英语经典美文：从培根到伍尔芙.doc

英语经典美文：从培根到伍尔芙.Of Love - by Francis BaconThe 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。它有时像那位诱惑人的魔女(1)，有时又像那位复仇的女神(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 mans 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谄媚的词令。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 poets 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. 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)。 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 mens 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 mans 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。 .Thoughts in Westminster Abbey by Joseph AddisonWhen I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey, where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tombstones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another: the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who had left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind ofseveral persons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head. The life of these men is finely described in Holy Writ by the path of an arrow, which is immediately closed up and lost. 心情不佳的时候，我是非常经常地独自走在西敏寺里，因为那里的地方之阴暗，以及对阴暗的应用，加上建筑之庄严，以及长眠于此的人们的状况，都易于让头脑充满一种忧郁，更确切地说是充满一种并非令人不快的沉思。昨天，我整个下午都是在教堂墓地、教堂的回廊以及礼拜堂里度过的，用我在死者的那几个地区碰到的墓碑和碑文打发时光。大多数碑文只记录了坟墓中的人生于何日，死于何日：他的人生的整个历史在那两种情况中得到理解，而那两种情况又为所有的人类所共有。我禁不住把对生存的这些注册，看作是对逝者的嘲讽，不管那是用黄铜还是大理石注册下来的，因为除了出生和死去之外，有关他们这些注册并没有留下任何难忘的东西。他们让我想起了在史诗的战斗中提到的几个人，他们拥有人民所给予他们的显赫的名字，这又只是因为他们可能会被杀死，而他们之所以受到歌颂，又只是因为他们的头遭到了打击。这些人的生命，在圣经中被“箭矢的道路”一语精彩地描述了出来，箭矢一飞过去，它在空气中形成的道路也就立即合拢起来，消失了。Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovelful of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the compositionof a human body. Upon this, I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter. 一走进教堂，我便饶有兴味地观看人们挖坟墓；我看到， 每挖出一铁锨，都有骨头或者头颅的碎片与一种新的腐土混杂在一起，而曾几何时，这碎片曾在人体的构成中占据着一个位置。此情此景令我自忖，在这座古老的大教堂的路面底下，不知混乱地埋葬着多少人啊！男人和女人、朋友和敌人、教士和士兵、修道士和受俸牧师，在彼此当中被压碎了，混合成了同一堆东西；而在同一堆混杂的物质里面，美丽、力量和青春，与老年、体弱和残疾并无区别。After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mortality, as it were, in the lump; I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of the monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others soexcessively modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood once in a twelve month. In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed indeed that the present warhad filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean. 在这个古老建筑物的每一个地方都有墓碑竖立，可以说这是一本巨大的死亡杂志，我先是全都大略地看了一下，然后我又根据在几座墓碑上所发现的描述，更加仔细地予以审视。有些墓碑上面覆盖着这样夸张的墓志铭，倘若死者有知，他就会因为朋友们给予他的溢美之词而脸红。还有一些墓志铭又过分地谦虚，因为它们是用希腊文或者希伯来文描述死者的性格，而这样一来，也就一年之内不会有一次被人们所读懂。在诗人角，我发现有些诗人没有墓碑，而有些墓碑的墓主又不是诗人。我确实注意到，当前的这场战争让这座教堂充满了许多这些无主的墓碑，这些墓碑被竖立起来，是为了纪念那些其尸体也许是被埋葬在布莱尼姆平原，或者被埋葬在大海里面的人们。I could not but be very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honour to the living as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a nation, from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius, before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesly Shovels monument has very often given me great offence: instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable tothe monument; for instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honour. The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, show an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness in their buildings and works of this nature, than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their admirals, which have been erected at the public expense, represent them like themselves; and are adorned with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of seaweed, shells, and coral. 我不能不为几篇现代墓志铭感到高兴，它们表达非常高雅，思想非常公正，因而也就既对死者表示了敬意，也对生者表示了敬意。由于外国人往往会根据公开的墓碑和碑文的特色来形成对一个国家是无知还是文雅的一个概念，因而在墓碑和碑文做成之前，应该提交给有学问和有天才的人来仔细推敲。克劳兹利肖维尔爵士的墓碑经常令我非常反感：在他的墓碑上，他不是被展现为那位勇敢彪悍的英国海军上将，这是那位朴素而又勇武的人的特色，而是被展现为一个花花公子的形象，戴着长长的假发，在华丽的罩棚的下面，倚在天鹅绒的靠垫上歇息。碑文与墓碑相称；因为碑文不是赞颂他在祖国服务中所作出的许多引人注目的业绩，而只是使我们了解他的死亡方式，而在他的死亡方式当中他是不可能获得任何荣誉的。我们一向瞧不起荷兰人，认为他们缺少天才，然而在这种性质的建筑和作品中他们所表现出来的古色古香和文雅的趣味，比在我们自己的国家里的那些建筑和作品中所表现的，要多得多。他们的海军上将的墓碑是用公众的钱建起来的，栩栩如生地再现了他们的英姿：头顶军帽，身披战袍，配挂着用水草、贝壳和珊瑚扎成的美丽垂饰。But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our English kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds, and gloomy imaginations; but for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those objects, which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together. 不过还是言归正传吧。英国历代国王的墓地，我打算留待日后再仔细予以考虑。我知道，这种性质的消遣往往会使那些头脑畏怯、想象阴郁的人民产生黑暗而又沮丧的念头；但就我本人而言，尽管我始终是严肃的，我却不知道忧郁为何物；因而我能够持有一种顺其自然的观点，以对待大自然的最快乐最令人高兴的场景的那种愉快心情，来对待大自然的深刻而又庄严肃穆的场景。这样一来，我也就能够用别的人带着恐惧来考虑的那些对象，来改进自己。当我看着这些伟人的坟墓的时候，每一种嫉妒的情感都在我的身上死去了，当我读着美人的墓志铭的时候，每一种超出合理限度的欲望都熄灭了；当我在墓碑上读到父母亲的伤悲的时候，我的心被同情所融化；当我看到父母本人的坟墓的时候，又觉得这种悲伤是虚幻的，因为我们都会步其后尘；我看到国王们与他们的废黜者们躺在一起，当我想到势不两立的才子们并列排在一起，或者那些用其竞争和争端而分裂了世界的圣人们，我就带着悲伤和惊讶反思人类的那些微不足道的竞争、倾轧和争论。