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发表于 2016-7-28 16:08:25
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啊,船长!我的船长!
瓦尔特.惠特曼
啊!般长!我的船长!可怕的航程已完成;
这船历尽风险,企求的目标已达成。
港口在望,钟声响,人们在欢欣。
千万双眼睛注视着船——平稳,勇敢,坚定。
但是痛心啊!痛心!痛心!
瞧一滴滴鲜红的血!
甲板上躺着我的船长,
他倒下去,冰冷,永别。
啊,船长!我的船长!起来吧,倾听钟声;
起来吧,号角为您长鸣,旌旗为您高悬:
迎接您,多少花束花圈——候着您,千万人峰拥岸边;
他们向您高呼,拥来挤去,仰起殷切的脸;
啊,船长!亲爱的父亲!
我的手臂托着您的头!
莫非是一场梦:在甲板上
您倒下去,冰冷,永别。
我的船长不作声,嘴唇惨白,毫不动弹;
我的父亲没感到我的手臂,没有脉搏,没有遗言;
船舶抛锚停下,平安抵达;船程终了;
历经难险返航,夺得胜利目标。
啊,岸上钟声齐鸣,啊,人们一片欢腾!
但是,我在甲板上,在船长身旁,
心悲切,步履沉重;
因为他倒下去,冰冷,永别。
Spring 春
Springs are not always the same. In some years, April bursts upon Virginia hills in one prodigious leap – and all the stage is filled at once, whole choruses of tulips, arabesques of forsythia, cadenzas of flowering plum. The trees grow leaves overnight.
In other years, spring tiptoes in. It pauses, overcome by shyness, like my grandchild at the door, peeping in, ducking out of sight, giggling in the hallway. “I know you’re out there,” I cry. “Come in!” And April slips into our arms.
The dogwood bud, pale green, is inlaid with russet markings. Within the perfect cup a score of clustered seeds are nestled. One examines the bud in awe: Where were those seeds a month ago? The apples display their milliner’s scraps of ivory silk, rose-tinged. All the sleeping things wake up – primrose, baby iris, blue phlox. The earth warms – you can smell it, feel it, crumble April in your hands.
Look to the rue anemone, if you will, or the pea patch, or to the stubborn weed that thrusts its shoulders through a city street. This is how it was, is now, and ever shall be, the world without end. In the serene certainty of spring recurring, who can fear the distant fall?
春不总是千篇一律的。有时候,四月一个健步就跃上了弗吉尼亚的小山丘。顿时,整个舞台活跃起来:郁金香们引吭高歌,连翘花翩翩起舞,梅花表演起了独奏。树木也在一夜之间披上了新绿。
有时候,春又悄然来临。它欲前又止,羞涩腼腆,就像我的小孙女,倚在门口,偷偷往里瞅,又一下子跑开了,不见踪影,从门厅传出她咯咯的笑声。我喊一声:“我知道你在那儿,进来吧!”于是四月便倏地一下飞进我们怀中。
山茱蓃的花骨朵儿嫩绿嫩绿的,镶着赤褐色的花边。在那漂亮的花萼里,竟稳稳地簇拥着十几颗小种子。我们不禁要惊羡地问一句:一个月前这些种子还在哪儿呢?苹果树则像卖帽人,向人们展示他帽子上那一片片微带点玫瑰红地乳白色丝缎。所有熟睡的都醒了——樱草花、小蝴蝶花、蓝夹竹桃。大地也暖和起来了——你可以闻到四月的气息,感觉到它那股馨香,把它捧在手中赏玩。
去看看白头翁花,如果你愿意,再去看看豌豆畦,或是那倔强地手臂伸过城市街道的野花。它们从前是这样,现在是这样,将来还会是这样,这是个永不停息的世界。当我们发现,春已切切实实地回来了,在恬静之中,谁还会害怕遥远的秋天呢?
Of Love 论爱情
The stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury.
