陈冠商英语背诵文选第四册第5篇:人类必胜 (MP3)
5. Man Will Prevail人类必胜
I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work, a life’ work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit. Not for glory and least of all, for profit, but to create out of the material of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It would not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it, commensurate for the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and woman, already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will someday stand here where I am standing.
我认为这个奖项不是授给我个人而是授给我的工作---------一项艰辛而痛苦的毕生投入的人类精神的工作,既不为名也不土利,而是要从人类的精神原材料中创造一些前所未有的东西。因此这个奖项我只是代为保管。要该奖项的款项按照最初的目的和意义并不难。但我更欢迎这样做,利用这一时机,把它作为一个顶点,向听我话的有志于此的年轻人发出号召,他们中必定有人会站在我今天的位置。
Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of spirit. There is only the question: when will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problem of the human heart in conflict with itself which along can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget if forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed ---- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice.
当今,我们的悲剧是种非常普遍的生理恐惧,到现如今,这种恐惧存在已久,以至于我们已经习惯它。他们不再是精神问题。现在只有一个问题:我将何时毁灭?鉴于此,如今的年轻作家们已经忘记了人心之间的冲突问题,寂寞可以造就一个优秀的作家,只是因为写作需要如此,需要无尽痛苦和辛勤汗水。他必须得不断学习这些。最根本的问题是害怕,他必须教会自己永远忘记害怕,用古老的真理和真相填满自己的工作室,如果故事缺少普遍的真理,那都是昙花一现——这些真理是爱与荣耀,怜悯与自豪,同情与牺牲。
Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands. Until he relearns these things, he vill write as though he stood among and watch the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is esay enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there vill still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this.
在他这么做之前,他都只会处在魔鬼的诅咒中写作。他写的不是爱情而是情欲,失败者们不会失去真正有价值的东西,而胜利者们也不会产生任何的希望,最为可悲的是,他们都丧失了怜悯和同情。他的悲痛欲绝并没有深入普世的精髓,没有留下印痕。他的作品没有灵魂,只有腺体。在他理解这些东西之前,他的作品就好像他本人站在人群之中冷眼旁观人类的终结。我坚决不会接受这样一个人类的结局。讲述人类是永生不死的相当简单,只需他能够撑下去;最后审判的钟声已经敲响了并消弥在最后一块没有意义的岩石,最后的日落消逝在死一般寂静的海平线,死亡的夜晚开始漫延,即使还有一点残音也是无力却绵绵不断的呻吟,依旧诉说着。我坚决拒绝这个。
I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he along among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he was a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.
我相信人类不仅仅是听命死撑;人类会迎难战胜一切。人类会得到永生,不是因为他是会发出连续呻吟孤独生物中的一分子,而是因为他有灵魂,他的心灵能够拥有同情、牺牲和忍耐。诗人和作家的本职是创作出这些东西。他有这个权力帮助他们学会包容,通过提升他们的内心,唤起他们过去的荣耀,如勇气、尊敬、希望、自豪、同情、怜悯和奉献牺牲。诗人不仅需要成为一个人类的记录员,他还需要成为一个能帮助人类学会包容和克服困难的栋梁。