我读到这些坟墓上的几个日期，有些人死于昨天，有些人死于六百年前，这时我想到，当我们所有的人都成为同时代的人，并在一起出现的时候，那将是一个多么伟大的日子啊。.A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)Good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse.Whoever makes the fewest persons uneasy is the best bred in the company. As the best law is founded upon reason, so are the best manners. And as some lawyers have introduced unreasonable things into common law, so likewise many teachers have introduced absurd things into common good manners. One principal point of this art is to suit our behaviour to the three several degrees of men; our superiors, our equals, and those below us. For instance, to press either of the two former to eat or drink is a breach of manners; but a farmer or a tradesman must be thus treated, or else it will be difficult to persuade them that they are welcome. Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners; without some one of these defects, no man will behave himself ill for want of experience; or of what, in the language of fools, is called knowing the world. I defy any one to assign an incident wherein reason will not direct us what we are to say or do in company, if we are not misled by pride or ill nature. Therefore I insist that good sense is the principal foundation of good manners; but because the former is a gift which very few among mankind are possessed of, therefore all the civilized nations of the world have agreed upon fixing some rules for common behaviour, best suited to their general customs, or fancies, as a kind of artificial good sense, to supply the defects of reason. Without which the gentlemanly part of dunces would be perpetually at cuffs, as they seldom fail when they happen to be drunk, or engaged in squabbles about women or play. And, God be thanked, there hardly happens a duel in a year, which may not be imputed to one of those three motives. Upon which account, I should be exceedingly sorry to find the legislature make any new laws against the practice of duelling; because the methods are easy and many for a wise man to avoid a quarrel with honour, or engage in it with innocence. And I can discover no political evil in suffering bullies, sharpers, and rakes, to rid the world of each other by a method of their own; where the law hath not been able to find an expedient. As the common forms of good manners were intended for regulating the conduct of those who have weak understandings; so they have been corrupted by the persons for whose use they were contrived. For these people have fallen into a needless and endless way of multiplying ceremonies, which have been extremely troublesome to those who practise them, and insupportable to everybody else: insomuch that wise men are often more uneasy at the over civility of these refiners, than they could possibly be in the conversations of peasants or mechanics. The impertinencies of this ceremonial behaviour are nowhere better seen than at those tables where ladies preside, who value themselves upon account of their good breeding; where a man must reckon upon passing an hour without doing any one thing he has a mind to; unless he will be so hardy to break through all the settled decorum of the family. She determines what he loves best, and how much he shall eat; and if the master of the house happens to be of the same disposition, he proceeds in the same tyrannical manner to prescribe in the drinking part: at the same time, you are under the necessity of answering a thousand apologies for your entertainment. And although a good deal of this humour is pretty well worn off among many people of the best fashion, yet too much of it still remains, especially in the country; where an honest gentleman assured me, that having been kept four days, against his will, at a friends house, with all the circumstances of hiding his boots, locking up the stable, and other contrivances of the like nature, he could not remember, from the moment he came into the house to the moment he left it, any one thing, wherein his inclination was not directly contradicted; as if the whole family had entered into a combination to torment him. But, besides all this, it would be endless to recount the many foolish and ridiculous accidents I have observed among these unfortunate proselytes to ceremony. I have seen a duchess fairly knocked down, by the precipitancy of an officious coxcomb running to save her the trouble of opening a door. I remember, upon a birthday at court, a great lady was utterly desperate by a dish of sauce let fall by a page directly upon her head-dress and brocade, while she gave a sudden turn to her elbow upon some point of ceremony with the person who sat next her. Monsieur Buys, the Dutch envoy, whose politics and manners were much of a size, brought a son with him, about thirteen years old, to a great table at court. The boy and his father, whatever they put on their plates, they first offered round in order, to every person in the company; so that we could not get a minutes quiet during the whole dinner. At last their two plates happened to encounter, and with so much violence, that, being china, they broke in twenty pieces, and stained half the company with wet sweetmeats and cream. There is a pedantry in manners, as in all arts and sciences; and sometimes in trades. Pedantry is