《莎士比亚戏剧集序言》翻译

1. Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. I shall shew them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious malignity or superstitious veneration. No question can be more innocently discussed than a dead poets pretensions to renown; and little regard is due to that bigotry which sets candour higher than truth.莎士比亚的作品纵然出类拔萃，但也同样有缺点，而且这些缺点足以掩盖和碾压任何其他优点。我将如实地说出我对它们的看法，不恶意中伤，也不迷信崇拜。没有什么问题能比讨论一个已故作家的身后之名更加无罪的了；此外，将直率看得比真相更重要这种偏执，也不会赢得什么敬佩。2.His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any moral purpose. From his writings indeed a system of social duty may be selected, for he that thinks reasonably must think morally; but his precepts and axioms drop casually from him; he makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to shew in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, and leaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writers duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independant on time or place.他的第一个缺点是在书中或在人身上的大多数罪恶可能发生的根源。他为了方便而牺牲美德，更用心于取悦他人而疏于教化，他的写作似乎没有任何道德目的。从他的著作中，倒是可以筛选出一套社会义务，因为他认为理性的思考必须建立在道德的考量上;但他的训词和公理只是他的随口一说；他既没有公正地分配善与恶，也不总是谨慎地通过善来表达对恶的蔑视；他漠然地在是非之间塑造他的人物，并在最后不加关心地将他们消解掉，留他们来待人解读。他的这个缺点不能因他处在那个野蛮时代而掩盖；因为作家总是有责任让这个世界变得更美好，而且正义是一种不拘于时间或地域的美德。3.The plots are often so loosely formed, that a very slight consideration may improve them, and so carelessly pursued, that he seems not always fully to comprehend his own design. He omits opportunities of instructing or delighting which the train of his story seems to force upon him, and apparently rejects those exhibitions which would be more affecting, for the sake of those which are more easy.他作品的情节常常组织地十分松散，以至小费心思就能使它们得到改善，情节开展得也太过漫不经心，他似乎并不总是充分理解他自己的谋篇布局。故事的发展为他提供了教化或取悦读者的机会，他却忽略这些机会。虽说这些机会本会让他的描写更为感人，他却显然地拒绝以此来大显身手，转而关注那些比较容易描写的场面。4.It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and, in view of his reward, he shortened the labour, to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented.人们或许可以注意到，他许多剧本的后半部分显然被他忽视了。当他发现作品将至尾声之时，面对近在眼前的报酬，他会为了攫取利润而偷工减料。他因此在最应该发挥他写作激情的地方懈怠了，使他的悲剧的收尾不那么真实，或没有得到完美的呈现。5.He had no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to one age or nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions of another, at the expence not only of likelihood, but of possibility. These faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, to transfer to his imagined in interpolators. We need not wonder to find Hector quoting Aristotle, when we see the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothic mythology of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only violator of chronology, for in the same age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning, has, in his “Arcadia”, confounded the pastoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet and security, with those of turbulence, violence and adventure.他没有考虑时空的差异，毫无顾忌地将一个时代或者国家的风俗习惯，社会体系，意见主张强加到另一个时代或国家上，不仅违反了似然率，也牺牲了可能性。蒲柏怀以热忱而非明断的态度，强行设想莎士比亚的作品有篡改者，并将这些缺点推诿给了他们。当我们看到忒修斯和希波吕忒的爱情与哥特仙女神话结合在一起时，我们就不必因为赫克托引用了亚里士多德的话而感到惊奇。实际上，莎士比亚并不是唯一一个违背年代顺序的人，与他同时代的西德尼，虽说学识深厚，在他的阿卡迪亚中，也将田园生活的那些天真，安宁的日子与动荡，暴力和冒险的封建时代混于一处。