Unit-13-Marriage课文翻译综合教程四(共5页)

1、Unit 13MarriageRobert Lynd1 “Conventional people,” says Mr. Bertrand Russell, “like to pretend that difficulties in regard to marriage are a new thing.” I could not help wondering, as I read this sentence, where one can meet these conventional people who think, or pretend to think, as conventional p

2、eople do. I have known hundreds of conventional people, and I cannot remember one of them who thought the things conventional people seem to think. They were all, for example, convinced that marriage was a state beset with difficulties, and that these difficulties were as old, if not as the hills, a

3、t least as the day on which Adam lost a rib and gained a wife. A younger generation of conventional people has grown up in recent years, and it may be that they have a rosier conception of marriage than their ancestors; but the conventional people of the Victorian era were under no illusions on the

4、subject. Their cynical attitude to marriage may be gathered from the enthusiastic reception they gave to Punchs advice to those about to marry “Dont.”2 I doubt, indeed, whether the horrors of marriage were ever depicted more cruelly than during the conventional nineteenth century. The comic papers a

5、nd music-halls made the miseries a standing dish. “You can always tell whether a mans married or single from the way hes dressed,” said the comedian. “Look at the single man: no buttons on his shirt. Look at the married man: no shirt.” The humour was crude; but it went home to the honest Victorian h

6、eart. If marriage were to be judged by the songs conventional people used to sing about it in the music-halls, it would seem a hell mainly populated by twins and leech-like mothers-in-law. The rare experiences of Darby and Joan were, it is true, occasionally hymned, reducing strong men smelling stro

7、ngly of alcohol to reverent silence; but, on the whole, the audience felt more normal when a comedian came out with an anti-marital refrain such as: O why did I leave my little back room In Bloomsbury,Where I could live on a pound a week In luxury(I forget the next line).But since I have married Mar

8、ia,Ive jumped out of the frying-panInto the blooming fire.3 No difficulties? Why, the very nigger-minstrels of my boyhood used to open their performance with a chorus which began: Married! Married! O pity those whore married.Those who go and take a wife must be very green.4 It is possible that the c

9、omedians exaggerated, and that Victorian wives were not all viragos with pokers, who beat their tipsy husbands for staying out too late. But at least they and their audiences refrained from painting marriage as an inevitable Paradise. Even the clergy would go no farther than to say that marriages we

10、re made in Heaven. That they did not believe that marriage necessarily ended there is shown by the fact that one of them wrote a “best-seller” bearing the title How to Be Happy Though Married.5 I doubt, indeed, whether common opinion in any age has ever looked on marriage as an untroubled Paradise.

11、I consulted a dictionary of quotations on the subject and discovered that few of the opinions quoted were rose-coloured. These opinions, it may be objected, are the opinions of unconventional people, but it is also true that they are opinions treasured and kept alive by conventional people. We have

12、the reputed saying of the henpecked Socrates, for example, when asked whether it was better to marry or not: “Whichever you do, you will repent.” We have Montaigne writing: “It happens as one sees in cages. The birds outside despair of ever getting in; those inside are equally desirous of getting ou

13、t.” Bacon is no more prenuptial with his caustic quotation: “He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry: A young man not yet; an elder man not at all.” Burton is far from encouraging! “One was never married, and thats his hell; another is, and thats h

14、is plague.” Pepys scribbled in his diary: “Strange to say what delight we married people have to see these poor folk decoyed into our condition.”6 The pious Jeremy Taylor was as keenly aware that marriage is not all bliss. “Marriage,” he declared, “hath in it less of beauty and more of safety than t

15、he single life it hath more care but less danger; it is more merry and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows and fuller of joys.” The sentimental and optimistic Steele can do no better than: “The marriage state, with and without the affection suitable to it, is the completest image of Heaven and Hell we

16、 are capable of receiving in this life.”7 Rousseau denied that a perfect marriage had ever been known. “I have often thought,” he wrote, “that if only one could prolong the joy of love in marriage we should have paradise on earth. That is a thing which has never been hitherto.” Dr. Johnson is not qu

17、oted in the dictionary; but everyone will remember how, devoted husband though he was, he denied that the state of marriage was natural to man. “Sir,” he declared, “it is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage that we find all the motives which they have for rem

18、aining in that connexion and the restraints which civilised society imposes to prevent separation are hardly sufficient to keep them together.8 When one reads the things that have been said about marriage from one generation to another, one cannot but be amazed at the courage with which the young go

19、 on marrying. Almost everybody, conventional and unconventional, seems to have painted the troubles of marriage in the darkest colours. So pessimistic were the conventional novelists of the nineteenth century about marriage that they seldom dared to prolong their stories beyond the wedding bells. Ma

