购买
下载掌阅APP,畅读海量书库
立即打开
畅读海量书库
扫码下载掌阅APP

II. Of Queens' Gardens
二、王后花园里的百合

It will, perhaps, be well, as this Lecture is the sequel of one previously given, that I should shortly state to you my general intention in both. The questions specially proposed to you in the first, namely, How and What to Read, rose out of a far deeper one, which it was my endeavour to make you propose earnestly to yourselves, namely, Why to Read. I want you to feel, with me, that whatever advantages we possess in the present day in the diffusion of education and of literature, can only be rightly used by any of us when we have apprehended clearly what education is to lead to, and literature to teach. I wish you to see that both well-directed moral training and well-chosen reading lead to the possession of a power over the ill-guided and illiterate, which is, according to the measure of it, in the truest sense, kingly; conferring indeed the purest kingship that can exist among men: too many other kingships (however distinguished by visible insignia or material power) being either spectral or tyrannous;—spectral—that is to say, aspects and shadows only of royalty, hollow as death, and which only the "Likeness of a kingly crown have on"; or else tyrannous—that is to say, substituting their own will for the law of justice and love by which all true kings rule.

由于这篇演讲是此前演讲的续篇,因此也许我应该对两篇演讲的总体意图都稍作说明。上一篇演讲着重提出的问题,即如何读和读什么,乃是源自一个更为深刻的问题,也是我希望你们认真问问自己的问题,那就是,为何而读。我希望你们和我一道觉得,无论今天我们在教育和文学的传播中拥有什么样的优势,只有对教育之所致和文学之所教有清醒的认识,这些优势才能得以正确运用。我希望你们认识到,导向健康的道德培育和精心挑选的阅读都能够使人获得一种力量,它使人不再受误导,不再无知,这种力量,依据最权威的衡量,在真正意义上授予人们最纯粹的帝王之尊:其他诸多王权(不论是靠看得见的勋章还是靠物质财富来彰显),不是神气骇人,就是专政暴戾;所谓神气,仅仅是指王权的各个方面和王权的影子,如死亡一般空洞,并且只是“王冠的写真”(原文出.自约翰 弥尔顿的《失乐园》);否则即是专政暴戾,指的是用个人意愿取代公正仁爱法则,而公正仁爱法则正是所有明君统治所遵循的金科玉律。

There is, then, I repeat—and as I want to leave this idea with you, I begin with it, and shall end with it—only one pure kind of kingship; an inevitable and external kind, crowned or not: the kingship, namely, which consists in a stronger moral state, and a truer thoughtful state, than that of others; enabling you, therefore, to guide, or to raise them. Observe that word "State"; we have got into a loose way of using it. It means literally the standing and stability of a thing; and you have the full force of it in the derived word "statue"—"the immovable thing". A king's majesty or "state", then, and the right of his kingdom to be called a state, depends on the movelessness of both:—without tremor, without quiver of balance; established and enthroned upon a foundation of eternal law which nothing can alter nor overthrow.

在此,我再次重申——为了使你们牢牢记住这一点,我以它开始,也将以它结束——只有这种纯粹的王权,无论有没有被授予王冠,它都是必然的、来自外部的;这种王权存在于比其他王权更强大的道德状态和更真实的思维状态中,从而使你们具备引导或提升它们的能力。请注意这里的“状态 (state)”一词,我们并没有严格区分它的用法。它的字面意思是指某个事物的持续性和稳定性;从由它派生出的“雕像(statue)”——“不能移动的事物”——一词中我们可以感受到它的全部力量。国王的权威或“状态 (state)”,还有他的王国被称为“国家 (state)”的权力,取决于两者的不变性:——不能颤动、不能倾斜;并且建立在不能更改、不能推翻的永恒的法律之上。

Believing that all literature and all education are only useful so far as they tend to confirm this calm, beneficent, and therefore kingly, power—first, over ourselves, and, through ourselves, over all around us, I am now going to ask you to consider with me farther, what special portion or kind of this royal authority, arising out of noble education, may rightly be possessed by women; and how far they also are called to a true queenly power. Not in their households merely, but over all within their sphere. And in what sense, if they rightly understood and exercised this royal or gracious influence, the order and beauty induced by such benignant power would justify us in speaking of the territories over which each of them reigned, as "Queens' Gardens."

我们确信,一切文学熏陶和教育只有与这种平静、仁慈并因此而获得权威的王权相一致时才能发挥作用——首先作用于我们自身,然后再通过我们惠及我们周围的人。我现在要请你们与我一起继续思考:在来自贵族教育的王权中,哪个特殊部分或哪种类型能恰当地被妇女们掌握呢?在多大程度上它们也被称作真正的王后权力?不仅仅指家庭中,而是指包括她们的全部活动范围。还有,如果她们正确理解了这种尊贵或仁慈的权力,并加以实施,使得一切井井有条、优雅美丽,那么,在多大程度上,我们谈论她们统治的领域时,可以理直气壮地称其为“王后的花园”呢?

