Alexander 英语美文 Sunday, August 01, 2010
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 reverberate 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 would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
三种激情 -----罗素
三种激情虽然简单，却异常强烈，它们统治着我的生命，那便是：对爱的渴望，对知识的追求，以及对人类苦难的难以承受的同情。这三种激情像变化莫测的狂风任意地把我刮来刮去，把我刮入痛苦的深海，到了绝望的边缘。
我曾经寻找爱，首先是因为它能使我欣喜若狂——这种喜悦之情如此强烈，使我常常宁愿为这几个小时的愉悦而牺牲生命中的其他一切。我寻求爱，其次是因为爱能解除孤独——在这种可怕的孤独中，一颗颤抖的良心在世界的边缘，注视着下面冰凉、毫无生气、望不见底的深渊。我寻求爱还因为在爱的融合中，我能以某种神秘的图像看到曾被圣人和诗人想象过的天堂里未来的景象。这就是我所追求的东西，虽然这似乎对于人类的生命来说过于完美，但这确实是我最终发现的东西。 我怀着同样的激情去寻找知识，我曾渴望着理解人心，我曾渴望知道为何星星会闪烁，我还企图弄懂毕达哥拉斯所谓的用数字控制变化的力量，但在这方面，我只知道一点点。
爱的力量和知识的力量引我接近天堂，但同情之心往往又把我拉回大地。痛苦的哭泣回响、震荡在我的心中。饥饿的儿童，被压迫、受折磨的人们，成为儿孙们讨厌的包袱的、无助的老人们，充斥着整个世界的孤独的气氛，贫穷和苦难，所有这一切都是对人类生活原本该具有的样子所作的讽刺。我渴望消除一切邪恶，但我办不到，因为我自己也处于苦难之中。 这就是我的生活，我认为值得一过。而且，如果有第二次机会，我将乐意地再过一次。
Relish the moment
Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent. We are traveling by train. Out the windows, we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls. 拥抱今天
我们的潜意识里藏着一派田园诗般的风光! 我们仿佛身处一次横贯大陆的漫漫旅程之中! 乘着火车, 我们领略着窗外流动的景色：附近高速公路上奔驰的汽车、十字路口处招手的孩童、远山上吃草的牛群、源源不断地从电厂排放出的烟尘、一片片的玉米和小麦、平原与山谷、群山与绵延的丘陵、天空映衬下城市的轮廓, 以及乡间的庄园宅第!
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Alexander 英语美文 Sunday, August 01, 2010
But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour, we will pull into the station. Bands will be playing and flags waving. Once we get there, so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering --waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.
\Mercedes Benz! \I put the last kid through college. \I have paid off the mortgage!\after! \ 然而我们心里想得最多的却是最终的目的地! 在某一天的某一时刻, 我们将会抵达进站! 迎接我们的将是乐队和飘舞的彩旗! 一旦到了那儿, 多少美梦将成为现实, 我们的生活也将变得完整, 如同一块理好了的拼图! 可是我们现在在过道里不耐烦地踱来踱去, 咒骂火车的拖拖拉拉! 我们期待着, 期待着, 期待着火车进站的那一刻!
\当我们到站的时候, 一切就都好了! \我们呼喊着! \当我18岁的时候! \当我有了一辆新450SL奔驰的时候! \当我供最小的孩子念完大学的时候! \当我偿清贷款的时候! \当我官升高任的时候! \当我到了退休的时候, 就可以从此过上幸福的生活啦! \
Sooner or later, we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us. \：24：\day which the Lord hath made；we will rejoice and be glad in it. \drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today. 可是我们终究会认识到人生的旅途中并没有车站, 也没有能够\一到永逸\的地方!生活的真正乐趣在于旅行的过程, 而车站不过是个梦, 它始终遥遥领先于我们!
\享受现在\是句很好的箴言, 尤其是当它与《圣经?诗篇》中第１１８页２４行的一段话相映衬的时候, 更是如此：\今日乃主所创造；生活在今日我们将欢欣、高兴! \真正令人发疯的不是今日的负担, 而是对昨日的悔恨及对明日的恐惧! 悔恨与恐惧是一对孪生窃贼, 将今天从你我身边偷走!
So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. In stead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.
