike the spoken word, is something which every person examines privately and judges calmly by his own intellectual standards, not by what the man standing next to him thinks. “I know,” wrote Hitler, “that one is able to win people far more by the spoken than by the written word….” Later he adds contemptuously: “For let it be said to all knights of the pen and to all the political dandies, especially of today: the greatest changes in this world have never been brought about by a goose quill! No, the pen has always been reserved to motivate these changes theoretically.”
Luckily I am not out to change the world–that’s being done for me, and at a great clip. But I know that the free spirit of man is persistent in nature; it recurs, and has never successfully been wiped out, by fire or flood. I set down the above remarks merely (in the words of Mr. Hitler) to motivate that spirit, theoretically. Being myself a knight of the goose quill, I am under no misapprehension about “winning people”; but I am inordinately proud these days of the quill, for it has shown itself, historically, to be the hypodermic which inoculates men and keeps the germ of freedom always in circulation, so that there are individuals in every time in every land who are the carriers, the Typhoid Marys, capable of infecting others by mere contact and example. These persons are feared by every tyrant–who shows his fear by burning the books and destroying the individuals. A writer goes about his task today with the extra satisfaction which comes from knowing that he will be the first to have his head lopped off–even before the political dandies. In my own case this is a double satisfaction, for if freedom were denied me by force of earthly circumstance, I am the same as dead and would infinitely prefer to go into fascism without my head than with it, having no use for it any more and not wishing to be saddled with so heavy an encumberance.
参考翻译:
在进城的路上，我常常发现，人们会通过重新裁剪衣服来赶时髦。而上次进纽约市，我发现，人们在改衣服的同时，似乎也重新裁制了自己的思想──改小腰部的同时，收紧信念；缩短袖子的同时，加强决心；人们从历史的最新一页，抄得精美的设计，用款式新颖的知性套装打扮自己。我觉得人们跟随巴黎似乎已跟得太久了。
我必须承认，我有些反胃。看到有人参照在国外取得成功的新暴政调整自己的思想，我总是感到恶心。因为，在我看来，由于其自身的根本局限性，法西斯主义似乎容不下任何折衷或合理性；此外，一些人居高临下的姿态也让我非常恼怒，他们认定我对自由的朴素信仰是不成熟的表现。如果说，认为人应该自由地生活，是一种幼稚的想法，我倒是非常乐意抑制自己的发育，让世界上其他所有人去成长。
我可以给大家汇报一下我在纽约听到的奇谈怪论。有位男士对我说，他认为，也许纳粹的理想比我们的宪法制度更加完美，“因为，你有没有发现，纪录片里那些年轻的德国士兵，有着多么俊朗机灵的脸蛋啊！”他还补充说：“而我们美国的年轻人，只知道整天看电影──他们简直是一塌糊涂。”这便是他对现实的总结，这便是他对新欧洲的解释。他的一番话惊得我面容失色。如果说这代表了我们的智力之巅峰，那么，稳步进军的独裁者，将会在我国海岸所向披靡。
还有人跟我说，我们关于人民政府的民主概念，已逐渐式微，不值一提了──“因为，英国已经变得腐朽不堪，那里的工业城镇一蹶不振”。只因为这一点，他便认定民主已经不可救药；他一副洋洋自得的样子，仿佛他比其他所有人都更善于对衰败进行剖析，仿佛他对现状的观察，是最为“明察秋毫”。
还有一位先生对我说，对所有政府都一视同仁、严肃对待的人，都是容易受骗的傻瓜。他说，你应该能确信，除了腐败还是腐败，“克列孟梭（Clemenceau）在凡尔赛的所作所为”足以为证。他说，那场战争没有任何特别之处，只不过是又一次战争罢了。一番堂而皇之的论证之后，发泄完的他平静下来。
还有一位，看到我隐隐有种热血沸腾的迹象，便斥责我不该抛弃超脱的态度，批评我的观点纯属怀疑论。他宣布，他是不会被任何胡言乱语所迷惑的，他宁愿做一个天真的旁观者。他说，这才是所有明智的人应该做的。（我注意到，他事后又打来电话，对自己的上述观点作了补充说明，仿佛在乘出租车回家的路上，他也丧失了几分天真。）
这只是我周围流行的几例街谈巷议罢了──这类言语充满失败主义和幻灭感，有时还充满着造作的天真。现如今，人们正在迅速地自相残杀，并且用弥天大谎来互相欺骗。萦绕在我耳际的这类议论，一旦累积起来，其扰乱人心的效果非常可怕。它们比俯冲轰炸机和雷区更具杀伤力，因为它们所攻击的，不只是个人的前沿阵地，还有他的防御工事。在我看来，这些人可以分为两种：一种是从未为自由而奋斗、从未理解自由的人；还有一种，则是叛徒。我本以为我能看到义愤，可最后看到的，却是麻木不仁以及模棱两可的默认，这态度犹如孩子吞下苦药丸。有一位先生让我看到了反犹情绪正在不断增长，这位先生没有怀着羞耻之心含泪注视残忍的反犹现象，而是袖手旁观，仿佛是在用精心打磨的透视镜观察着这一切。
在如今这个时代，人们至少可以做到表明态度，摆明立场。在一个半世纪前，人们怀着狂喜、忠诚和激情去庆祝自由在美洲大陆的诞生，我对自由的信仰之情，与此相同。我正在迅速撰写我的宣言，就仿佛为了去赶一班火车而匆匆刮着胡子。国外所发生的事件，给人们一种迫在眉睫之感。而其实，我并不觉得时间有多紧迫。如果我的文字已经给读者造成这种印象，我向各位表示歉意。我只是想在自己变得迟钝之前告诉人们：我热爱自由，这种热爱由来已久，处在这种状态中的感觉很美好；对于那些只因法西斯主义和独裁者打赢了战争，便开始顺应他们的人，我深表怀疑。这种顺应散发着恶臭。我捏紧鼻子。
从记事时起，我就已经萌生出在大自然中自由自在生活的意识。我所指的，不只是行动的自由，更是生活中那种看上去无拘无束的特质。我在旅行时携带着关涉神圣密约的秘密文件。凭借着直觉，我一直都能察觉到这份极端重要的密约，它由人们和自己所订立，它让人们完全属于自己，将自己与万事万物视为等同，凡事皆依靠自己，但也能够善用任何机会（比如他与一颗行星之间的偶然联系），他会像一只猎狗般执著于自己的爱好。我最初和最热烈的恋情，就发生在我和那被称为自由的事物身上，它是媚惑无比的美女，危险、美丽而又庄重，她能为我们所有人提供生机与活力。
自由诞生于萦绕于心头的神秘暗示（我相信每个孩童都领受到这种暗示）；那暗示关乎精神生活；也关乎人类心中的上帝；那暗示告诉我，大自然通过“我”来彰显自身。这种难以捉摸的感觉是如此动人，如此令人难忘。它诞生于人生的早期阶段：比如说，在夏夜里，一个男孩坐在门前的台阶上，心里没有什么特别的念头，突然，他仿佛全身沐浴在新的知觉中，第一次听见了的蟋蟀有节奏的鸣叫，心中充溢了一种新奇的感觉，他把自己同自然界的伙伴昆虫、青草和黑夜视为同类，在混沌中感觉到一个声音在回答着那困扰众生的问题──“‘我’是什么？”又比方说，有个小女孩从她宠爱的小鸟的墓旁回到房间，她倚着窗台，胳膊肘撑在窗台上，呼吸着陌生的死亡气息，突然，她意识到，她自己也是这整个故事中的一部分。再比如说，孩子稍稍年长一些之后，第一次邂逅到一位了不起的老师，这位老师偶然的一句话或一种情绪，就唤醒了学生的内心，年轻人从此开始意识到自身的力量，并以独立的人格活在世上。我认为，这种知觉一定是作为一种“与上帝同在”的感觉，在许多人身上不断发展的，它是一种内心的爆发，其动因，是人的敏感性，以及神圣的存在感——认为人的存在不同于纯粹动物性存在。这便是人与自由的初恋。