6.In his comick scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations of smartness and contest of sarcasm; their jests are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious; neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are sufficiently distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not very elegant. There must, however, have been always some modes of gayety preferable to others, and a writer ought to chuse the best.当莎士比亚让他的角色互耍聪明，展开相互挖苦的竞争时，他的喜剧场面少有很成功的；这些角色的玩笑往往是粗俗的，他们的幽默往往是淫秽的；他笔下的绅士或淑女都不够优雅，不足以通过他们的有教养的举止将他们与他笔下的小丑们区分开。我们很难判断莎士比亚所展现的是不是他那个时代人们的真实谈话；伊丽莎白时代一般被看作一个庄严，拘谨和矜持的时代，但是或许将这种严苛放松下来就不太体面了。然而，总有一些娱乐方式比其他的更可取，而作家应当选择其中最适宜的。7.In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his labour is more. The effusions of passion which exigence forces out are for the most part striking and energetick; but whenever he solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity.在悲剧中，他投入的精力更多，他的表现似乎常常更差。他在危急时刻因受逼迫而喷发出的激情，整个来说是鲜明的，有力的。但每当他刻意求新，或竭尽全力时，他苦心孕育出的成果却是臃肿，低劣，沉闷而晦涩的。8.In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and a wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few. Narration in dramatick poetry is, naturally tedious, as it is unanimated and inactive, and obstructs the progress of the action; it should therefore always be rapid, and enlivened by frequent interruption. Shakespeare found it an encumbrance, and instead of lightening it by brevity, endeavoured to recommend it by dignity and splendour.在叙述时，他措辞过于浮华，一系列迂回累赘的话语令人生厌；本来寥寥数语就能说清的事他却大费篇章。诗剧里的叙事本就乏味，因为它毫无生气，阻碍了情节的发展；因此叙事总需要紧凑些，常常加入些波折来活跃气氛。莎士比亚发现叙事是一种负担，可他不会简化它使之变得明快，而是努力通过庄严华丽来让它吸引人。9.His declamations or set speeches are commonly cold and weak, for his power was the power of nature; when he endeavoured, like other tragick writers, to catch opportunities of amplification, and instead of inquiring what the occasion demanded, to show how much his stores of knowledge could supply, he seldom escapes without the pity or resentment of his reader.他的演说或致辞一般都冷淡而又无力，因为他长于描写自然；当他像其他悲剧作家一样，竭力抓住详述的机会，不去追问这个场合是否需要，以此来卖弄他的学问时，他难以逃过读者的遗憾与愤恨。10.It is incident to him to be now and then entangled with an unwieldy sentiment, which he cannot well express, and will not reject; he struggles with it a while, and if it continues stubborn, comprises it in words such as occur, and leaves it to be disentangled and evolved by those who have more leisure to bestow upon it.莎士比亚难免面对这种情况：他时不时地与一种难以控制的感情纠缠在一起，不能将此很好地表达出来，也不想将其舍弃；他与之苦斗一段时间，如果这种情况还是不能得到解决，他就用几个词敷衍搪塞，留给那些有闲心的读者去理清和演绎。11.Not that always where the language is intricate the thought is subtle, or the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality of words to things is very often neglected, and trivial sentiments and vulgar ideas disappoint the attention, to which they are recommended by sonorous epithets and swelling figures.并非总是语言复杂的地方，它的思想就是微妙的；也并非总是情节庞杂的地方，它的想象就是精妙的；言语与事物本身的平等常常被人忽视，琐碎的情感和庸俗的观念让人们失望，虽然这些作品被响亮的名号和膨胀的数据所推崇。12.But the admirers of this great poet have never less reason to indulge their hopes of supreme excellence, than when he seems fully resolved to sink them in dejection, and mollify them with tender emotions by the fall of greatness, the danger of innocence, or the crosses of love. He is not long soft and pathetick without some idle conceit, or contemptible equivocation. He no sooner begins to move, than he counteracts himself; and terrour and pity, as they are rising in the mind, are checked and blasted by sudden frigidity.可是对于这位伟大诗人的仰慕者们来说，相比当他似乎下定决心让他们沉浸于沮丧，并带着温情用伟大的堕落，无知的危险或爱情的磨难来安抚他们时，他们从来没有理由沉溺于所他们希望的至高至美。