舞台上的爱情生活比生活中的爱情要美好得多。因为在舞台上,爱情只是喜剧和悲剧的素材,而在人生中,爱情却常常招来不幸。它有时象那位诱惑人的魔女(1),有时又象那位复仇的女神(2)。
You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent) there is not one, that hath been transported to the mad degree of love: which shows that great spirits, and great business, do keep out this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus Antonius, the half partner of the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius, the decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous man, and inordinate; but the latter was an austere and wise man: and therefore it seems (though rarely) that love can find entrance, not only into an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept.
你可以看到,一切真正伟大的人物(无论是古人、今人,只要是其英名永铭于人类记忆中的),没有一个是因爱情而发狂的人。因为伟大的事业只有罗马的安东尼和克劳底亚是例外(3)。前者本性就好色荒淫,然而后者却是严肃多谋的人。这说明爱情不仅会占领开旷坦阔的胸怀,有时也能闯入壁垒森严的心灵----假如手御不严的话。
It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus; as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet of the eye; which was given him for higher purposes.
埃辟克拉斯(4)曾说过一句笨话:“人生不过是一座大戏台。”似乎本应努力追求高尚事业的人类,却只应象玩偶般地逢场作戏。虽然爱情的奴隶并不同于那班只顾吃喝的禽兽,但毕竟也只是眼目色相的奴隶,而上帝赐人以眼睛本来是有更高尚的用途的。
It is a strange thing, to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature, and value of things, by this; that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole, is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well said, that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self; certainly the lover is more. For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise. Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved; but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciproque. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret contempt.
过度的爱情追求,必然会降低人本身的价值。例如,只有在爱情中,才总是需要那种浮夸陷媚的词令。而在其他场合,同样的词令只能招人耻笑。古人有一句名言:“最大的奉承,人总是留给自己的。”----只有对情人的奉承要算例外。因为甚至最骄傲的人,也甘愿在情人面前自轻自贱。所以古人说得好:“就是神在爱情中也难保持聪明。”情人的这种弱点不仅在外人眼中是明显的,就是在被追求者的眼中也会很明显----除非她(他)也在追求他(她)。所以,爱情的代价就是如此,不能得到回爱,就会得到一种深藏于心的轻蔑,这是一条永真的定律。
By how much the more, men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself! As for the other losses, the poet's relation doth well figure them: that he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas. For whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom.
This passion hath his floods, in very times of weakness; which are great prosperity, and great adversity; though this latter hath been less observed: both which times kindle love, and make it more fervent, and therefore show it to be the child of folly. They do best, who if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarters; and sever it wholly from their serious affairs, and actions, of life; for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men, that they can no ways be true to their own ends.
由此可见,人们应当十分警惕这种感情。因为它不但会使人丧失其他,而且可以使人丧失自己本身。甚至其他方面的损失,古诗人早告诉我们,那追求海伦的人,是放弃了财富和智慧的(5).....。
I know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think, it is but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.
我不懂是什么缘故,使许多军人更容易堕入情网,也许这正象他们嗜爱饮酒一样,是因为危险的生活更需要欢乐的补偿。
There is in man's nature, a secret inclination and motion, towards love of others, which if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometime in friars.
人心中可能普遍具有一种博爱倾向,若不集中于某个专一的对象身上,就必然施之于更广泛的大众,使他成为仁善的人,象有的僧侣那样。
Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth, and embaseth it.
夫妻的爱,使人类繁衍。朋友的爱,给人以帮助。但那荒淫纵欲的爱,却只会使人堕落毁灭啊!