然而，一个人的自由状态分为两个方面：一种是本能的自由，人类作为动物在一颗行星上所体验的自由；一种是实践的自由，人类社会的特权成员所享有的自由。相对于前者来说，后者能够更普遍地为人们所理解，受到的赞美更广泛，面临的挑战更严峻，受到的讨论也更热烈。它代表的，是自由实用和外在的一面。如今，似乎只有美国才能提供自由权、特权和自由的手段。这片国土仍欢迎公民们写剧本、写书、画画，他们还可以通过集会讨论问题，既可以表达赞同也可以表达异议，可以在公共场所搭起临时演讲台，可以在学校选择任何科目而无须经过审查，可以开庭审理任何案件，可以谱写音乐，可以与邻居谈论政治而不用担心秘密警察的窃听，可以交换商品也交流思想，可以在需要嘲笑政府的时候嘲笑它一番，可以在报纸上读到关于真实事件的真实新闻，而不是国家雇佣的传声筒所编造的假新闻。这是事实，每个人都应该予以深思。
从行星的意义上来说，自由就是，感觉自己属于地球。从社会学的意义上来说，自由就是，在一种民主的结构中感到轻松自在。虽然阿道夫•希特勒是个不受束缚、发育成熟的个体，但我们无法在他身上发现这两种感觉。在读了他的书之后，可以推测出，他对地球的感情，不是对共享的渴望，而是极端的占有欲。他对人类的感情，不是希望与之和平共处，而是希望他们被一个具有超凡才智的人摆布，并被其标准化──在他这里，人们的生存，并不意味着个性的充分发展，而是意味着让他们的个性服从于共同的种族命运。当你在希特勒的文字中看到他对全人类的那种蔑视时，你就不会再认为他对日耳曼民族命运有多么专注了。 “我已学会，”他写道，“……看透人们那极为原始的观点和论点。”对希特勒来说，普通人就是被人随意利用和领导的原始人。他频繁地把人民称为绵羊、笨蛋、鲁莽的白痴──而他恰恰要让这些人绝对忠诚，他许诺说，要给这些人最终的奖赏。
在美国，我们的社会建立在对个人的信任上，而不是对个人的轻蔑上，因此，生活的自由原则能够得以幸存。我相信，该原则必须、也必将存在下去。理解自由，是所有决心追求自由的人都应该学会的；而热爱自由，则是众多美国人与生俱来的秉性。对我来说，与自由共处一室，共处一个半球，仍是一件激动人心的事情。
《我的奋斗》一书的作者，一生中最早发现的真理之一（对他而言也是最有价值的）就是：在群情高涨的时刻,激发大众投入高尚或可耻行动的，不是书面语，而是口语。与口语不同，书面语是人们私下研究的对象，研究者不是根据周围其他人的想法，而是根据每个人自己的理性标准，对其进行冷静的评判。“我知道，”希特勒写道，“与书面文字相比，通过演说争取到的人，要得多……”随后，他又轻蔑地补充道：“让我们告诉所有的文人和政客，特别是今日的文人和政客：世界上最大的变革，从来都不是由鹅毛笔引起的！不，笔杆子一向用来从理论上激发这些变革。”
幸运的是，我没有试图改变世界──有人正为我改变世界，而且速度惊人。但是我知道，人类的自由精神一直存在于本性中；它不断再生，从未被火或血抹杀过。我写下以上这番话，仅仅是为了（借用希特勒的说法）从理论上激发这种精神。我本人是个手握鹅毛笔的文人，我没有误解“争取民众”的意思；但这些天，我为这枝笔而感到无比自豪，因为通过历史，这枝笔已经证明，它是给人们接种的注射器，它使自由的胚芽永远在人的体内循环，这样一来，任何国度、任何时候，都会有伤寒玛丽（Typhoid Mary）式的种子携带者存在了，他们只需通过接触或榜样作用，便能感染别人。所有的专制暴君都害怕这类人──暴君们焚书坑儒，暴露出内心的恐惧。今天，一个作家在怀着极大的满足感进行写作，因为他知道他将是第一个掉脑袋的人──甚至比政客们的脑袋掉得还早。对我来说，这样更好，因为如果尘世的命运拒绝给我自由，我就会变成行尸走肉，如果被法西斯主义统治，我情愿做一个没有脑袋的人。因为在那种环境中，脑袋将没有任何用处，我一点也不想承受如此沉重的累赘！
附注：
克莱蒙梭（Clemenceau，1841—1929），法国政治家，第三共和国总理。他对第一世界大战协约国的胜利和凡尔赛和约的签订起了重要作用。
延伸阅读：
E.B.怀特（1899—1985）是美国当代著名散文家、评论家、讽刺幽默作家、童话作家。作为《纽约客》主要撰稿人，他一手奠定了影响深远的“《纽约客》文风”。“其文风冷峻清丽，辛辣幽默，自成一格”，因为被誉为“二十世纪最伟大的美国随笔作家”。除了终生挚爱的随笔创作之外，他还不忘为孩子们写书，他的三本经典作品：《斯图尔特鼠小弟》（又译《精灵鼠小弟》）、《夏洛蒂的网》与《天鹅的喇叭》，已经成为各个年龄段读者都异常喜爱的文学经典。1985年10月1日，怀特因阿尔茨海默病在缅因州北布鲁克林的家中去世。
1939年8月23日，苏联同意德国的要求，签订了《苏德互不侵犯条约》（nazi-soviet pact，又称Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact），自此，苏联置身于希待勒发动的战争之外。1940年7月，美国还没有加入反对纳粹的战争中，整个世界还处在《苏德互不侵犯条约》时期，无论是左派还是右派，都对极权主义给民主造成的威胁视若无睹。在这种历史背景之下，怀特写下了这篇名为《自由》的散文，并将其发表于《哈珀杂志》（Harper’s Magazine）。1942年，这篇散文被收录在怀特的文集《吾之甘露》（One Man’s Meat，典出俗语“吾之甘露，彼之砒霜”——one man’s meat is another man’s poison）。
2011年7月16日 00:00
9、罗伯特·彭斯：A Red,Red Rose
A Red,Red Rose
Robert Burns
O my luve is like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June.
O my luve is like the melodie
That’s sweetly played in tune.
As fair thou art,my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still ,my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry,my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still,my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel ,my only luve,
And fare thee weel a while;
And I will come again ,my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!
翻译参考：
啊，我爱人象红红的玫瑰，
在六月里苞放；
啊，我爱人象一支乐曲，
乐声美妙、悠扬。
你那么美，漂亮的姑娘，
我爱你那么深切；
我会永远爱你，亲爱的，
一直到四海涸竭。
直到四海涸竭，亲爱的，
直到太阳把岩石消熔！
我会永远爱你，亲爱的，
只要生命无穷。
再见吧，我唯一的爱人，
再见吧，小别片刻！
我会回来的，我的爱人，
即使万里相隔！
一朵红红的玫瑰
罗伯特·彭斯
（一）
啊，我的爱人象红红的玫瑰，
在六月里苞放；
啊，我的爱人象一支乐曲，
乐声美妙、悠扬。
你那么美，漂亮的姑娘；
我爱你那么深切；
我会永远爱你，亲爱的，
一直到四海涸竭。
直到四海涸竭，亲爱的，
直到太阳把岩石消融！
我会永远爱你，亲爱的，
只要生命无穷。
再见吧，我唯一的爱人，
再见吧，小别片刻；
我会回来的，我的爱人，
即使万里相隔。
----（没有找到译者）
（二）
啊，我爱人象一朵红红的玫瑰，
它在六月里初开；
啊，我爱人象一支乐曲，
它美妙地演奏起来。
你是那么漂亮，美丽的姑娘，
我爱你是那么深切；
我会一直爱你，亲爱的，
一直到四海枯竭。
一直到四海枯竭，亲爱的，
到太阳把岩石烧化；
我会一直爱你，亲爱的，
只要生命之流不绝。
再见吧，我唯一的爱人，
让我和你小别片刻；
我会回来的，亲爱的，
即使我们万里相隔。
－－－袁可嘉 译
（三）
我的爱人像朵红红的玫瑰
呵，我的爱人像朵红红的玫瑰，
六月里迎风初开；
呵，我的爱人像只甜甜的曲子，
奏得和谐又合拍。
我的好姑娘，多么美丽的人儿！
请看我，多么深挚的爱情！
亲爱的，我永远爱你，
纵使干枯水流尽。
纵使大海干枯水流尽，
太阳将岩石烧作灰尘，
亲爱的，我永远爱你，
只要我一息犹存。
珍重吧，我唯一的爱人，
珍重吧，让我们暂时别离，
但我定要回来，
哪怕千里万里。
－－－王佐良 译
（四）
卿若红玫瑰
卿若红玫瑰，新绽六月里，
更若旋律曲，嘹亮声和谐。
汝颜美若斯，我深弥爱之，
情爱永不变，直至海枯时。
海水尽枯竭，岩石皆蚀摧，
此生一息存，相爱永不隳.
吾爱此别矣，暂作小分飞，
相去虽万里，他日终旋归。
－－－周宜乃 译
（五）
颖颖赤墙靡
颖颖赤墙靡，首夏初发苞。
恻恻清商曲，眇音何远姚。
予美谅夭绍，幽情申自持。
沧海会流枯，相爱无绝期。
沧海会流枯，顽石烂炎熹。
微命属如缕，相爱无绝期。
掺祛别予美，离隔在须臾。
阿阳早日归，万里莫踟蹰。
－－－苏曼殊 译苏曼殊：（1884-1918），
注释：颖颖（红光闪耀的样子）、墙靡（蔷薇）、恻恻（悲伤）、夭绍（女子体态轻盈）、掺（持）、祛（袖口）。
2011年7月24日 00:00
10、柳宗元：溪居
溪居
久为簪组累， 幸此南夷谪。
闲依农圃邻， 偶似山林客。
晓耕翻露草， 夜榜响溪石，
来往不逢人， 长歌楚天碧。
Liu Zongyuan
DWELLING BY A STREAM
I had so long been troubled by official hat and robe
That I am glad to be an exile here in this wild southland.
I am a neighbour now of planters and reapers.
I am a guest of the mountains and woods.
I plough in the morning, turning dewy grasses,
And at evening tie my fisher-boat, breaking the quiet stream.
Back and forth I go, scarcely meeting anyone,
And sing a long poem and gaze at the blue sky.