And here, in the very outset, we are met by a far deeper question, which—strange though this may seem—remains among many of us yet quite undecided, in spite of its infinite importance.

现在,在最开始,我们遇到了一个更深刻的问题,这问题——虽然或许有些奇怪——对我们很多人而言,依然悬而未决,尽管它极其重要。

We cannot determine what the queenly power of women should be, until we are agreed what their ordinary power should be. We cannot consider how education may fit them for any widely extending duty, until we are agreed what is their true constant duty. And there never was a time when wilder words were spoken, or more vain imagination permitted, respecting this question—quite vital to all social happiness. The relations of the womanly to the manly nature, their different capacities of intellect or of virtue, seem never to have been yet estimated with entire consent. We hear of the mission and of the rights of Woman, as if these could ever be separate from the mission and the rights of Man;—as if she and her lord were creatures of independent kind and of irreconcilable claim. This, at least, is wrong. And not less wrong—perhaps even more foolishly wrong (for I will anticipate thus far what I hope to prove)—is the idea that woman is only the shadow and attendant image of her lord, owing him a thoughtless and servile obedience, and supported altogether in her weakness by the pre-eminence of his fortitude.

只有在什么是妇女们拥有的普通权力这一点上达成一致,我们才能确定什么是她们的王后权力。只有在什么是她们真正恒定的职责这一点上达成一致,才能判断教育如何使她们适应广泛拓展了的职责。在这个问题上,绝对不允许使用粗鲁的语言,也不允许无益的想象,因为它对社会幸福至关重要。谈到女人的天性和男人的天性之间的关系,以及双方在智力和美德能力上的不同,在这两点上人们似乎从来就没有达成完全一致。人们说起妇女的使命和权利,好像它们可以和男人的使命和权利分开似的;——好像女人和男人是相互独立的物种,有着不可调和的主张。至少这种看法是错误的。还有一个错误的观点,也许错得更为愚蠢荒谬我将预见迄今为止我希望证明的事情)。这种观点认为女人只是其丈夫的影子和随从,需要不加考虑、像奴隶般地服从,需要她丈夫杰出的坚韧来支撑自己的柔弱。

This, I say, is the most foolish of all errors respecting her who was made to be the helpmate of man. As if he could be helped effectively by a shadow, or worthily by a slave!

我认为,这是那些把自己当作男人的助手的女人最愚蠢的错误,好像男人可以得到影子的有效帮助,或是奴隶的有意义的帮助似的。

Let us try, then, whether we cannot get at some clear and harmonious idea (it must be harmonious if it is true) of what womanly mind and virtue are in power and office, with respect to man's; and how their relations, rightly accepted, aid, and increase, the vigour, and honour, and authority of both.

那么,让我们试试看,不管能否得出某种清晰、和谐的观点(如果是真理,那么它必然是和谐的),对照男人,在权力和职责方面,女性有什么样的思想和美德;他们的关系如何被正确地接受、如何相互帮助,以及如何增强双方的活力、荣誉感以及权威。

And now I must repeat one thing I said in the last lecture: namely, that the first use of education was to enable us to consult with the wisest and the greatest men on all points of earnest difficulty. That to use books rightly, was to go to them for help: to appeal to them, when our own knowledge and power of thought failed: to be led by them into wider sight, purer conception than our own, and receive from them the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time, against our solitary and unstable opinion.

现在我必须要重申上一篇演讲中讲到的一点,即教育的第一作用乃是使我们得以就所有重要的难题得到最睿智、最伟大的先贤们的指导。使用书本的正确之道,就是向它们寻求帮助:在我们自身知识匮乏、思维枯竭时,向它们求助;在它们的带领下进入更广阔的视野、更纯粹的思想,从它们那里获取有史以来考虑全面的判断和评论,以克服我们自己孤立、不确定的观点。

Let us do this now. Let us see whether the greatest, the wisest, the purest-hearted of all ages are agreed in any wise on this point: let us hear the testimony they have left respecting what they held to be the true dignity of woman, and her mode of help to man.

让我们现在就这么做吧。看看历代最伟大、最睿智、拥有最纯净心灵的先贤们在这一点上,有没有产生一致的思想火花;听听他们所留下的,关于他们所持有的妇女真正的尊严、妇女对男人的帮助模式方面的言论。

And first let us take Shakespeare.