莎士比亚不带虚妄的自负，所以不矫情做作，也不说那些可鄙的含糊话。他一开始行动就对抗自己；当恐惧和怜悯出现在脑海，它们就会被瞬间的冷静抑制和击溃。13.A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures, it is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible. Whatever be the dignity or profundity of his disquisition, whether he be enlarging knowledge or exalting affection, whether he be amusing attention with incidents, or enchaining it in suspense, let but a quibble spring up before him, and he leaves his work unfinished. A quibble is the golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation. A quibble poor and barren as it is, gave him such delight, that he was content to purchase it, by the sacrifice of reason, propriety and truth. A quibble was to him the fatal Cleopatra for which he lost the world, and was content to lose it.双关语之于莎士比亚，好比清晰可见的蒸汽之于旅行者；在莎士比亚所有的历险中，他都追随着双关语，它一定会将他引入歧途，让他陷入泥沼。双关语对莎士比亚的思维有一种恶性的力量，它的魅力是无法抗拒的。无论莎士比亚的研究是庄重还是深奥，无论他是在扩宽知识面还是陶冶情操，无论他是用小插曲逗趣儿还是利用悬疑来吸引注意，只要一个双关语涌现在他的脑海，就会让他的作品虎头蛇尾。双关语对莎士比亚来说好比是一个金苹果，为了它他愿意背离自己的事业，从自己的高位堕落。尽管贫乏无益，双关语却给了莎士比亚快乐，让他满足于获得它，甚至为此牺牲理性，礼节和真理。双关语就像莎士比亚命中注定的克丽奥佩拉，他会因它失了全世界，但却甘于如此。14.It will be thought strange, that, in enumerating the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities; his violation of those laws which have been instituted and established by the joint authority of poets and of criticks.对于枚举莎士比亚的缺点，我还没有提到他对三一律的忽视，这会让大家感到奇怪；他对这一规则的违反已经被一系列有权威的诗人和批评家提出和指正了。15.For his other deviations from the art of writing, I resign him to critical justice, without making any other demand in his favour, than that which must be indulged to all human excellence; that his virtues be rated with his failings: But, from the censure which this irregularity may bring upon him, I shall, with due reverence to that learning which I must oppose, adventure to try how I can defend him.对于莎士比亚对写作艺术的其他偏离，我把他交给批判性的正义，除了那些必须为人类的所有优秀品质所宽容的要求之外，没有对他提出任何其他要求；他的优点可与他的缺点相提而论：但是，由违反三一律所带来的责难，出于对学问的敬意，我必须反对，并冒险尝试为他辩护。16.His histories, being neither tragedies nor comedies, are not subject to any of their laws; nothing more is necessary to all the praise which they expect, than that the changes of action be so prepared as to be understood, that the incidents be various and affecting, and the characters consistent, natural and distinct. No other unity is intended, and therefore none is to be sought.他的历史剧既非悲剧也非喜剧，不受任何规则的约束；对他们期望的所有赞美来说，情节的变化完备能被理解，插曲多样而又感染力，角色连贯自然且各具特色，这些赞美是最为必要的。这些作品没有其他统一的意图，因此也不会寻求任何统一。17.In his other works he has well enough preserved the unity of action. He has not, indeed, an intrigue regularly perplexed and regularly unravelled; he does not endeavour to hide his design only to discover it, for this is seldom the order of real events, and Shakespeare is the poet of nature: But his plan has commonly what Aristotle requires, a beginning, a middle, and an end; one event is concatenated with another, and the conclusion follows by easy consequence. There are perhaps some incidents that might be spared, as in other poets there is much talk that only fills up time upon the stage; but the general system makes gradual advances, and the end of the play is the end of expectation.在他的其他作品中，他充分保存了行动的一致性。事实上，他没有那种经常使人疑惑或悬而未决的密谋：他并不竭力去隐藏他的构思而只是去发掘它，因为这很少是真实事件的规则，而莎士比亚是自然的诗人：但他的写作计划一般都符合亚里士多德的要求：故事的开头，正文和结尾；一个事件串联着另一个事件，结论很容易得出。