2011年8月6日 00:00
11、培根：Of Marriage and Single Life
Of Marriage and Single Life
谈结婚与独身
by Sir France Bacon
王佐良 译
He that hath wife and children, hath given hostages to fortune1; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue, or mischief. Certainly, th e best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmar ried or childless men, which both in affection, and means, have married and endow ed the public. Yet it were great reason, that those that have children, should ha ve greatest care of future times, unto which, they know, they must transmit their dearest pledges3. Some there are, who though they lead a single life, yet their thoughts do end with themselves, and account future times impertinences4. Nay5, t here are some other, that account wife and children but as bills of charges6. Nay more, there are some foolish rich covetous7 men, that take a pride in having no children, because they may be thought so much the richer.
夫人之有妻儿也不啻已向命运典质，从此难成大事，无论善恶。兴大业，立大功，往往系未婚无儿者所为，彼辈似已与公众结亲，故爱情产业并以付之。按理而论，有子女者应对未来岁月最为关切，因已将至亲骨肉托付之矣。独身者往往思虑仅及己身，以为未来与己无关。有人则视妻儿为负债。更有贪而愚者，以无儿女为荣，以为如此更可夸其富足。
For perhaps, they have heard some talk; Such an one is a great rich man; and another except to8 it; Yea, but he hath a great charge of children: as if it were an abatement9 to his riche s. But the most ordinary cause of a single life is liberty; especially in certain self-pleasing and humourous10 minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, a s they will go near to think their girdles and garters11 to be bonds and shackles 12. Unmarried men are best friends; best masters; best servants; but not always b est subjects13; for they are light to run away; and almost all fugitives14 are of that condition. A single life doth well with church men: for charity will hardly water the ground; where it must first fill a pool. It is indifferent15 for judge s and magistrates: for if they be facile16 and corrupt, you shall have a servant five times worse than a wife. For soldiers, I find the generals commonly in their hortatives17 , put men in mind of their wives and children: and I think the desp ising of marriage18 amongst the Turks, maketh19 the vulgar soldier more base.
此辈或曾闻人议论 ，一云此人为大富，另一则云否也，其人有多子负担，其财必损。然独身之原因，最常见者为喜自由，尤其自娱任性之人不耐任何束缚，身上褡带亦视为桎梏。未婚者为最好之友、最好之主、最好之仆，然非最好之臣，因其身轻易遁也，故亡命徒儿全未婚。未婚适合教会中人，因如先须注水于家池则无余泽以惠人矣。然对法官行政官等则无足轻重，彼辈如收礼贪财，劣仆之害五倍于妻。至于士兵，余尝见将军以渠等妻儿所望激励之，而土耳其人鄙视婚姻，故其士兵更为卑劣。
Certainly, wife and children are a kind of discipline of humanity: and single men th ough they be many times more charitable, because their means are less exhaust; ye t, on the other side, they are more cruel, and hard-hearted (good to make severe inquisitors20), because their tenderness is not so oft called upon. Grave natures , led by custom, and therefore constant, are commonly loving husbands; as was sai d of Ulysses21; vetulam suam praetulit immortalitati22. Chaste23 women are often proud and froward24, as presuming25 upon the merit of their chastity. It is one o f the best bonds, both of chastity and obedience, in the wife, if she think her h usband wise; which she will never do, if she find him jealous. Wives are young me n's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses. So as a man may have a quarrel to marry, when he will. But yet, he was reputed one of the wise me n, that made answer to the question, when a man should marry? A young man not yet , an elder man not at all.26 It is often seen, that bad husbands have very good w ives; whether it be, that it raiseth the price of27 their husbands' kindness, whe n it comes; or that the wives take a pride in their patience. But this never fail s, if the bad husbands were of their own choosing, against their friends' consent; for then, they will be sure to make good their own folly.
妻儿对人确为一种锻炼。单身者本可心慈过人，因其资财少耗也，实则由于不常触其心肠，反而更为严酷（因而适为审判异端之官）。庄重之人守规不渝，为夫常能爱妻，是故人云优利息斯“爱老妻胜过不朽也”。贞节之妇自恃节操，不免骄纵。欲使妻子守贞从夫，夫须有智；如妻疑夫猜忌，则断难听命矣。妻子者，青年之情妇，中年之伴侣，老年之护士也，故如决心结婚，须善择时。昔有智者答人问何时可婚，曾云：“青年未到时，老年不必矣。”常见恶夫有良妻，是否由于此辈丈夫偶尔和善，更见其可贵，抑或此类妻子以忍耐为美德欤？可确言者，如妻子不顾友朋劝告而自择恶夫，则必尽力弥补前失。
注释
1. hath given hostages to fortune: 向命运付出了抵押品。hath = has； hostage: 人质 ，抵押品。
2. impediment: 障碍。
3. pledge: 诺言，誓言。
4. impertinence: 不相干的,不合理的。
5. nay: 不仅如此。
6. bills of charges: 费用账单。
7. covetous: 贪婪的。
8. except to: 反对，有异议。
9. abatement: 减少，减弱。
10. humourous: <古>性情乖张的。
11. girdles and garters: 腰带和吊袜带。
12. bonds and shackles: 镣铐，束缚。
13. subject: 臣民，国民。
14. fugitives: 叛逃者。
15. indifferent: 关系不大。
16. facile: 容易被人左右的，没有原则性的。
17. hortatives: 激励，敦促。
18. the despising of marriage: 厌恶婚姻。
19. maketh = makes。
20. inquisitors: 宗教法庭审判官。
21. Ulysses: 尤利西斯(王佐良先生译作优利息斯)，荷马史诗中的英雄，远征特洛伊的希腊军团首领之一。他足智多谋，献木马计攻陷特洛伊。战争结束返乡途中，曾被困于海岛上，为仙女所爱，并许他长生不老。但他思念夫妻之情，拒绝了仙女，历尽千辛万苦终于回到了妻子身边。
22. vetulam suam praetulit immortalitati: （拉丁文）他宁要老伴，也不要长生不老。
23. chaste: 贞洁的。
24. froward: 任性的，骄横的。
25. presuming: 专横的。
26. A young man not yet, an elder man not at all: 年纪少时尚不应当，年老时已无必要 。
27. raiseth the price of: 使……变得珍贵（更值得珍视）。raiseth = raises。
2011年8月13日 00:00
12、毛泽东：采桑子《重阳》
人生易老天难老，
The heaven never goes old while man easily
岁岁重阳。
The Chung Yeung Festival belongs to every year
今又重阳，
Today is its another advent
战地黄花分外香。
the chrysanthemum in the battleground is all the more aromatic
一年一度秋风劲，
The yearly autumn gale is so forceful
不似春光，
Making it distinguished from spring
胜似春光，
but rather exceeds spring
寥廓江天万里霜.
While overlooking the vast frost-like river
二、
王维: 山居秋暝
空山新雨后， 天气晚来秋。
明月松间照， 清泉石上流。
竹喧归浣女， 莲动下渔舟。
随意春芳歇， 王孙自可留。
Wang Wei
AN AUTUMN EVENING IN THE MOUNTAINS
After rain the empty mountain
Stands autumnal in the evening,
Moonlight in its groves of pine,
Stones of crystal in its brooks.
Bamboos whisper of washer-girls bound home,
Lotus-leaves yield before a fisher-boat --
And what does it matter that springtime has gone,
While you are here, O Prince of Friends?
2011年8月27日 00:00
13、徐志摩：再别康桥
轻轻的我走了，
正如我轻轻的来；
我轻轻的招手，
作别西天的云彩。
那河畔的金柳，
是夕阳中的新娘；
波光里的艳影，
在我的心头荡漾。
软泥上的青荇，
油油的在水底招摇；
在康河的柔波里，
我甘心做一条水草。
那树荫下的一潭，
不是清泉，是天上虹；
揉碎在浮藻间，
沉淀着彩虹似的梦。
寻梦？撑一支长篙，
向青草更青处漫溯；
满载一船星辉，
在星辉斑斓里放歌。
但我不能放歌，
悄悄是别离的笙箫；
夏虫也为我沉默，
沉默是今晚的康桥！
悄悄的我走了，
正如我悄悄的来；
我挥一挥衣袖，
不带走一片云彩。
①写于1928年11月6日，初载1928年12月10日《新月》月刊第1卷第10号，署名徐志摩。
翻译参考：
Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again
Very quietly I take my leave
As quietly as I came here;
Quietly I wave good-bye
To the rosy clouds in the western sky.
The golden willows by the riverside
Are young brides in the setting sun;
Their reflections on the shimmering waves
Always linger in the depth of my heart.
The floating heart growing in the sludge
Sways leisurely under the water;
In the gentle waves ofCambridge
I would be a water plant!
That pool under the shade of elm trees
Holds not water but the rainbow from the sky;
Shattered to pieces among the duckweeds
Is the sediment of a rainbow-like dream?
To seek a dream? Just to pole a boat upstream
To where the green grass is more verdant;
Or to have the boat fully loaded with starlight
And sing aloud in the splendour of starlight.
But I cannot sing aloud
Quietness is my farewell music;
Even summer insects keep silence for me
Silent isCambridgetonight!
Very quietly I take my leave
As quietly as I came here;
Gently I flick my sleeves
Not even a wisp of cloud will I bring away
2011年9月4日 00:00
14、Bertrand Russell：我为何而活
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my
life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable
pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds,
have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep
ocean of anguish, reaching to the verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy --- ecstasy
so great that I would have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few
hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves
loneliness --- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering
consciousness looks over the rim of the world into cold unfathomable
lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of
love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of
the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I
sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is
what --- at last --- I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to
understand the hearts of men, I have wished to know why the stars
shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which
number holds away above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I
have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward
toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes
of cries of pain reverberated in my heart. Children in famine,
victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden
to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain
make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the
evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and I would
gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.