20、rried people in plays and novels are seldom enviable, and, as time goes on, they seem to get more and more miserable. Even conventional people nowadays enjoy the story of a thoroughly unhappy marriage. It is only fair to say, however, that in modern times we like to imagine that nearly everybody, si

21、ngle as well as married, is unhappy. As social reformers we are all for happiness, but as thinkers and aesthetes we are on the side of misery.9 The truth is that we are a difficulty-conscious generation. Whether or not we make life even more difficult than it would otherwise be by constantly talking

22、 about our difficulties I do not know. I sometimes suspect that half our difficulties are imaginary and that if we kept quiet about them they would disappear. Is it quite certain that the ostrich by burying his head in the sand never escapes his pursuers? I look forward to the day when a great natur

23、alist will discover that it is to this practice that the ostrich owes his survival.婚 姻罗伯特林德1伯特兰罗素先生说：“凡人百姓喜欢假装说婚姻中遇到的困难是新鲜事。”当我读到这句话的时候，不禁觉得奇怪：上哪儿去找这些像凡人百姓那样思考、或假装那样思考的凡人百姓。我认识数以百计的凡人百姓，我想不起来他们当中任何人看似有那些凡人百姓的想法。举例来说吧，他们都坚信，婚姻是一种充满困扰的状态，这些困扰即使不像山脉那样古老，也如同上帝从亚当身上取下一根肋骨给他创造一个妻子的历史那么古老。近年来，新一代凡人百姓成长了起来，

24、可能他们对婚姻的想法比先祖来得美好，但维多利亚时代的凡人百姓对这个问题不抱任何幻想。笨拙杂志给那些即将步入婚姻殿堂的人们的建议是“别结婚”，而他们对此建议反响热烈，由此可以看出他们对于婚姻的愤世嫉俗的态度。2传统的19世纪对于恐怖婚姻的描写异常残酷，我真怀疑有没有出其右者。漫画报纸和音乐厅的表演将婚姻的苦难作为永恒不变的话题。“你总是很容易从一个男人的穿着打扮看出他是否已婚，”喜剧演员如是说。“你看那些单身汉：他们衬衫上没有纽扣。看看那些已婚人士：他们索性不穿衬衫。”这种幽默很粗鄙，但深得维多利亚时代的诚实人士赞许。假如婚姻用传统人士在音乐厅里过去经常唱的歌来衡量，那么婚姻就像地狱，主要由双胞

25、胎和如同水蛭一般恶毒的岳母或婆婆组成。生活平淡但彼此恩爱的老夫妻并不多见，然而，这样的故事如果偶尔在歌中吟唱，倒是会令满嘴酒气的硬汉肃然起敬。这一点是毫无疑问的。但总体说来，观众们如果看到一位喜剧演员唱着反婚姻的副歌出现会觉得比较正常。歌曰：哦，为何我离开位于布卢姆斯伯里的小房间，那里我一周只花费区区一英镑便可丰衣足食(下一行我忘了。)但自从我娶了玛丽亚，我跳出油锅又落入熊熊火坑。3没有困难吗？你看，我小时候的黑人歌手们通常以一首合唱开始表演。这首歌开头是这样的：结了婚!结了婚!哦，可怜那些结了婚的。那些去找老婆的人可真青涩。4有可能这些喜剧演员夸张了，有可能维多利亚时代的悍妇们并不都是挥舞着

26、拨火棍教训深夜迟归、醉生梦死的老公的。但至少这些喜剧演员和他们的观众不会将婚姻描绘成无人可免的人间天堂。即使是教士们最多也就会说婚姻只应天上有。他们当中的一员甚至写了一本题为如何身陷婚姻却依然快乐的畅销书，这便说明他们不相信夫妻一定会在幸福天堂白头终老。5我真的怀疑是否有哪个时代的普遍观点视婚姻为万事顺利的天堂。我查阅了一本关于婚姻的引语词典，几乎没发现有什么乐观的看法。也许有反对意见说，这些看法来自那些不循规蹈矩的人们，但确定的是这些观点被传统人士视若珍宝。比方说，怕老婆的苏格拉底被问及到底结婚好还是不结好，他留下了著名的论断：“无论结不结婚，你都会后悔。”蒙田曾写道：“看看鸟笼就知道是什么情况了。外面的鸟因为不能飞进鸟笼而充满绝望；里面的鸟也同样渴望飞出去。”培根同样也不支持结婚。他曾尖刻地写道：“昔有智者答人问何时可婚，曾云：青年未到时，老年不必矣。”伯顿的说法也很让人沮丧：“张三没结婚，像呆在地狱里；李四结了婚，生活在灾祸中。”佩皮斯在日记中信笔写道：