首先,让我们看看莎士比亚的。

Note broadly in the outset, Shakespeare has no heroes;—he has only heroines. There is not one entirely heroic figure in all his plays, except the slight sketch of Henry the Fifth, exaggerated for the purposes of the stage; and the still slighter Valentine in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. In his laboured and perfect plays you have no hero. Othello would have been one, if his simplicity had not been so great as to leave him the prey of every base practice round him; but he is the only example even approximating to the heroic type. Coriolanus—Caesar—Antony, stand in flawed strength, and fall by their vanities;—Hamlet is indolent, and drowsily speculative; Romeo an impatient boy; the Merchant of Venice languidly submissive to adverse fortune; Kent, in King Lear, is entirely noble at heart, but too rough and unpolished to be of true use at the critical time, and he sinks into the office of a servant only. Orlando, no less noble, is yet the despairing toy of chance, followed, comforted, saved, by Rosalind. Whereas there is hardly a play that has not a perfect woman in it, steadfast in grave hope, and errorless purpose: Cordelia, Desdemona, Isabella, Hermione, Imogen, Queen Katherine, Perdita, Silvia, Viola, Rosalind, Helena, and last, and perhaps loveliest, Virgilia, are all faultless: conceived in the highest heroic type of humanity.

一开始要特别注意,莎士比亚的戏剧里没有男英雄,只有女英雄。在他所有的戏剧中,没有一个完整的男英雄形象,除了描写亨利五世时,为了舞台效果而进行了夸大,有过少量的刻画;还有在《维洛那二绅士》中对瓦伦丁的描写,那就更简单了。在他精心写作的、完美的戏剧里,是没有男英雄的。奥瑟罗本来可以成为一位英雄,如果他不是过于单纯,以致成了他周围一切卑鄙行径的牺牲品的话,但他却是唯一一个近似英雄的角色了。科利奥兰纳斯、恺撒和安东尼虽然权倾天下,但最后都因自负而失败;哈姆雷特太懒散,总是因瞻前顾后而显得昏昏欲睡;罗密欧是个缺乏耐性的男孩;威尼斯商人无力地屈服于厄运;《李尔王》中的肯特内心极其高贵,但过于粗俗,关键时刻派不上用场,只能沦为一个普通的佣人。奥兰多虽然也同样高尚,但却是命运捉弄下的绝望的玩偶,罗萨琳德在后面跟着他,安慰他,拯救他。与此相反,莎士比亚的戏剧几乎每一部里都有一个完美的女英雄,坚定地给人希望,并且出发点总是完美无瑕:科迪莉娅、苔丝狄蒙娜、易莎贝拉、赫米温妮、伊摩琴、凯瑟琳王后、潘狄塔、西尔维亚、维奥拉、罗萨琳德、海伦娜,还有也许是最可爱的维吉利娅,她们全都完美无瑕,是人类中至高无尚的英雄类型。

Then observe, secondly,

接着,请观察:

The catastrophe of every play is caused always by the folly or fault of a man; the redemption, if there be any, is by the wisdom and virtue of a woman, and failing that, there is none. The catastrophe of King Lear is owing to his own want of judgement, his impatient vanity, his misunderstanding of his children; the virtue of his one true daughter would have saved him from all the injuries of the others, unless he had cast her away from him; as it is, she all but saves him.

每部剧中的灾难往往是由男人的愚蠢或过错造成的;如果可以挽救的话,则是被女人的智慧和美德挽救,否则没有任何补救措施。李尔王的悲剧缘于他自己缺乏判断力、不能容忍的自负,还有对自己孩子的误解;假如他没有把最真诚的女儿赶走,她所拥有的美德本来可以使他免受其他女儿的伤害;事实上,她差点就救了他。

Of Othello I need not trace the tale;—nor the one weakness of his so mighty love; nor the inferiority of his perceptive intellect to that even of the second woman character in the play, the Emilia who dies in wild testimony against his error:—"Oh, murderous coxcomb! What should such a fool Do with so good a wife?"

关于奥瑟罗,我不用追述剧中的故事,也无须分析他那强大爱情的缺陷,或是解释正是由于他缺乏敏锐的才智,甚至导致剧中的第二号女主角爱米利亚以死来证明他的错误:“噢,杀人的傻瓜啊!像你这样一个蠢材,怎么配得上这样好的一个妻子呢?”

In Romeo and Juliet, the wise and brave stratagem of the wife is brought to ruinous issue by the reckless impatience of her husband. In Winter's Tale and in Cymbeline, the happiness and existence of two princely households, lost through long years, and imperilled to the death by the folly and obstinacy of the husbands, are redeemed at last by the queenly patience and wisdom of the wives. In Measure for Measure, the injustice of the judges, and the corrupt cowardice of the brother, are opposed to the victorious truth and adamantine purity of a woman. In Coriolanus, the mother's counsel, acted upon in time, would have saved her son from all evil; his momentary forgetfulness of it is his ruin; her prayer, at last granted, saves him—not, indeed, from death, but from the curse of living as the destroyer of his country.