参考翻译：
我为何而活
------伯兰特.罗素
三种简单却极其强烈的情感主宰着我的生活：对爱的渴望、对知识的追求、对人类痛苦的难以承受的怜悯之心。这三种情感，像一阵阵飓风一样，任意地将我吹的飘来荡去，越过痛苦的海洋，抵达绝望的彼岸。
我寻找爱，首先，因为它令人心醉神迷，这种沉醉是如此美妙，以至于我愿意用余生来换取那几个小时的快乐。我寻找爱，其次是因为它会减轻孤独，置身于那种可怕的孤独中，颤抖的灵魂在世界的边缘，看到冰冷的、死寂的、无底深渊。我寻找爱，还因为在爱水乳交融时，在一个神秘的缩影中，我见到了先贤和诗人们所想象的、预览的天堂。
这就是我所追求的，尽管对于凡人来说，这好像是一种奢望。但这是我最终找到的。
我曾以同样的热情来追求知识。我希望能理解人类的心灵，希望能知道为什么星星会发光。我也曾经努力理解毕达哥拉斯学派的理论，他们认为数字主载着万物的此消彼长。我了解了一点知识，但是不多。
爱和知识，可以最大可能地，将人带入天堂。可是，怜悯总是将我带回地面。人们因痛苦而发出的哭声在我心中久久回响，那些饥荒中的孩子们，被压迫者摧残的受害者们，被子女视为可憎负担的、无助的老人们，以及那无处不在的孤单、贫穷和无助都在讽刺着人类所本应该有的生活。我渴望能够消除人世间的邪恶，可是力不从心，我自己也同样遭受着它们的折磨。
这就是我的生活。我觉得活一场是值得的。如果给我机会的话，我愿意开心地，再活一次。
2011年9月19日 00:00
15、弗瑞诺：On the Death of Dr. Benjamin Franklin
Thus, some tall tree that long hath stood
The glory of its native wood,
By storms destroyed, or length of years,
Demands the tribute of our tears,
The pile, that took long time to raise,
To dust returns by s了ow decays:
But, when its destined years are o’er,
We must regret the loss the more.
So long accustomed to your aid,
The world laments your exit made;
So long befriended by your art.
Philosopher, ‘its hard to part!---
When monarchs tumble to the ground,
Successors easily are found:
But, matchless FRANKLIN ! what a few
Can hope to rival such as : YOU
Who seized from kings their sceptred pride,
And turned the ligh年ting’s darts aside!
翻译参考:
悼本杰明･富兰克林
译者：黄杲炘
有棵大树高耸在林子中，
早已是它生长地的光荣；
一旦被风暴或岁月摧毁，
就会使我们奉献出眼泪。
花了长时间造成的大厦，
因慢慢的剥蚀终于倒塌；
但当它注定的年月过完，
我们准为这损失更遗憾。
世人早习惯于你的帮助，
自然为你的离去而痛哭；
你的本领使人们对你亲，
哲人哪，要分离可真费劲！
当一个个君王滚翻在地，
要找些继承人实在容易；
但富兰克林，你无与伦比！
很少人敢于同你比高低！
你夺走国君王权的骄傲，
还把闪电的矛头引开掉！
(来源：本网）
2011年9月25日 00:00
16、恩德雷·库科赖利：A Variation
Hungary Endre Kukorelly
A Variation
And I really don’t know
now when was I very
honest and when
was I not, it cannot be
distinguished
and it’s hard to sort it out. For there’s no
lie which could not
be used in order to keep
things as they are
really or in reality, I wonder
which of these is the correct
expression here, I cannot remember,
but somehow the word
real has to be in it.
And because I do not change
at all, for better or for worse,
I’m not uglier or more beautiful
than before, up or down. Or
maybe just a shade. But:
to die: no. Death is not an option.
It’s possible that
while I am changing, I usually
sleep through those hours.
Or else am hovering upside down.
[匈牙利] 恩德雷·库科赖利
变 化
真的我不知道
什么时候我
诚实什么时候我
不诚实，不好
分辨清楚
难以分门别类。因为
任何谎言
都可用来保持
事物原来的样子
真实的或现实的，我不知道
到底哪个是正确
的表达，我记不起来，
然而，“实”字
肯定会在里面。
因为我一点都不会
变化，无论好歹，
比之以前，我既不更丑
也不更美，不沉不浮。或
只是个影子。但：
死去：不。死亡不是选择。
很有可能
当我变化之时，通常
我一直都在酣睡。
或在飞翔，上下颠倒。
（张智中 译）
Abouth the Author:
Endre Kukorelly, a famous poet in contemporary Hungary. Born in 1952 in Budapest, where he worked as a librarian for the local Literary Museum before completing his study of Hungarian literature. In the 1980s he worked as an editor and correspondent for several literary reviews. For the past ten years he has been co-editor of the weekly review Magyar Narancs (‘Hungarian Orange’) and the Hungarian Lettre Internationale. He teaches creative writing at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest. In 1985 he received the Hungarian Literature Prize for the best debut collection, in 1992 the Vilenica Prize and in 1993 the prestigious József-Attila Prize.
诗人简介：
恩德雷·库科赖利，匈牙利当代著名诗人，1952生于匈牙利首都布达佩斯，完成匈牙利文学学业之前，在当地文学馆做馆员。20世纪80年代，在数家文学评论杂志社做编辑兼通信员。在过去的十年里，一直是《匈牙利橘子》每周评论和匈牙利国际文学的合作编辑。目前在布达佩斯文学艺术院教授写作课；1985年以最佳萌芽集获“匈牙利文学奖”，1992年获维莱尼察奖，1993年获得颇具声望的约瑟夫·阿提拉奖。
2011年10月2日 00:00
17、阿诺德.本涅特：Expressing One’s Individuality
Expressing One’s Individuality
Arnold Bennett
A most curious and useful thing to realize is that one never knows
the impression one is creating on other people. One may often guess
pretty accurately whether it is good, bad, or indifferent --- some
people render it unnecessary for one to guess, they practically
inform one --- but that is not what I mean. I mean much more than
that. I mean that one has one’s self no mental picture corresponding
to the mental picture which one’s personality leaves in the minds of
one’s friends. Has it ever struck you that there is a mysterious
individual going around, walking the streets, calling at houses for
tea, chatting, laughing, grumbling, arguing, and that all your
friends know him --- without saying more than a chance, cautious
word to you; and that that person is you? Supposing that you came
into a drawing-room where you were having tea, do you think you
would recognize yourself as an individuality? I think not. You would
be apt to say to yourself as guests do when disturbed in
drawing-rooms by other guests: “Who’s this chap? Seems rather queer.
I hope he won’t be a bore.” And your first telling would be slightly
hostile. Why, even when you meet yourself in an unsuspected mirror
in the very clothes that you have put on that very day and that you
know by heart, you are almost always shocked by the realization that
you are you. And now and then, when you have gone to the glass to
arrange your hair in the full sobriety of early morning, have you
not looked on an absolute stranger, and has not that stranger piqued
your curiosity? And if it is thus with precise external details of
form, colour, and movement, what may it not be with the vague
complex effect of the mental and moral individuality?
A man honestly tries to make a good impression. What is the
result? The result merely is that his friends, in the privacy of
their minds, set him down as a man who tries to make a good
impression. If much depends on the result of a single interview, or
a couple of interviews, a man may conceivably force another to
accept an impression of himself which he would like to convey. But
if the receiver of the impression is to have time at his disposal,
then the giver of the impression may just as well sit down and put
his hands in his pockets, for nothing that he can do will modify or
influence in any way the impression that he will ultimately give.
The real impress is, in the end, given unconsciously, not
consciously; and further, it is received unconsciously, not
consciously. It depends partly on both persons. And it is immutably
fixed beforehand. There can be no final deception…
――――――――――――――――
自我的展现
阿诺德.本涅特
一个人永远也不知道他给别人留有什么样的印象，明白这点是有益的，也是让人觉得奇怪的。一个人很容易准确猜出这种印象是好的、坏的，还是不好不坏的，因为有些人让你不用去猜，他们几乎直接就告诉你了。但那不是我要说的，我要说的不止这些。我要说的是，一个人对他在别人脑子里留有的印象毫无所知。你曾想过这样的事吗：有个神秘的人，到处闲逛，走在大街上，去茶馆喝茶，和人聊天，谈笑风生，发牢骚，与人争辩，你所有的朋友都认识他，都与他很熟，而且对他是什么样的人早下了定论，但除了一两次谨慎的只言片语外，他们从未对你提过他，但这个人就是你？假如“你”走进一个休息室，你正在里面喝茶，你会认出那个人是“你”吗？我想不会。你或许会对自己说，正如休息室里被人打扰的客人一样：
“这个家伙是谁？挺让人不舒服的，希望他不要讨人嫌。”你的第一反应会是带有点敌意。甚至当你自己在一面突然撞见的镜子里看到自己穿着那件你非常熟悉的衣服，从而你意识到那就是你自己时，你为何总会为这种念头而感到几乎震惊呢？时常，在清晨很清醒的时候，你在镜子前梳头，你是否看到了一个完全陌生的人，而且对他很好奇呢？如果说诸如形象、颜色、动作这些精确的外观细节都会让你感到这样，更不用说像精神、道德这样不易把握的、复杂的个性特征所形成的印象呢？
一个人极力试图给别人留下好印象，结果如何呢？结果仅仅是，他的朋友们在内心里会把他看作是一个努力给别人留有好印象的人罢了。如果仅仅是一次或几次会面，一个人也许可以使别人信服地接受他所期望展现出来的印象，可是如果接受者可以随意安排他的时间来认识这个人的话，那么印象制造者最好还是坐下来，什么事情都不做，因为他无论如何都无法改变或影响他所最终给别人的印象。真实的印象，最终不是刻意地而是无意地做出的。此外，它也不是刻意地而是无意地被接收的，它取决于双方。而且是事先就已经确定了的，是没办法欺骗到底的……
――――――――――――
阿诺德.本涅特（1867-1931）, 本世纪初期英国著名小说家、散文家。他的文风受法国自然主义风格影响较深，行文冷静客观。
2011年10月8日 00:00
18、温斯顿.丘吉尔：Work and Pleasure
Winston Churchill
To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two
or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting
late in life to say: “I will take an interest in this or that.” Such
an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort. A man may
acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work,
and yet hardly get any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what
you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human
beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to
death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to
death. It is no use offering the manual labourer, tired out with a
hard week’s sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of
football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting
the politician or the professional or business man, who has been
working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or
worry about trifling things at the weekend.