附注:
(1) 古希腊神话,传说地中海有魔女,歌喉动听,诱使过往船只陷入险境。
(2) 原文为“Flries”,传说中的地狱之神。
(3) 安东尼,恺撒部将。后因迷恋女色而战败被杀。克劳底亚,古罗马执政官,亦因好色而被杀。
(4) 埃辟克拉斯(前342--前270年),古罗马哲学家。
(5) 古希腊神话,传说天后赫拉,智慧之神密纳发和美神维纳斯,为争夺金苹果,请特洛伊王子评
判。三神各许一愿, 密纳发许以智慧,维纳斯许以美女海伦,天后许以财富。结果王子把金
苹果给了维纳斯。
SHALL WE CHOOSE DEATH? 我们该选择死亡吗?
Bertrand Russell
December 30, 1954
I am speaking not as a Briton, not as a European, not as a member of a western democracy, but as a human being, a member of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts: Jews and Arabs; Indians and Pakistanis; white men and Negroes in Africa; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between communism and anticommunism.
Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but I want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings for the moment and consider yourself only as a member of a biological species which has had a remarkable history and whose disappearance none of us can desire. I shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it. We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps. The question we have to ask ourselves is: What steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all sides?
The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with hydrogen bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old and that, while one atomic bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one hydrogen bomb could obliterate the largest cities such as London, New York, and Moscow. No doubt in a hydrogen-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York, and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially since the Bikini test, that hydrogen bombs can gradually spread destruction over a much wider area than had been supposed. It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 25,000 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radioactive particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish although they were outside what American experts believed to be the danger zone. No one knows how widely such lethal radioactive particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with hydrogen bombs is quite likely to put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many hydrogen bombs are used there will be universal death - sudden only for a fortunate minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration...
Here, then, is the problem which I present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race1 or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war. The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term 'mankind' feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity' And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited. I am afraid this hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use hydrogen bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture hydrogen bombs as soon as war broke out, for if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious...
As geological time is reckoned, Man has so far existed only for a very short period one million years at the most. What he has achieved, especially during the last 6,000 years, is something utterly new in the history of the Cosmos, so far at least as we are acquainted with it. For countless ages the sun rose and set, the moon waxed and waned, the stars shone in the night, but it was only with the coming of Man that these things were understood. In the great world of astronomy and in the little world of the atom, Man has unveiled secrets which might have been thought undiscoverable. In art and literature and religion, some men have shown a sublimity of feeling which makes the species worth preserving. Is all this to end in trivial horror because so few are able to think of Man rather than of this or that group of men? Is our race so destitute of wisdom, so incapable of impartial love, so blind even to the simplest dictates of self-preservation, that the last proof of its silly cleverness is to be the extermination of all life on our planet? - for it will be not only men who will perish, but also the animals, whom no one can accuse of communism or anticommunism.
I cannot believe that this is to be the end. I would have men forget their quarrels for a moment and reflect that, if they will allow themselves to survive, there is every reason to expect the triumphs of the future to exceed immeasurably the triumphs of the past. There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal, as a human being to human beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies before you but universal death.
我不是作为一个英国人、一个欧洲人、一个西方民主国家的一员,而是作为一个人,作为不知是否还能继续生存下去的人类的一员在讲演。世界充满了争斗:犹太人和阿拉伯人;印度人和巴勒斯坦人;非洲的白人和黑人;以及使所有的小冲突都相形见绌的共产主义和反共产主义之间的大搏斗。
差不多每个有政治意识的人都对这类问题怀有强烈的感受;但是我希望你们,如果你们能够的话,把这份感受暂搁一边,并把自己只看作一种具有非凡历史、谁也不希望它灭亡的生物的一员。可能会迎合一群人而冷落另一群人的词语,我将努力一个字都不说。所有的人,不分彼此,都处在危险之中;如果大家都看到了这种危险,那么就有希望联合起来避开它。我们必须学习新的思想方法。我们必须学习不自问能采取什么措施来使我们所喜欢的人群获得军事上的胜利,因为不再有这样的措施。我们必须自问的问题是:能采取什么措施来避免必然会给各方造成灾难的军事竞赛?