在《罗密欧与朱丽叶》中,妻子聪明勇敢的计策却因丈夫的鲁莽急躁而被毁掉。在《冬天的故事》和《辛白林》中,两个王子家庭因丈夫的愚蠢和固执多年来过得很不幸福,家不成家,几乎家破人亡,最终被妻子王后般的耐心和智慧所挽救。在《一报还一报》中,法官不公正,兄弟腐化懦弱,而女性却坚强不屈、纯洁真诚,最终获得了胜利。在《科利奥兰纳斯》中,母亲及时的忠告本来可以把儿子从一切罪恶中拯救过来,但儿子一时的遗忘导致了自身的毁灭。后来,母亲的祈祷得到了回应,拯救了他——确切地说,不是拯救他于死亡,而是将他从作为国家毁灭者的诅咒中解救出来。

And what shall I say of Julia, constant against the fickleness of a lover who is a mere wicked child?—of Helena, against the petulance and insult of a careless youth?—of the patience of Hero, the passion of Beatrice, and the calmly devoted wisdom of the "unlessoned girl," who appears among the helplessness, the blindness, and the vindictive passions of men, as a gentle angel, to save merely by her presence, and defeat the worst intensities of crime by her smile?

对于朱丽叶,我应该说什么呢?她的情人变化无常,只是个淘气的孩子,但她却痴心不改、始终如一。对于海伦娜,遭受了一个粗心男孩性急的对待和侮辱,我又该说什么呢?希罗的耐心,贝特丽丝的激情,还有“不学无术的女子”静静奉献的智慧,在一堆盲目无助、一心想报复的男人中,就像一位温柔的天使,只要她出现就会拯救全局,凭借微笑打败穷凶极恶。对于她们,我又该说些什么呢?

Observe, further, among all the principal figures in Shakespeare's plays, there is only one weak woman—Ophelia; and it is because she fails Hamlet at the critical moment, and is not, and cannot in her nature be, a guide to him when he needs her most, that all the bitter catastrophe follows. Finally, though there are three wicked women among the principal figures, Lady Macbeth, Regan, and Goneril, they are felt at once to be frightful exceptions to the ordinary laws of life; fatal in their influence also in proportion to the power for good which they have abandoned.

进一步观察,我们就会发现,在莎士比亚戏剧的所有主要角色中,只有一位软弱的女性——奥菲利娅。这是因为她在关键时刻没能拯救哈姆雷特。在他最需要她的时候,她在本性上没有能、也不可能作为他的引导者,导致一系列的悲剧接踵而至。最后,虽然众多主要角色中有三位邪恶的女性——麦克白夫人、里根和考狄利娅,但人们会立刻觉得她们是可怕的特例,不存在于日常生活之中。她们的致命影响和她们抛弃的向善的力量是成比例的。

Such, in broad light, is Shakespeare's testimony to the position and character of women in human life. He represents them as infallibly faithful and wise counsellors,—incorruptibly just and pure examples—strong always to sanctify, even when they cannot save.

总的来说,这就是莎士比亚关于女性在人类生活中的地位及性格的观点。他笔下的女性绝对是忠诚可靠、聪慧过人的顾问,是公正无私、纯洁无瑕的典范,始终拥有强大的力量,去净化罪孽,即便她们无力拯救他人。

Not as in any wise comparable in knowledge of the nature of man,—still less in his understanding of the causes and courses of fate,—but only as the writer who has given us the broadest view of the conditions and modes of ordinary thought in modern society, I ask you next to receive the witness of Walter Scott 1 .

虽然对人性的认识不能与莎士比亚相比,对命运的起因和过程的理解更难以望其项背,但是,仅仅作为一位为我们提供了最广阔的视角审视现代社会一般思想状.态和模式的作家,我请你们接下来聆听一下沃尔特.司各特的观点。

I put aside his merely romantic prose writings as of no value: and though the early romantic poetry is very beautiful, its testimony is of no weight, other than that of a boy's ideal. But his true works, studied from Scottish life, bear a true witness, and in the whole range of these there are but three men who reach the heroic type—Dandie Dinmont, Rob Roy, and Claverhouse; of these, one is a border farmer; another a freebooter; the third a soldier in a bad cause. And these touch the ideal of heroism only in their courage and faith, together with a strong, but uncultivated, or mistakenly applied, intellectual power; while his younger men are the gentlemanly playthings of fantastic fortune, and only by aid (or accident) of that fortune, survive, not vanquish, the trials they involuntarily sustain. Of any disciplined, or consistent character, earnest in a purpose wisely conceived, or dealing with forms of hostile evil, definitely challenged, and resolutely subdued, there is no trace in his conceptions of men. Whereas in his imaginations of women, —in the characters of Ellen Douglas, of Flora MacIvor, Rose Bradwardine, Catherine Seyton, Diana Vernon, Lilias Redgauntlet, Alice Bridgenorth, Alice Lee, and Jeanie Deans—with endless varieties of grace, tenderness, and intellectual power, we find in all a quite infallible and inevitable sense of dignity and justice; a fearless, instant, and untiring self-sacrifice to even the appearance of duty, much more to its real claims; and, finally, a patient wisdom of deeply restrained affection, which does infinitely more than protect its objects from a momentary error; it gradually forms, animates, and exalts the characters of the unworthy lovers, until, at the close of the tale, we are just able, and no more, to take patience in hearing of their unmerited success.