It may also be said that rational, industrious useful human beings
are divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and
whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and
pleasure are one. Of these the former are the majority. They have
their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory
bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance,
but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most
modest forms. But Fortune’s favoured children belong to the second
class. Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours
are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays
when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing
vocation. Yet to both classes the need of an alternative outlook, of
a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is essential.
Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are
those who most need the means of banishing it at intervals from
their minds.
―――――――――――
翻译参考：
工作和娱乐
温斯顿.丘吉尔
要想获得真正的快乐与安宁，一个人应该有至少两三种爱好，而且必须是真正的爱好。到晚年才说“我对什么什么有兴趣”是没用的，这只会徒然增添精神负担。一个人可以在自己工作之外的领域获得渊博的知识，不过他可能几乎得不到什么好处或是消遣。做你喜欢的事是没用的，你必须喜欢你所做的事。总的来说，人可以分为三种：劳累而死的、忧虑而死的、和烦恼而死的。对于那些体力劳动者来说，经历了一周精疲力竭的体力劳作，周六下午让他们去踢足球或者打棒球是没有意义的。而对那些政治家、专业人士或者商人来说，他们已经为严肃的事情操劳或烦恼六天了，周末再让他们为琐事劳神也是没有意义的。
也可以说，那些理性的、勤勉的、有价值的人们可分为两类，一类，他们的工作就是工作，娱乐就是娱乐；而另一类，他们的工作即娱乐。大多数人属于前者，他们得到了相应的补偿。长时间在办公室或工厂里的工作，回报给他们的不仅是维持了生计，还有一种强烈的对娱乐的需求，哪怕是最简单的、最朴实的娱乐。不过，命运的宠儿则属于后者。他们的生活很自然和谐。对他们来说，工作时间永远不嫌长。每天都是假日，而当正常的假日来临时，他们总是埋怨自己所全身心投入的休假被强行中断了。不过，有些事情对两类人是同样至关重要的，那就是转换一下视角、改变一下氛围、将精力转移到别的事情上。确实，对那些工作即是娱乐的人来说，最需要隔一段时间就用某种方式把工作从脑子里面赶出去。
2011年10月15日 00:00
19、阿尔伯特.爱因斯坦：Man Is Here For The Sake of Other Men
Man Is Here For The Sake of Other Men
Albert Einstein
Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a
short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a
purpose.
From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we
do know that man is here for the sake of other men --- above all for
those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and
also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are
connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much
my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow
men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in
order to give in return as much as I have received. My peace of mind
is often troubled by the depressing sense that I have borrowed too
heavily from the work of other men.
To ponder interminably over the reason for one’s own existence or
the meaning of life in general seems to me, from an objective point
of view, to be sheer folly. And yet everyone holds certain ideals by
which he guides his aspiration and his judgment. The ideals which
have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are
goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort and happiness
has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis
would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.
―――――――――――
人是为了别人而活着
阿尔伯特.爱因斯坦
我们在这个世界上的处境是奇怪的：每个人，都是来做一次短暂的访问，不知道是为了什么。不过有时似乎也会觉察到有某种目的。
但是从平日的生活来看，有一件事情我们是很清楚的：我们是为别人而活，最重要的是为了这些人活：他们的笑容和幸福构成了我们快乐的源泉。同时，我们活着还为了另外无数个不相识的生命，怜悯之心，将我们同他们的命运联系起来。每天，很多次，我都会意识到我的肉体生活和精神生活很大程度上是建立在那些活着的，和死去的人们的工作之上的，意识到我必须诚挚地、竭尽全力地努力去回报我所得到的东西。我经常心绪不宁，感觉自己从别人的工作里承袭了太多，这种感觉让我惴惴不安。
总体上在我看来，从客观的角度，没完没了地思考自己为什么会存在，或者是生命有什么意义，是非常愚蠢的行为。不过，每个人都有一些理想，来指引着自己的抱负和辨别是非。始终在我面前闪耀着光芒，并且让我充满活着的喜悦的理想，是善、美和真理。对我来说，以舒适和享乐为目标的生活从来没有吸引力。 以这些目标为基础建立起来的一套伦理观点只能满足一群牲畜的需要。
―――――――――――
阿尔伯特.爱因斯坦（1879-1955）,美国籍犹太人，20世纪最伟大的科学家。1921年获诺贝尔物理学奖。他一生崇尚科学与民主，追求真理和光明，毕生致力于国际和平事业。
2011年10月23日 00:00
20、约翰.罗斯金：The Two Roads
John Ruskin
It was New Year’s Night. An aged man was standing at a window. He
raised his mournful eyes towards the deep blue sky, where the stars
were floating like white lilies on the surface of a clear calm lake.
Then he cast them on the earth, where few more hopeless people than
himself now moved towards their certain goal --- the tomb. He had
already passed sixty of the stages leading to it, and he had brought
from his journey nothing but errors and remorse. Now his health was
poor, his mind vacant, his heart sorrowful, and his old age short of
comforts.
The days of his youth appeared like dreams before him, and he
recalled the serious moment when his father placed him at the
entrance of the two roads --- one leading to a peaceful, sunny
place, covered with flowers, fruits and resounding with soft, sweet
songs; the other leading to a deep, dark cave, which was endless,
where poison flowed instead of water and where devils and poisonous
snakes hissed and crawled.
He looked towards the sky and cried painfully, “O youth, return! O
my father, place me once more at the entrance to life, and I’ll
choose the better way!” But both his father and the days of his
youth had passed away.
He saw the lights flowing away in the darkness. These were the
days of his wasted life; he saw a star fall down from the sky and
disappeared, and this was the symbol of himself. His remorse, which
was like a sharp arrow, struck deeply into his heart. Then he
remembered his friends in his childhood, who entered on life
together with him. But they had made their way to success and were
now honoured and happy on this New Year’s Night.
The clock in the high church tower struck and the sound made him
remember his parents’ early love for him. They had taught him and
prayed to God for his good. But he chose the wrong way. With shame
and grief he dared no longer look towards that heaven where his
father lived. His darkened eyes were full of tears, and with a
despairing effort, he burst out a cry: “ Come back, my early days!
Come back!”
And his youth did return, for all this was only a dream which he
had on New Year’s Night. He was still young though his faults were
real; he had not yet entered the deep, dark cave, and he was still
free to walk on the road which leads to the peaceful and sunny land.
Those who still linger on the entrance of life, hesitating to
choose the bright road, remember that when years are passed and your
feet stumble on the dark mountains, you will cry bitterly, but in
vain: “O youth, return! Oh give me back my early days!”