也许有些事件可以避免的，就像在其他诗人的戏剧中，有很多谈话只是为了在舞台上填满时间；但是总的体系在逐渐地进步，戏剧的结尾就是期待的结局。18.To the unities of time and place he has shewn no regard, and perhaps a nearer view of the principles on which they stand will diminish their value, and withdraw from them the veneration which, from the time of Corneille, they have very generally received by discovering that they have given more trouble to the poet, than pleasure to the auditor.对于时间和地点的一致性，他没有给予任何考虑，或许更近地审视他们所坚守的原则会贬低他们的价值，会让他们不再尊崇从高乃依时代以来他们普遍接受的观念，因为他们发现这些原则给诗人带来的麻烦比给观众带来的快乐更多。19.The necessity of observing the unities of time and place arises from the supposed necessity of making the drama credible. The criticks hold it impossible, that an action of months or years can be possibly believed to pass in three hours; or that the spectator can suppose himself to sit in the theatre, while ambassadors go and return between distant kings, while armies are levied and towns besieged, while an exile wanders and returns, or till he whom they saw courting his mistress, shall lament the untimely fall of his son. The mind revolts from evident falsehood, and fiction loses its force when it departs from the resemblance of reality.遵守时间和地点一致性的必要性源于所谓的戏剧可信度的必要性。批评者们认为，一个需要长达几个月或几年时间才能完成的情节，把它压缩成三个小时是不切实际的；或者观众可以假设自己单单坐在剧场里，就见证了此时大使们在相隔遥远的王国之间往返穿梭；征兵；围城；流放者浪迹天涯后又归来；抑或是他们见到了本应哀悼儿子早逝他正在取悦情妇。思维厌恶这种明显的谎言，当虚构脱离实际，就会失去它的力量。20.From the narrow limitation of time necessarily arises the contraction of place. The spectator, who knows that he saw the first act at Alexandria, cannot suppose that he sees the next at Rome, at a distance to which not the dragons of Medea could, in so short a time, have transported him; he knows with certainty that he has not changed his place; and he knows that place cannot change itself; that what was a house cannot become a plain; that what was Thebes can never be Persepolis.时间的限制必然会引起空间的收缩。作为观众，他知道第一幕发生在亚历山大，却不能想象下一幕已经转换到了罗马，连美狄亚的龙也不可能将他在这么短的时间内送到那么远的地方。观众肯定知道自己的位置没有改变；观众也知道不可能是位置本身改变了；一所房子不可能变成一片平原；底比斯不可能变成波斯波利斯。21.Such is the triumphant language with which a critic exults over the misery of an irregular poet, and exults commonly without resistance or reply. It is time therefore to tell him, by the authority of Shakespeare, that he assumes, as an unquestionable principle, a position, which, while his breath is forming it into words, his understanding pronounces to be false. It is false, that any representation is mistaken for reality; that any dramatic fable in its materiality was ever credible, or, for a single moment, was ever credited.这是一种耀武扬威的戏剧理论，评论家借此为一个不守常规的诗人的痛苦而幸灾乐祸，并为通常不会受到抵抗或回击而欢欣鼓舞。因此，现在是时候根据莎士比亚的权威告诉他，他认为是一项毋庸置疑的原则和立场东西，在他还未来得及开口之时，他的理解和认识就已将其否定了。把任何陈述误认为是真实是错误的；任何戏剧性的虚构故事都曾是可信的，或者说，有那么一瞬间，曾是可信的。22.The objection arising from the impossibility of passing the first hour at Alexandria, and the next at Rome, supposes, that when the play opens the spectator really imagines himself at Alexandria, and believes that his walk to the theatre has been a voyage to Egypt, and that he lives in the days of Antony and Cleopatra. Surely he that imagines this, may imagine more. He that can take the stage at one time for the palace of the Ptolemies, may take it in half an hour for the promontory of Actium. Delusion, if delusion be admitted, has no certain limitation; if the spectator can be once persuaded, that his old acquaintance are Alexander and Caesar, that a room illuminated with candles is the plain of Pharsalia, or the bank of Granicus, he is in a state of elevation above the reach of reason, or of truth, and from the heights of empyrean poetry, may despise the circumscriptions of terrestrial nature. There is no reason why a mind thus wandering in extasy should count the clock, or why an hour should not be a century in that calenture of the brains that can make the stage a field.