那么就不要在过道里徘徊吧, 别老惦记着你离车站还有多远! 何不换一种活法, 将更多的高山攀爬, 多吃点儿冰淇淋甜甜嘴巴, 经常光着脚板儿溜达溜达, 在更多的河流里畅游, 多看看夕阳西下, 多点欢笑哈哈, 少让泪水滴答! 生活得一边过一边瞧! 车站就会很快到达!By Robert J. Hastings 李端奇译
the Sunshine in Life August has no such advantage.
It comes when we remember nothing but clear skies, Green fields, and sweet-smelling flowers--- when the
Recollection of snow, and ice, and bleak winds, has faded from our Minds as completely as they have disappeared from the earth ---
And yet what a pleasant time it is!
生命中的阳光
八月没有这样的优势。它来的时候，我们只记得 明朗的天空，绿绿的田野，还有芳香四溢的花朵---记
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Alexander 英语美文 Sunday, August 01, 2010
忆中的冰雪、寒风都已完全消失，仿佛它们在地球上 了无踪迹---然而八月是多么愉快地季节啊！
培根论文新选（英汉对照） 译者前言：《培根论文》的译本我至今见过四种译本。它们都是认真的―重译‖，但由于原文难懂更难译，四种译本差别颇大，虽然译文质量各有千秋。我因此也萌发―重译‖的念头。这是本书的第一篇试译稿。诚恳地欢迎读者与专家批评指正。
OF TRUTH (原版原貌)
What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage, to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in these of the ancients. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits, which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour, which men take in finding out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposes upon men‘s thoughts, that doth bring lies in favour; but a natural, though corrupt love, of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians, examineth the matter, and is at a stand, to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie‘s sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth, is a naked, and open day-light, that doth not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs, of the world, half so stately and daintily as
candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl, that shows best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that shows best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Does any man doubt, that if there were taken out of men‘s minds, vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy, vinum daemonum, because it filleth the imagination; and yet it is, but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie, that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in, and settleth in it, that doth the hurt; such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus, in men‘s depraved judgments, and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth, that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it; is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of
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Alexander 英语美文 Sunday, August 01, 2010
the days, was the light of the sense; the last, was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of his spirit. First he breathed light, upon the face, of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light, into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light, into the face of his chosen. The poet, that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the rest, said yet excellently well: ?it is a pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth:‘ (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene;) ?and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below;‘ so always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling, or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man‘s mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
To pass from theological, and philosophical truth, to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear, and round dealing, is the honour of man‘s nature; and that mixture of falsehood, is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding, and crooked courses, are the goings of the serpent; which goes basely upon the belly, and not upon the feet. There is no vice, that doth so cover a man with shame, as to be found false, and perfidious. And therefore Mountaigny saith prettily, when he enquired the reason, why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace, and such an odious charge? saith he, ?If it be well weighed, to lay that a man lieth, is as much to say, as that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards men.‘ For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehoods, and breach of faith, cannot possibly be so highly expressed, as in that it shall be the last peal, to call the judgements of God upon the generations of men, it being foretold, that when Christ cometh, He shall not find faith upon the earth.
OF TRUTH（稍经译者改动）
What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness; and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free will in thinking, as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them, as was in these of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labour which men take in finding out of truth, nor again, that when it is found, it imposes upon men‘s thoughts, that does bring lies in favour;
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Alexander 英语美文 Sunday, August 01, 2010
but a natural, though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians examines the matter, and is at a stand, to think what should be in it, that men should love lies; where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie‘s sake. But I cannot tell; this same truth is a naked and open daylight that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl that shows best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond, or carbuncle, that shows best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie does ever add pleasure. Does any man doubt that if there were taken out of men‘s minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds, of a number of men, poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum, because it fills the imagination; and yet it is, but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passes through the mind, but the lie that sinks in, and settles in it, that does the hurt; such as we spoke of before. But howsoever these things are thus, in men‘s depraved judgments, and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teaches, that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it; is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God, in the works of the days, was the light of the sense; the last, was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work, ever since, is the illumination of his spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breathes and inspires light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect, that was otherwise inferior to the rest, said yet excellently well: ?it is a pleasure, to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle, and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth‘ (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene, ?and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below;‘ so always, that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling, or pride. Certainly, it is heaven upon earth, to have a man‘s mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.
To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business; it will be acknowledged, even by those that practise it not, that clear and round dealing is the honour of man‘s nature; and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver which may make the metal work better, but it embases it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the
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