―――――――――――
两条道路
约翰.罗斯金
那是一个除夕之夜，一位老人站在窗前。他悲伤地望着天空，望着深蓝色的天空，繁星像百合花一样漂浮在清澈平静的天空之湖里。他望着地面，却没有几个像他这样绝望的，奔向唯一的终点――坟墓的人。在通往生命终点的旅途中，他已经走过了六十个驿站，收获的却只有过失和悔恨。如今他的健康不佳，精神空虚，内心痛苦，晚年的生活并不舒适。
年轻的时光像梦一样在浮现在眼前，他回想起那个关键的时刻，父亲把他带到人生的岔路口，有两条路摆在他面前：一条通往一个宁静的、阳光灿烂的地方，那里满是花果，柔和甜美的歌手回响在空中；另一条却通往一个黑暗无底的洞穴，那里流淌的不是清水，而是毒汁，那里恶魔肆虐，毒蛇横行。
他仰望着天空，痛苦地哭喊道：“啊，青春，回来吧！啊，父亲，重新把我带到生命的起点吧，我会选择另一条更好的路！”可是，他的父亲连同青春，都已经离开他了。
他看到黑暗中点点光亮被吞没，那些是他虚度的日子；他看见一颗星星从天上坠落，消失了，那他的象征。悔恨，像一把锋利的剑，深深刺入他的心脏。他想起那些童年时的伙伴，那些同他一起踏上生命的旅途的人们，如今都是成功的、受人尊重的。此刻，他们都沉浸在除夕的幸福中。
教堂高塔上的钟声敲, 响了，这让他想起了小时父母的爱，那些谆谆教诲，那些他们为他的幸福所做的祷告。可是他选择了一条错误的路。羞愧和悲伤使他不敢再奢望父亲所居住的天堂。他昏暗的眼睛饱含了泪水，他绝望地奋力哭喊：“回来吧，我逝去的岁月！回来啊！”
不过这次他的青春真的回来了。因为所有这一切只不过是除夕夜他做的一场梦而已。他仍然年轻，尽管确实犯过错误，不过仍然没有进入那黑暗的洞穴，他仍然可以选择那条通往安宁和光明的道路。
正在人生路口徘徊，犹豫着是否选择光明之路的年轻人啊！请记住，当时光已逝，你的双脚在黑暗的山间举步维艰、跌跌撞撞的时候，你会痛苦地呼喊：“啊，青春！回来！啊，把我逝去的日子还给我吧！”可是，那一切都是没用的！
―――――――――――
约翰.罗斯金（1819-1900），维多利亚时期英国著名的作家和评论家。他父亲是位富商，经常带他到欧洲各地旅游，他从小就对建筑、艺术非常感兴趣，对美怀有强烈热望。他的主要作品有《现代画家》、《威尼斯的石头》等。在本文中他向人们揭示了选择正确人生道路的重要性和迫切性，引人深思。
2011年11月4日 00:00
21、富兰克林.罗斯福：For a Declaration of War against Japan
Franklin Roosevelt
Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, members of the Senate and the
House of Representative,
Yesterday, December 7, 1941 --- a date which will live in infamy
--- United States of America, was suddenly and deliberately attacked
by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation, and, at the
solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government
and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the
Pacific.
Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced
bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to
the Unites States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of
State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this
reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing
diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of
armed attack.
It will be recorded that distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it
obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even
weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has
deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements
and expressions of hope for continued peace.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe
damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you
that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American
ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San
Francisco and Honolulu.
Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against
Malaya.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.
And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Japan has therefore undertaken a surprise offensive extending
throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak
for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed
their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life
and safety of our nation.
As Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy, I have directed that
all measures be taken for our defense. But always, let our whole
nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated
invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win
through to absolute victory.
I believe that I interpret the will of Congress and of the people
when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the
uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery
shall never endanger us.
Hostilities exist, there is no blinking the fact that our people,
our territory, and our interest are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding
determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so
help us God.
I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and
dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of
war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
――――――――――――――――――――――
1941年12月7日，珍珠港受到日本偷袭，罗斯福于1941年12月8日在国会发表本篇演说，美国国会当天通过了向日本宣战的决定。
――――――――――――――――――――――
要求对日本宣战
富兰克林.罗斯福
副总统先生，议长先生，各位参议员和众议员们：
昨天，1941年12月7日，将永远是一个耻辱的日子——美利坚合众国遭到了日本帝国海空军部队蓄意的突然袭击。
美国过去与这个国家处于和平状态，并且在日本的请求下，仍然同该国政府和天皇进行对话，以期维持太平洋地区的和平。
事实上，就在日本空军中队开始轰炸美国的瓦湖岛一小时后，日本驻美国大使和他的同事还向我国国务卿提交了对最近一份我国致日本书的正式复函。虽然该复函声称看起来继续目前的外交谈判已毫无必要，却未包含任何有关战争或武装袭击的威胁或暗示。
应该记录在案的是，日本与夏威夷之间的距离足以表明这场战争在很多天甚至几个星期前就开始蓄意谋划了。而在此期间，日本政府故意用希望继续维持和平这样虚假的申明和表态来欺骗美国。
昨天日本对夏威夷群岛的袭击使美国海军和陆军军力遭受了严重的损失，我很遗憾地告诉诸位，战争夺去了很多美国人的生命。另外，据报告，在旧金山和檀香山之间的公海上的美国船只也遭到了鱼雷袭击。
昨天，日本对马来半岛发动了袭击。
昨晚，日本军队袭击了香港。
昨晚，日本军队袭击了关岛。
昨晚，日本军队袭击了菲律宾群岛。
昨晚，日本军队袭击了威克岛。
今天早晨，日本袭击了中途岛。
由此可见日本在太平洋区域已经开始了令人震惊的全面侵略扩张。昨天和今天的事实都已经证明了这点。美国人民对此已经有了自己的看法，并且很清楚这对我们民族的安全和存亡意味着什么。
作为海军和陆军总司令，我已经下令采取一切手段来进行防卫。同时，请我们整个民族都牢记这场针对我们的侵犯。
无论我们要花多长时间才能击溃这次有预谋的入侵，美国人民都终将凭借正义的力量获得绝对的胜利。
我坚信，我们不仅会最大程度地保卫我们自己，我们也会确保以后像此类背信弃义的行为永远不会再对我们构成威胁。我相信我说的这些话可以代表国会和人民的意愿。
战争已经发生，我们不能无视这个事实：我们的人民，我们领土，我们的利益都处于极度危险的境地。
我们信赖我们的军队，我们有无比坚决的信念，胜利必定属于我们。愿上帝赐福于我们。
鉴于日本在1941年12月7日对我国进行的无端的和卑鄙的袭击，我要求国会宣布美国和日本已处于交战状态。
2011年11月19日 00:00
22、叶芝：When You Are Old
William Butler Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire,take down this book
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur,a little sadly,how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
参考翻译：
【杨牧译文】
当你老了
当你老了，灰黯，沉沉欲眠，
在火炉边瞌睡，取下这本书，
慢慢读，梦回你眼睛曾经
有过的柔光，以及那深深波影；
多少人恋爱你喜悦雍容的时刻，
恋爱你的美以真以假的爱情，
有一个人爱你朝山的灵魂内心，
爱你变化的面容有那些怔忡错愕。
并且俯身闪烁发光的铁栏杆边，
嚅嗫，带些许忧伤，爱如何竟已
逸去了并且在头顶的高山踱蹀
复将他的脸藏在一群星星中间。
2011年11月28日 00:00
23、泰戈尔：The First Jasmine
《人间四月天》里有这样一个情节泰戈尔访华,请一袭白衣的林徽因朗诵他的《最初的茉莉》。他说他觉得林徽因如洁白的茉莉般美好，徐志摩做的同声翻译。
傍晚， 徐志摩敲开林徽因的家门，把长衫前襟里的一捧新鲜的茉莉花抖落在林徽因的手心 一言未发，转身离去。林徽因把茉莉花泡在一碗水中。几天后，她为茉莉花换了最后一次水。
徐志摩陪同泰戈尔周游中国，而林徽因也嫁做他人妇 ，林徽因茉莉般清纯 ，但终不是茉莉般温婉的女子。
The First Jasmine
Tagore
AH, these jasmines, these white jasmines!
I seem to remember the first day when I filled my hands
with these jasmines, these white jasmines.
I have loved the sunlight, the sky and the green earth;
I have heard the liquid murmur of the river
through the darkness of midnight;
Autumn sunsets have come to me at the bend of the road
in the lonely waste, like a bride raising her veil
to accept her lover.
Yet my memory is still sweet with the first white jasmines
that I held in my hands when I was a child.
Many a glad day has come in my life,
and I have laughed with merrymakers on festival nights.
On grey mornings of rain
I have crooned many an idle song.
I have worn round my neck the evening wreath of
BAKULAS woven by the hand of love.
Yet my heart is sweet with the memory of the first fresh jasmines
that filled my hands when I was a child.
最初的茉莉花
泰戈尔
呵,这些茉莉花,这些白的茉莉花!
我仿佛记得我第一次双手满捧着这些茉莉花,
这些白的茉莉花的时候。
我喜爱那日光,那天空,那绿色的大地；
我听见那河水淙淙的流声,在黑漆的午夜里传过来；
秋天的夕阳,在荒原上大路转角处迎我,
如新妇揭起她的面纱迎接好的爱人。
但我想起孩提时第一次捧在手里的白茉莉,心里充满着甜蜜的回忆。
我生平有过许多快活的日子,在节日宴会的晚上,
我曾跟着说笑话的人大笑。
在灰暗的雨天的早晨,我吟哦过许多飘逸的诗篇。
我颈上戴过爱人手织的醉花的花圈,作为晚装。
但我想起孩提时第一次捧在手里的白茉莉,心里充满着甜蜜的回忆。
2011年12月5日 00:00
24、甘地：Appeal to American
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
In my opinion, the Indian struggle for freedom bears its
consequence not only upon India and England but upon the whole
world. It contains one-fifth of the human race. It represents one of
the most ancient civilizations. It has traditions handed down from
tens of thousands of years, some of which, to the astonishment of
the world, remain intact. No doubt the ravages of time have affected
the purity of that civilization as they have that of many other
cultures and institutions.
If India is to revive the glory of her ancient past, she can only
do so when she attains her freedom. The reason for the struggle
having drawn the attention of the world I know does not lie in the
fact that we Indians are fighting for our liberty, but in the fact
the means adopted by us for attaining that liberty are unique and,
as far as history shows us, have not been adopted by any other
people of whom we have any record.