反对的理由起于在亚历山大度过一个小时后又立刻在罗马度过一个小时是不可能的。试想，当一部戏剧开场，观众想象自己置身于亚历山大，并相信他去剧院的路是到埃及的旅程，他生活在安东尼和克丽奥佩拉的时代。毫无疑问，他能够想象到这些，他就可以想象到更多。他能想象自己一度踏上了托勒密宫的台阶，也能以为他有半个小时待在亚克兴角。如果幻想被承认了，它将不受限制；如果观众能够被说服，相信亚历山大和凯撒是他的老熟人，相信用蜡烛照亮的房间是法萨利亚平原，或者格拉尼克斯河河岸，那么他就会处于一种超越理性或真理的境界。他从崇高诗歌的高度来看，就可能会鄙视陆地上的自然。没有理由让一个如此兴奋活跃的大脑来计数时间，也没有理由不让一个能把舞台想象成旷野的发热的头脑去把一个世纪浓缩成一个小时。23.The truth is, that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players. They come to hear a certain number of lines recited with just gesture and elegant modulation. The lines relate to some action, and an action must be in some place; but the different actions that compleat a story may be in places very remote from each other; and where is the absurdity of allowing that space to represent first Athens, and then Sicily, which was always known to be neither Sicily nor Athens, but a modern theatre?事实上，观众们总是有清楚的意识，从第一幕到最后一幕，他们知道舞台只是一个舞台，演员也只是演员而已。他们来是为了听一些带着合理的动作和优雅的调子来背诵的台词。这些台词与一些行动有关，而行动一定是发生在某个地方的；但是完成一个故事的不同行动可能发生在在距彼此非常遥远的地方；既然观众们知道这里是既不是西西里岛也不是雅典的现代剧院，我们允许这个空间首先代表雅典，然后代表西西里岛，这又有什么荒谬之处呢？24.By supposition, as place is introduced, time may be extended; the time required by the fable elapses for the most part between the acts; for, of so much of the action as is represented, the real and poetical duration is the same. If, in the first act, preparations for war against Mithridates are represented to be made in Rome, the event of the war may, without absurdity, be represented, in the catastrophe, as happening in Pontus; we know that there is neither war, nor preparation for war; we know that we are neither in Rome nor Pontus; that neither Mithridates nor Lucullus are before us. The drama exhibits successive imitations of successive actions, and why may not the second imitation represent an action that happened years after the first; if it be so connected with it, that nothing but time can be supposed to intervene? Time is, of all modes of existence, most obsequious to the imagination; a lapse of years is as easily conceived as a passage of hours. In contemplation we easily contract the time of real actions, and therefore willingly permit it to be contracted when we only see their imitation. 通过推测，随着地点的引入，时间可能会被延长；演出戏剧所需要的时间大部分在幕间就流逝了；如此多的行动需要时间得到展现，真实与诗意的留白也是如此。如果在第一幕中，对米特里达特的战争的准备工作是在罗马进行的，要想合理，这场战争可能会像发生在蓬托斯的灾难一样；我们知道，这里既没有战争，也没有为战争做准备；我们知道，我们既不在罗马，也不在蓬托斯；米特里达特和卢库鲁斯都不在我们面前。戏剧展示了对连续行动的连续模仿，为什么第二次模仿不能描绘第一次模仿后几年发生的行动；如果第一次行动与第二次行动之间有如此密切的联系，那么除了时间之外，还有什么可以干涉？在所有的存在方式中，时间是最服从于想象的；岁月的流逝很容易被视为时间的流逝。在沉思中，我们很容易缩短实际行动的时间，因此当我们看戏剧时，我们心甘情愿地允许它的时间被缩短。25.It will be asked, how the drama moves, if it is not credited. It is credited with all the credit due to a drama. It is credited, whenever it moves, as a just picture of a real original; as representing to the auditor what he would himself feel, if he were to do or suffer what is there feigned to be suffered or to be done. The reflection that strikes the