姑苏翻译社公告：
发布时间：2007/6/5 浏览次数：1868
何为不朽
by William Hazlitt
To see the golden sun and the azure sky, the outstretched ocean, to walk upon the green earth, and to be lord of a thousand creatures, to look down giddy precipices to over distant flowery vales, to see the world spread out under one’s finger in map, to bring the stars near, to view the smallest insects in a microscope, to read history, and witness the revolutions of empires and the succession of generations, to hear of the glory of Sidon and Type, of Babylon and Susa, as of a faded pageant, and to say all these were and are now nothing, to think that we exist in such a point of time, and in such a corner of space, to be at once spectators and a part of the moving scene, to watch the return of the seasons, of spring and autumn, to hear —
我们看到金色的太阳，蔚蓝的天空，广阔的海洋；我们漫步在绿油油的大地上，做万物的灵长；我们俯视令人目眩心悸的悬崖峭壁，远眺鲜花盛开的山谷；我们在地图上指点世界江山；我们把星辰移到眼前观看，在显微镜下观察极其微小的生物；我们学历史，亲自目睹帝国的兴亡、时代的交替；我们听人谈论西顿、推罗、巴比伦和苏撒的无上光荣，如同听一场喧哗褪尽的往昔盛会，听了以后，我们说：这些事确实发生过，但现在却是过眼云烟了；我们思考着自己生活在这样的一个时代，生活在宇宙间的这样的一个角落；在人生的活动舞台上，我们既当观众，又当演员；我们观察四季更迭、春秋代序；我们听见了——
The stock dove plain amid the forest deep,
野鸽在浓密的树林中哀诉，
That drowsy rustles to the sighing gale.
树林随微风的叹息而低语；
— to traverse desert wilderness, to listen to the dungeon’s gloom, or sit in crowded theaters and see life itself mocked, to feel heat and cold pleasure and pain, right and wrong, truth and falsehood, to study the works of art and refine the sense of beauty to agony, to worship fame and to dream of immortality, to have read Shakespeare and Beloit to the same species as Sir Isaac Newton; to be and to do all this, and then in a moment to be nothing, to have it all snatched from one like a juggler’s ball or a phantasmagoria...
我们横绝大漠；我们侧耳倾听来自地牢的呻吟；或者坐在人头攒动的剧院里，观看生活本身受到的模仿嘲弄；我们感受炙热和寒冷，快乐和痛苦，正义和邪恶，真理和谬误；我们钻研艺术作品，把自己的美感升华为凄美；我们崇拜荣誉，梦想不朽；我们阅读莎士比亚和贝洛伊特，就像读牛顿爵士一样；——正当我们面临这一切、从事这一切的时候，自己却在一刹那之间化为虚无，眼前的一切是魔术师手中的圆球，像是一场幻影，一下子全都消失得无影无踪……