The means adopted are not violence, not bloodshed, not diplomacy
as one understands it nowadays, but they are purely and simply truth
and non-violence. No wonder that the attention of the world is
directed toward this attempt to lead a successful bloodless
revolution. Hitherto, nations have fought in the manner of the
brute. They have wreaked vengeance upon those whom they have
conside, red to be their enemies.
We find in searching national anthems adopted by great nations
that they contain imprecations upon the so-called enemy. They have
vowed destruction and have not hesitated to take the name of God and
seek divine assistance for the destruction of the enemy. We in India
have endeavored to reverse the process. We feel that the law that
governs brute creation is not the law that should guide the human
race. That law is inconsistent with human dignity.
I, personally, would wait, if need be, for ages rather than seek
to attain the freedom of my country through bloody means. I feel in
the innermost of my heart, after a political extending, over an
unbroken period of, close upon thirty-five years, that the world is
sick unto death of blood spilling. The world is seeking a way out,
and I flatter myself with the belief that perhaps it will be the
privilege of the ancient land of India to show the way out to the
hungering world.
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――
甘地（1869－1948），印度民族运动领袖。毕业于英国伦敦大学。1893年在南非进行反种族歧视斗争，多次被捕。第一次世界大战后返回印度，倡导对英国殖民政府“非暴力不合作运动”，曾两度出任国民大党主席，主张印度教徒和伊斯兰教徒团结，反对歧视妇女和贱民。二战后反对英国对印度和巴基斯坦分治，被一名狂热的印度教徒枪杀。毕生为印度的独立而斗争，获得了人们的广泛尊敬，被尊称为“圣雄”。
此篇文章是他1931年受英国BBC电台之邀所发表的演说。
―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――― 美国呼吁
[印度] 莫罕达斯.卡拉姆纪德.甘地
在我看来，印度为争取自由的斗争不仅影响到印度和英国，而且影响了整个世界。她有着世界五分之一的人口，她代表了最古老的文明之一。她拥有流传了数万年的传统，并让世界感到惊奇的是，其中一些至今依然是完好无损的。当然，和其它文明和传统一样，印度文明的纯净也遭到了时光的侵蚀。
如果印度想恢复她古老的荣誉的话，只有当她获得自由了才能做到。我知道，世人的目光被这场印度人争取自由的斗争所吸引，不在于我们争取自由这件事，而在于我们为争取自由所采取的独特方式。从历史来看，并无记载有民族曾经采取过这种方式。
我们采取的方式不是暴力，不是流血，不是大家现在所熟知的手段，而是完全的、简单的理智和非暴力，所以并不奇怪世界的目光会被这种旨在一场无流血牺牲的成功革命的尝试所吸引。而迄今为止，人们仍然以野蛮动物的方式进行斗争，对他们所认定的敌人实行报复惩罚。
翻开一些大国的国歌，我们都会发现有诅咒所谓敌人的内容。他们发誓要消灭敌人，也毫不迟疑地以上帝的名义，并乞求神灵的帮助来消灭他们的敌人。而我们在印度的人努力使用相反的方法。我们觉得支配野蛮动物界的法则并不应该支配人类，因为那违背了人类的高贵本质。
如果需要的话，我自己情愿等待很多年，而不是用流血牺牲的手段来使我的国家获得自由。35年连续不断的政治生涯使我从内心深处由衷感受到，人类已对血肉横飞深恶痛绝，人类需要一种新的方式，我自以为，古老的印度大陆或许拥有为饥渴的人类展现这种新方式的优先权。
2011年12月11日 00:00
25、佚名：The Choice of Companion
Anonymous
A good companion is better than a fortune, for a fortune cannot
purchase those elements of character which make companionship a
blessing. The best companion is one who is wiser and better than
ourselves, for we are inspired by his wisdom and virtue to nobler
deeds. Greater wisdom and goodness than we possess lifts us higher
mentally and morally.
“A man is known by the companion he keeps.” It is always true.
Companionship of a high order is powerful to develop character.
Character makes character in the associations of life faster than
anything else. Purity begets purity, like begets like; and this fact
makes the choice of companion in early life more important even than
that of teachers and guardians
It is true that we cannot always choose all of our companions,
some are thrust upon us by business or the social relations of life,
we do not choose them, we do not enjoy them; and yet, we have to
associate with them more or less. The experience is not altogether
without compensation, if there be principle enough in us to bear the
strain. Still, in the main, choice of companions can be made, and
must be made. It is not best or necessary for a young person to
associate with “Tom, Dick, and Harry” without forethought or
purpose. Some fixed rules about the company he or she keeps must be
observed. The subject should be uttermost in the thoughts, and
canvassed often
Companionship is education, good or not; it develops manhood or
womanhood, high or low; it lifts soul upward or drags it downward;
it minister to virtue or vice. There is no half way work about its
influence. If it ennobles, it does grandly, if it demoralizes, it
doest it devilishly. It saves or destroys lustily. Nothing in the
world is surer than this. Sow virtue, and the harvest will be
virtue, Sow vice, and the harvest will be vice. Good companionships
help us to sow virtue; evil companionships help us to sow vice.
―――――――――――
择友
佚名
一个好友胜过一笔财富。人性中有一些品质会让友谊变成一种幸福的事，而金钱买不到这些品质。最好的朋友是那些比我们更睿智和更出色的人，他们的智慧和美德会激发我们去做更高尚的事情。他们有着比我们更多的智慧和更高尚的情操，可以在精神上和道德上将我们带入一个新的境界。
“观其友而知其人”，这句话总是对的。高层次的交往会有力地塑造一个人的性情。在交往中，品性对品性的影响胜过其它任何因素。纯洁的品格会培养纯洁的品格，爱好会引发相同的爱好。这些表明，在年少时，选择朋友甚至比选择老师和监护人还要重要。
不可否认，有些朋友总是我们不能选择的。有些是工作和社会关系强加于我们的。我们没有选择他们，也不喜欢他们，可是我们不得不或多或少地与他们交往。不过，只要我们心中有足够的原则来承担压力，与他们交往也并非毫无益处。在大多数情况下，我们还是可以选择朋友的，而且，必须选择。一个年轻人毫无前瞻性，也无目的性地随意与张三李四交往，是不好的，也是没必要的。他必须遵守一些确定的交友原则，应当把它们摆在心中最高的位置，并经常加以审视。
无论是有益的还是有害的友谊，都是一种教导。它可以培育或是高贵，或是卑微的品格；它可以使灵魂升华，也可以使之堕落；它可以滋生美德，也可以催生邪恶；它的影响没有折中之道：如果它让人高尚，就会用一种无比高贵的方式，如果让人堕落，也会用一种无比邪恶的方式。它可以有力地拯救一个人，也可以轻易地毁掉一个人。播种美德，就会收获美德；播种邪恶，就会收获邪恶，这是非常确定的，而有益的友谊帮我们播种美德，有害的友谊则支使我们撒下邪恶的种子。
2011年12月18日 00:00
26、佚名：The Wholeness of Life
Anonymous
Once a circle missed a wedge. The circle wanted to be whole, so it
went around looking for its missing piece. But because it was
incomplete and therefore could roll only very slowly, it admired the
flowers along the way. It chatted with worms. It enjoyed the
sunshine. It found lots of different pieces, but none of them fit.
So it left them all by the side of the road and kept on searching.
Then one day the circle found a piece that fit perfectly. It was so
happy. Now it could be whole, with nothing missing. It incorporated
the missing piece into itself and began to roll. Now that it was a
perfect circle, it could roll very fast, too fast to notice flowers
or talk to the worms. When it realized how different the world
seemed when it rolled so quickly, it stopped, left its found piece
by the side of the road and rolled slowly away.
The lesson of the story, I suggested, was that in some strange
sense we are more whole when we are missing something. The man who
has everything is in some ways a poor man. He will never know what
it feels like to yearn, to hope, to nourish his soul with the dream
of something better. He will never know the experience of having
someone who loves him give him something he has always wanted or
never had.
There is a wholeness about the person who has come to terms with
his limitations, who has been brave enough to let go of his
unrealistic dreams and not feel like a failure for doing so. There
is a wholeness about the man or woman who has learned that he or she
is strong enough to go through a tragedy and survive, she can lose
someone and still feel like a complete person.
Life is not a trap set for us by God so that he can condemn us for
failing. Life is not a spelling bee, where no matter how many words
you’ve gotten right, you’re disqualified if you make one mistake.
Life is more like a baseball season, where even the best team loses
one third of its games and even the worst team has its days of
brilliance. Our goal is to win more games than we lose. When we
accept that imperfection is part of being human, and when we can
continue rolling through life and appreciate it, we will have
achieved a wholeness that others can only aspire to. That, I
believe, is what God asks of us --- not “Be perfect”, not “Don’t
even make a mistake”, but “Be whole”.
If we are brave enough to love, strong enough to forgive, generous
enough to rejoice in another’s happiness, and wise enough to know
there is enough love to go around for us all, then we can achieve a
fulfillment that no other living creature will ever know.