我撇开了他的纯浪漫主义散文作品,它们毫无价值,他早期的浪漫诗歌虽然很美,其中的观点亦毫无价值,只是一个男孩的理想而已。他真正的作品源于苏格兰生活,基于切身体验。在这整个系列的作品中,只有三个人物称. .得上是英雄——丹迪 丁蒙特、罗布 罗伊和克拉弗豪斯,这些人当中,一个是边境农民,另一个是强盗,还有一个是进行非正义战争的士兵。他们符合英雄主义的理想,这种理想状态仅仅表现在他们的勇敢和忠诚上,伴随着一种强烈的、没受多少教育的或者是用错地方的聪明劲儿。然而,司各特笔下的年轻人是命运之神绅士般的玩物,仅仅依靠命运的帮助(或巧合),才得以从身不由己卷进去的考验中幸存下来,而不是战胜考验。在他关于男性的观念中,不存在任何严于律己、始终如一,理智地坚持远大的目标,勇敢应对各种邪恶行径,迎接挑战,果敢开拓的男性。与此相反,在他对女性的想象中——艾. . .伦 道格拉斯、弗洛拉 麦基弗、露斯 布拉德沃丁、凯. . .瑟琳 赛顿、戴安娜 弗农、利里阿斯 雷德冈特利特、. .爱丽丝 李和珍妮 迪恩斯等等,各有各的魅力,柔情似水,聪明机智,我们发现在她们身上无一例外地蕴藏着一种尊严和正义感;勇敢无畏、义无反顾,而且不知疲倦的自我牺牲,甚至是对义务表象的牺牲,而对义务内在的要求,牺牲就更多了;最后,一种把深厚的情感埋藏在心底的耐心的智慧,不仅保护自己的爱人,使其免于一时的失误,而且还逐步塑造、鼓励和提升不够优秀的爱人的品格,直到最终,在故事结尾,我们刚刚能够有耐心听到他们本来不配得到的成功。

So that in all cases, with Scott as with Shakespeare, it is the woman who watches over, teaches, and guides the youth; it is never, by any chance, the youth who watches over or educates his mistress.

所有例子中,无论司各特的还是莎士比亚的,都是女性守护、调教和指导男性,而不是男性守护或教导自己的爱人。

Next, take, though more briefly, graver and deeper testimony—that of the great Italians and Greeks. You know well the plan of Dante's great poem—that it is a love-poem to his dead lady; a song of praise for her watch over his soul. Stooping only to pity, never to love, she yet saves him from destruction—saves him from hell. He is going eternally astray in despair; she comes down from heaven to his help, and throughout the ascents of Paradise is his teacher, interpreting for him the most difficult truths, divine and human; and leading him, with rebuke upon rebuke, from star to star.

接下来,让我们更简单、认真和深入地看看伟大的意大利和希腊学者的观点。你们都很清楚但丁的伟大诗篇的创作初衷,那是写给死去的爱人的情诗,为她守护自己的灵魂而献给她的赞歌。尽管她只有怜悯,没有爱情,但还是拯救了他,使他免于毁灭,免于下地狱。他在绝望中走上歧途时,她从天堂下到他身边,给予他帮助;在他走向天堂的路途上,成为他的导师,为他解释天上人间最难懂的真理,通过一次次的斥责,引导他穿过一个又一个星辰。

I do not insist upon Dante's conception; if I began I could not cease: besides, you might think this a wild imagination of one poet's heart. So I will rather read to you a few verses of the deliberate writing of a knight of Pisa to his living lady, wholly characteristic of the feeling of all the noblest men of the thirteenth century, preserved among many other such records of knightly honour and love, which Dante Rossetti has gathered for us from among the early Italian poets.

我不主张但丁的观念。如果开了头,我就会停不下来。另外,你们可能会认为这只是一个诗人心灵的狂想罢了。因此,我宁可给你们读几段一位比萨骑士经过深思熟虑写给他在世情人的诗。它们完全展现了 13 世纪所有最.高尚男子的感情特征,收在但丁 罗塞蒂从早期的意大利诗人那里收集的、以骑士的荣誉和爱情为主题的诗集里。

"For lo! thy law is passed

“看!你的法律已经通过,

That this my love should manifestly be

我的爱情目标将变得明朗:

To serve and honour thee:

要为你效命,为你增光;

And so I do; and my delight is full,

我这么做了,并满心欢喜,

Accepted for the servant of thy rule.