普通群众,甚至许多当权人士,不清楚一场氢弹战所包含的会是什么。普通群众仍旧从城市的毁灭上思考问题。不言而喻,新炸弹比旧炸弹更具威力——一颗原弹能毁灭广岛,而一颗氢弹能毁灭像伦敦、纽约和菲斯科这样的大都市。毫无疑问,一场氢弹战将会毁灭大城市。但这只是世界必须面对的小灾难中的一个。假如化敦人、纽约人和莫斯科人都灭绝了,世界可能要经过几个世纪才能从这场灾难中恢复过来。而我们现在,尤其是从比基尼核试验以来很清楚:氢弹能够逐渐把破坏力扩散到一个比预料要广大得多的地区。据非常权威的人士说,现在能够制造出一种炸弹,其威力比毁灭广岛的炸弹大2.5万倍。这种炸弹如果在近地或水下爆炸,会把放射性微粒送入高层大气。这些微粒逐渐降落,呈有毒灰尘或毒雨的状态到达地球表面。正是这种灰尘使日本渔民和他们所捕获的鱼受到了感染,尽管他们并不在美国专家所确认的危险区之内。没有人知道这种致命的放射性微粒怎么会传播得这么广,但是这个领域的最高权威一致表示:一场氢弹战差不多就是灭绝人类的代名词。如果许多氢弹被使用,死神恐怕就会降临全球——只有少数幸运者才会突然死亡,大多数人却须忍受疾病和解体的慢性折磨……
这里,我要向你提起一个直率的、令人不快而又无法回避的问题:我们该消灭人类,还是人类该抛弃战争?人们不愿面对这个抉择,因为消灭战争太难了。消灭战争要求限制国家主权,这令人反感。然而“人类”这个专门名词给人们的感觉是模糊、抽象的,它可能比任何其他东西都更容易妨碍认识这种形势。人们几乎没有用自己的想象力去认识这种危险不仅指向他们所模模糊糊理解的人类,而且指向他们自己和他们的子子孙孙。于是他们相信只要禁止使用现代武器,也许可以允许战争继续下去。恐怕这个愿望只是幻想。任何不使用氢弹的协定是在和平时期达成的,在战争时期这种协定就被认为是没有约束力的,一旦战争爆发,双方就会着手制造氢弹,因为如果一方制造氢弹而另一方不造的话,造氢弹的一方必然会取胜……
按照地质年代来计算,人类到目前为止只存在了一个极短的时期——最多100万年。在至少就我们所了解的宇宙而言,人类在特别是最近6000年里所达到的认识,在宇宙史上是一些全新的东西。太阳升升落落,月亮盈盈亏亏,夜空星光闪烁,无数岁月就这样过去了,只是到人类出现以后,这些才被理解。在天文学的宏观世界和原子的微观世界,人类揭示了原先可能认为无法提示的秘密。在艺术、文学和宗教领域里,一些人显示了一种崇高的感情,它使人们懂得人类是值得保全的。难道因为很少有人能考虑整个人类多于这个或那个人群,这一切就会在毫无价值的恐怖行动中结束吗?人类是否如此缺少智慧,如此缺少无私的爱,如此盲目,甚至连自我保存的最简单命令都听不见,以致要用灭绝地球上的所有生命来最后证明它那缺乏理智的小聪明?——因为不驻人会被消灭,而且动物也会被消灭,没有人能指责它们是共产主义或反共产主义。
我无法相信结局会是这样。人们如果想让自己生存下去,他们就应暂时忘掉争吵,进行反省,人们有千万条理由期待未来的成就极大地超过以往的成就,如果让我们选择,那么擂在我们面前的有幸福、知识和智慧的持续增长。我们能因为无法忘掉争吵而舍此去选择死亡吗?作为一个人,我向所有的人呼吁:记住你们的人性,忘掉其余的一切。如果你们能这样做,通向一个新的天堂的路就畅通无阻;如果你们做不到这一点,摆在你们面前的就只有全世界的毁灭 |
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