―――――――――――
人生的完整
佚名
从前有个圆圈，它丢失了一小段。它想变得完整，于是它到处寻找它所丢失的那部分。由于不完整，它只能滚的非常慢。在路上，它羡慕过花儿，它与虫子聊过天，它享受了阳光的照耀。它遇到过很多不同的小段，可是没有一个适合它。所以它把它们丢在路边，继续寻找。有一天，圆圈找到了可以与它完美结合的一小段，它非常高兴。它现在终于完整了，不缺任何东西了。它把丢失的那段装到自己身上，然后滚了起来。它现在是个完整的圆圈了，它可以滚的很快，，快到忽视了花儿，快到没有时间和虫子们说话。当它意识到由于它滚的太快，世界变得如此的不同时，它便停了下来，把找到的那段卸下丢在路边，慢慢地滚走了。
我想这个故事告诉我们，从某种奇怪的意义上说，当我们缺少什么东西时，我们反而是更完整的。一个拥有一切的人在某些方面也是个穷人，他永远不会知道什么是渴望、什么是期待；永远不知道用渴求更美好的东西来充实他的灵魂。他永远不会知道一个爱他人送给他一样他所梦寐以求的东西时是怎样的一种感觉。
人生的完整性，在于接受自己的缺陷，勇敢地丢弃不切实际的幻想，并且不觉得这样做是失败的；人生的完整性，在于知道自己足够强大，可以承受人生的苦难，可以在失去一个人时仍然觉得自己是完整的。
生活并不是上帝为了谴责我们的缺陷而设下的陷阱。人生也不是一场拼字比赛，无论你拼出了多少单词，只要拼错了一个你就前功尽弃了。人生更像一个棒球赛季，最好的球队也会丢掉三分之一的比赛，而最差的球队也有辉煌的胜利。我们的目标是让打赢的比赛比输掉的比赛多。当我们接受了“不完整性”是人生的一部分时，当我们在人生之路上不断前进并且欣赏生命之美时，我们就获得了别人只能渴望的完整的人生。我相信这就是上帝对我们的期望：不求“完美”，也不求“从来不犯错误”，而是追求人生的“完整”。
如果我们有足够的勇气去爱，足够强大的力量去原谅别人，足够的宽容因别人的快乐而快乐，并有足够的智慧去认识到我们身边充满着爱，我们就会得到其它生命所得不到的一种满足感。
2011年12月25日 00:00
27、白居易：琵琶行并序
琵琶行并序
元和十年，予左迁九江郡司马。明年秋，送客 湓浦口，闻船中夜弹琵琶者，听其音，铮铮然有京都声；问其人，本长安倡女，尝学琵琶于穆曹二善才。年长色衰，委身为贾人妇。遂命 酒，使快弹数曲，曲罢悯然。自叙少小时欢乐事，今漂沦憔悴，转徙于江湖间。予出官二年恬然自安，感斯人言，是夕，始觉有迁谪意， 因为长句歌以赠之，凡六百一十六言，命曰琵琶行。
浔言江头夜送客， 枫叶荻花秋瑟瑟。
主人下马客在船， 举酒欲饮无管弦。
醉不成欢惨将别， 别时茫茫江浸月。
忽闻水上琵琶声， 主人忘归客不发。
寻声暗问弹者谁？ 琵琶声停欲语迟。
移船相近邀相见， 添酒回灯重开宴。
千呼万唤始出来， 犹抱琵琶半遮面。
转轴拨弦三两声， 未成曲调先有情。
弦弦掩抑声声思， 似诉平生不得志。
低眉信手续续弹， 说尽心中无限事。
轻拢慢捻抹复挑， 初为霓裳后六么。
大弦嘈嘈如急雨， 小弦切切如私语。
嘈嘈切切错杂弹， 大珠小珠落玉盘。
间官莺语花底滑， 幽咽泉流水下滩。
水泉冷涩弦凝绝， 凝绝不通声渐歇。
别有幽愁暗恨生， 此时无声胜有声。
银瓶乍破水浆迸， 铁骑突出刀枪鸣。
曲终收拨当心画， 四弦一声如裂帛。
东船西舫悄无言， 唯见江心秋月白。
沉吟放拨插弦中， 整顿衣裳起敛容。
自言本是京城女， 家在虾蟆陵下住。
十三学得琵琶成， 名属教坊第一部。
曲罢曾教善才服， 妆成每被秋娘妒，
五陵年少争缠头， 一曲红绡不知数。
钿头银篦击节碎， 血色罗裙翻酒污。
今年欢笑复明年， 秋月春风等闲度。
弟走从军阿姨死， 暮去朝来颜色故。
门前冷落车马稀， 老大嫁作商人妇。
商人重利轻别离， 前月浮梁买茶去。
去来江口守空船， 绕船月明江水寒。
夜深忽梦少年事， 梦啼妆泪红阑干，
我闻琵琶已叹息， 又闻此语重唧唧。
同是天涯沦落人， 相逢何必曾相识。
我从去年辞帝京， 谪居卧病浔阳城。
浔阳地僻无音乐， 终岁不闻丝竹声。
住近湓江地低湿， 黄芦苦竹绕宅生。
其间旦暮闻何物， 杜鹃啼血猿哀鸣。
春江花朝秋月夜， 往往取酒还独倾。
岂无山歌与村笛？ 呕哑嘲哳难为听。
今夜闻君琵琶语， 如听仙乐耳暂明。
莫辞更坐弹一曲， 为君翻作琵琶行。
感我此言良久立， 却坐促弦弦转急。
凄凄不似向前声， 满座重闻皆掩泣。
座中泣下谁最多， 江州司马青衫湿。
Seven-character-ancient-verse
Bai Chuyi
2012年1月1日 00:00
28、非马：CITY WINDOWS
都市的窗
非马
窗口越高
面孔
越小
越苍白
每次打下面走过
总会头皮发麻
宿命地等待
一口痰
一个烟蒂
一只花钵
或一个
把双臂张得开开
学鸟飞
的
人
CITY WINDOWS
William Marr
the higher the window
the smaller
and paler
the face
every time I pass underneath
I always have a funny feeling
something is going to land on my head
a spit
a cigarette butt
a flower pot
or a man
spreading his arms
learning to fly
like a bird
［简评］“每次打下面走过”中的“打”字，一如郑愁予《错误》首行“我打江南走过”中的“打”字，属颇堪玩味而拒绝英译之字。“或一个／把双臂张得开开／学鸟飞／的／人”，不乏幽默。都市窗口苍白的面孔，或暗示对当代都市的不满：在高楼万丈到处平地而起的同时，似乎都市的人性或人文关怀，却在逐渐丧失。至少，小诗表达了对都市文明的冷静反思。比照双语，“总会头皮发麻”对应I always have a funny feeling; “宿命地等待”对应something is going to land on my head: 双语字面并非对等，而是深层次的另类表述。余皆大体对应对等，只是英诗比之汉诗，少了一行，也就少了点汉诗模仿鸟飞的形美。
（张智中）
2012年1月8日 00:00
29、莎拉.蒂斯代尔： February
February 二月
Sara Teasdale 莎拉.蒂斯代尔
They spoke of him I love 他们说着我爱的他，
With cruel words and gay; 言辞尖刻，说得神采奕奕；
My lips kept silent guard 我双唇紧闭，一言不发，
On all I could not say. 守着不能说的秘密。
I heard, and down the street 我听到，街道那头，
The lonely trees in the square 广场上那些孤独的树
Stood in the winter wind 立在寒风里，
Patient and bare. 耐心、荒芜。
I heard...oh voiceless trees 我听到...无言的树啊，
Under the wind, I knew 在风里，我能看见
The eager terrible spring 藏在你们心里
Hidden in you. 那迫切逼人的春天。
2012年1月15日 00:00
30、王顺彬：母亲的针
母亲的针
转瞬间，母亲的针就老了
老在
白发的路上
老了，针像母亲一样老了
但针的身子骨
依旧硬朗，针的口气依旧清新
针与母亲的对视
依旧保持着透彻的光芒
母亲的针，流过泪，流过血
但从不呻吟
母亲的针，扎亮过闪电，扎亮过暴雨
针一样的母亲
宁折不屈
母亲的针下，盛开过形形色色的花朵
即是悲哀也显得芳香
她绣出的鱼儿
生有天空的鳞，她绣出的鸟声
常常将老房子叫醒
我的衣上缝满了母亲的叮嘱
一针一线
都可牵出游子的恋歌
再猛的风
也吹不散母亲给我的温暖
母亲的针缝补着我家粗糙的岁月
最小的针孔，容进了世上
最浩大的母爱
我和姐妹一生一世
就在这明亮的针孔里敷衍生息
转瞬间，母亲的针真的老了
但母亲
仍像针一样站着，仍像针一样亮着
Mother’s Needle
In a blink, Mother’s needle is old
Old now
On the way of gray hair
Old, the needle is old like Mother
But the body of the needle
Is still healthy; the tone of the needle is still unblunted
The reciprocal gaze between the needle and Mother
Still retains penetrating rays of light
Mother’s needle has ever shed tears and blood
But it never groans
Mother’s needle has ever pricked lightnings and rainstorms
Needle-like Mother would rather
Break than yield
Beneath Mother’s needle, there bloomed various flowers
Which are fragrant though melancholy
The fish embroidered by her
Carry skiey squama, and the bird twitter from her needle
Often awakens the old house
In my clothes are sewed Mother’s exhortations
Stitch by stitch
All solicit roamer’s song
Any fiece wind
Fails to blow away Mother’s warmth to me
Mother’s needle is sewing the coarse years in my family
The minutest pinhole, contains the greatest
Maternal love in the world
My sisters and I are born to grow
In this bright pinhole all our lives
In a blink, Mother is really old
But Mother
Is still standing like a needle, and bright like a needle
（来源：张智中博客）
2012年1月25日 00:00