被接纳作你的仆役。

"Without almost, I am all rapturous,

“千真万确,我欣喜若狂,

Since thus my will was set

自从我定下这样的决心:

To serve, thou flower of joy, thine excellence:

效命于阁下,你这快乐的花朵;

Nor ever seems it anything could rouse

似乎任何事物都无法引起

A pain or regret.

一丝痛苦或一丝遗憾。

But on thee dwells mine every thought and sense;

但我的思想和理智全部依赖着你;

Considering that from thee all virtues spread

以为所有美德由你发散

As from a fountain head,—

就好似泉水之源——

That in thy gift is wisdom's best avail,

你的天赋中含有智慧的最佳效用,

And honour without fail;

还有从不缺乏的光荣;

With whom each sovereign good dwells separate,

带着智慧和光荣,每位至尊的善行之君各统一方,

Fulfilling the perfection of thy state.

将你的王国完美建造。

"Lady, since I conceived

“爱人啊,自从我确信

That pleasurable aspect in my heart,

心中这份快乐的情感,

My life has been apart

我的生命就分处两地

In shining brightness and the place of truth;

在耀眼的光明之中和真理所在之所;

Which till that time, good sooth,

此前,老实说,

Groped among shadows in a darken'd place,

它一直在黑暗地的阴影之中摸索,

Where many hours and days

在那里,许多小时、许多天过去了,

It hardly ever had remember'd good.

因我为你的爱而活。”

But now my servitude

因我为你的爱而活。”

Is thine, and I am full of joy and rest.

我满心欢喜,心绪宁静。

A man from a wild beast

你将我从野兽变成了人,

Thou madest me, since for thy love I lived.”

因我为你的爱而活。”

You may think, perhaps, a Greek knight would have had a lower estimate of women than this Christian lover. His spiritual subjection to them was indeed not so absolute; but as regards their own personal character, it was only because you could not have followed me so easily, that I did not take the Greek women instead of Shakespeare's; and instance, for chief ideal types of human beauty and faith, the simple mother's and wife's heart of Andromache 2 ; the divine, yet rejected wisdom of Cassandra 3 ; the playful kindness and simple princess-life of happy Nausicaa 4 ; the housewifely calm of that of Penelope 5 , with its watch upon the sea; the ever patient, fearless, hopelessly devoted piety of the sister, and daughter, in Antigone 6 ; the bowing down of Iphigenia 7 , lamb-like and silent; and, finally, the expectation of the resurrection, made clear to the soul of the Greeks in the return from her grave of that Alcestis 8 , who, to save her husband, had passed calmly through the bitterness of death.

你可能觉得希腊骑士对女性的评价不如这位基督教情人的评价高。他们在精神上对情人的服从的确不是那么绝对,但是关于她们自身的个性,只是因为你们不可能这么轻松地跟上我的思路,因此我列举了莎士比亚笔下的女性而非希腊女性;你们也不可能这么轻松地理解那些关于人类理想的美和忠诚的主要事例,安德洛玛刻那颗朴实的母亲和妻子之心;卡姗德拉那神妙却不被人相信的智慧;瑙西凯厄那顽皮的善意之举和单纯的公主生活;珀涅罗珀主妇般沉着冷静及其对大海的守望;安提戈涅身上始终如一的坚韧、勇敢以及作为妹妹和女儿的那份绝望的挚诚;依菲琴尼亚那羔羊般温顺和沉默的服从;最后,还有希腊人灵魂深处对阿尔刻提斯之复活确信无疑的期待,因为她为救丈夫平静地经受着死亡的痛苦。

Now, I could multiply witness upon witness of this kind upon you if I had time. I would take Chaucer, and show you why he wrote a Legend of Good Women; but no Legend of Good Men. I would take Spenser, and show you how all his fairy knights are sometimes deceived and sometimes vanquished; but the soul of Una is never darkened, and the spear of Britomart is never broken. Nay, I could go back into the mythical teaching of the most ancient times, and show you how the great people,—by one of whose princesses it was appointed that the Lawgiver of all the earth should be educated, rather than by his own kindred;—how that great Egyptian people, wisest then of nations, gave to their Spirit of Wisdom the form of a woman; and into her hand, for a symbol, the weaver's shuttle: and how the name and the form of that spirit, adopted, believed, and obeyed by the Greeks, became that Athena of the olive-helm, and cloudy shield, to whose faith you owe, down to this date, whatever you hold most precious in art, in literature, or in types of national virtue.

如果时间足够的话,我现在可以举出好多倍这样的例子。我可以拿乔叟为例,分析为什么他写《好女人的传说》而不是《好男人的传说》。我可以拿斯宾塞为例,向你们展示他笔下所有优雅的骑士怎样时而被欺骗,时而被打败;而尤纳的灵魂却从未被玷污,布里托马特的矛也从未折断。不仅如此,我还可以追溯到最古老年代的神话教义,向你们说明一个伟大的民族为什么要由一位公主而不是由自己的族人下令:所有的立法者都应该受教育;为什么当时最有智慧的国家、伟大的埃及要赋予智慧之神以女性的形象,而她手持的象征物是织布机的梭子;而该智慧之神的名字和形象又是怎样被希腊人所采用、信仰和尊崇,最后演变成头戴橄榄头盔、手持云纹盾牌的雅典娜,时至今日,人们仍然把艺术、文学或各种民族美德中最珍贵的东西归功于她的庇佑。

But I will not wander into this distant and mythical element; I will only ask you to give its legitimate value to the testimony of these great poets and men of the world,—consistent as you see it is on this head. I will ask you whether it can be supposed that these men, in the main work of their lives, are amusing themselves with a fictitious and idle view of the relations between man and woman;—nay, worse than fictitious or idle; for a thing may be imaginary, yet desirable, if it were possible; but this, their ideal of woman, is, according to our common idea of the marriage relation, wholly undesirable. The woman, we say, is not to guide, nor even to think, for herself. The man is always to be the wiser; he is to be the thinker, the ruler, the superior in knowledge and discretion, as in power. Is it not somewhat important to make up our minds on this matter? Are all these great men mistaken, or are we? Are Shakespeare and Aeschylus, Dante and Homer, merely dressing dolls for us; or, worse than dolls, unnatural visions, the realisation of which, were it possible, would bring anarchy into all households and ruin into all affections? Nay, if you could suppose this, take lastly the evidence of facts, given by the human heart itself. In all Christian ages which have been remarkable for their purity or progress, there has been absolute yielding of obedient devotion, by the lover, to his mistress. I say obedient—not merely enthusiastic and worshiping in imagination, but entirely subject, receiving from the beloved woman, however young, not only the encouragement, the praise, and the reward of all toil, but so far as any choice is open, or any question difficult of decision, the direction of all toil. That chivalry, to the abuse and dishonour of which are attributable primarily whatever is cruel in war, unjust in peace, or corrupt and ignoble in domestic relations; and to the original purity and power of which we owe the defence alike of faith, of law, and of love;—that chivalry, I say, in its very first conception of honourable life, assumes the subjection of the young knight to the command—should it even be the command in caprice—of his lady. It assumes this, because its masters knew that the first and necessary impulse of every truly taught and knightly heart is this of blind service to its lady: that where that true faith and captivity are not, all wayward and wicked passions must be; and that in this rapturous obedience to the single love of his youth, is the sanctification of all man's strength, and the continuance of all his purposes. And this, not because such obedience would be safe, or honourable, were it ever rendered to the unworthy; but because it ought to be impossible for every noble youth—it is impossible for every one rightly trained—to love any one whose gentle counsel he cannot trust, or whose prayerful command he can hesitate to obey.

但是我不会走进这个遥远的神话世界之中,我只想恳请你们给这些世界著名诗人和伟人的证言以恰当的评价——正如大家所见,他们的观点在这方面还很一致。我想问问你们,我们是否可以推测说,这些人在其生命中的主要作品中,是在假想、虚构出这样的两性关系聊以自娱——不,比假想和虚构更糟糕,因为一件事只要有可能,就会包含想象的成分,但它却依然是令人向往的。然而,他们心中女性的完美典型,根据我们对于婚姻关系的常识,却完全不会令人向往。我们认为,女人既不会管理,也没有主见。男人总是更睿智;他是思想家和统治者,无论知识上还是判断力以及体力上都更胜一筹。让我们在这件事上打定主意难道一点都不重要吗?是所有这些伟人们错了,还是我们错了?莫非莎士比亚和埃斯库罗斯、但丁和荷马在我们面前展现的只是穿着衣服的玩偶,或者还不如,只是虚无的幻象,如果可能的话,这些幻象将使所有家庭变得混乱无序,并且摧毁所有感情?不,如果你这么想的话,最后请看看人类心灵本身给出的事实依据吧。在以圣洁或进取著称的所有基督教年代,一直都有男人对心爱的女子全心投入、绝对服从的例子。我说“服从” ——不仅指想象中的热诚和崇拜,而且是完全的臣服;无论心爱的女子多么年轻,不仅从她们身上获得鼓励、赞扬以及一切辛苦付出后的回报,然而,更重要的是,遇到任何开放的选择或难以决断的问题时,从她们那儿获得指导。这种骑士精神——战争中的残酷、和平年代的不公、国家内部的腐败及不光彩事件主要都是因为滥用或不顾这种精神;同样,人们对忠诚、法律、爱情的捍卫都是凭借它原始的圣洁和力量——我认为,这种骑士精神对光荣之生活的首要概念就是要对心爱的女士言听计从——甚至是反复无常的想法也应该顺从。有这种精神的假定是因为它的主人们明白一颗经过真正训练的骑士之心就是为不加分辨地为心爱的女子效命而跳动的:在没有这种真实的信念和羁绊的地方,一定满是任性而不道德的情欲。在对其年轻时唯一所爱之人的狂热顺从中,一个男人所有的力量得到认可,所有计划得以继续。而这,并不是因为这样的顺从会是安全的或高尚的,哪怕对方不值得;而是因为每一位高尚的青年都不可能——每一位经过正确训练的骑士都不可能——爱上那些提出温柔的建议他却不肯信任、或是下达虔诚的命令他却不能毫不犹豫执行的人。

I do not insist by any farther argument on this, for I think it should commend itself at once to your knowledge of what has been and to your feelings of what should be. You cannot think that the buckling on of the knight's armour by his lady's hand was a mere caprice of romantic fashion. It is the type of an eternal truth—that the soul's armour is never well set to the heart unless a woman's hand has braced it; and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honour of manhood fails. Know you not those lovely lines—I would they were learned by all youthful ladies of England:—

我不想就这一点再争论下去,因为我认为它应该立即为你们已有的知识和应有的情感所接受。你不能以为骑士让心爱的女子为其系好盔甲只是一种随意的浪漫做法。这是一条永恒的真理——没有经过女人的手,灵魂的盔甲永远也不能牢牢地系在心灵上;只有当她没把盔甲系紧的时候,他才会失去男子汉的荣誉。知道你们没有读过那些可爱的诗句——我希望英格兰所有年轻女孩都学过这首诗:

"Ah, wasteful woman!—show who may

“啊,挥霍无度的女人!看,

On her sweet self set her own price,

她为美丽的自我定价,

Knowing he cannot choose but pay—

明知他除了支付别无选择——

How has she cheapen'd Paradise!

她已将天堂如此贱卖!

How given for nought her priceless gift,

把她的无价之宝免费送出,

How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine,

糟蹋了面包,泼洒了美酒,

Which, spent with due, respective thrift,

若是分别合理地节俭使用,

Had made brutes men, and men divine." (Coventry Patmore.)

它们早已使野兽变成人,人变成神!”(考文垂 帕特莫尔——作者注)

Thus much, then, respecting the relations of lovers I believe you will accept. But what we too often doubt is the fitness of the continuance of such a relation throughout the whole of human life. We think it right in the lover and mistress, not in the husband and wife. That is to say, we think that a reverent and tender duty is due to one whose affection we still doubt, and whose character we as yet do but partially and distantly discern; and that this reverence and duty are to be withdrawn, when the affection has become wholly and limitlessly our own, and the character has been so sifted and tried that we fear not to entrust it with the happiness of our lives. Do you not see how ignoble this is, as well as how unreasonable? Do you not feel that marriage—when it is marriage at all,—is only the seal which marks the vowed transition of temporary into untiring service, and of fitful into eternal love?

相信在恋人的关系上你们基本上都接受这一点,但我们常常质疑这样的关系持续一生是否合理。我们觉得这样的关系适用于恋人,却不适用于夫妻之间。也就是说,我们对一个人的感情仍心存疑虑,对其性格了解有所认识但还只是部分的、肤浅的了解时,才会殷勤周到、温柔体贴;当确定对方的感情已经完完全全属于自己,对其性格已经经过了如此多的调查和考验,我们已经可以放心地把一生的幸福交托出去时,这种殷勤周到和温柔体贴就会被收回。难道你没看出来这是多么不光彩,多么不合理吗?你没有感觉到婚姻——名副其实的婚姻——只是一个标志着短暂的付出变成长久的、不知疲倦的服务,不确定的感情变成永恒之爱的印章吗?

But how, you will ask, is the idea of this guiding function of the woman reconcilable with a true wifely subjection? Simply in that it is a guiding, not a determining, function. Let me try to show you briefly how these powers seem to be rightly distinguishable.

但是,你会问,女人的指导作用和忠诚地作为妻子的服从两者是如何协调的?简单地说,这里说的是指导作用,而不是决定作用。下面我向大家简单解释一下二者的区别。

We are foolish, and without excuse foolish, in speaking of the "superiority" of one sex to the other, as if they could be compared in similar things. Each has what the other has not: each completes the other, and is completed by the other: they are in nothing alike, and the happiness and perfection of both depends on each asking and receiving from the other what the other only can give.

我们是愚蠢的人,愚蠢得没有申辩余地。我们谈到一性别比另一性别“优等”,好像二者是类似的事物,有可比性。事实上,任一方都有着另一方所没有的特点:二者相辅相成;双方毫无相似之处,双方的幸福和完善都要依靠向另一方要求和获取,并且只有对方能够给予。

Now their separate characters are briefly these: The man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminently the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect is for speculation and invention; his energy for adventure, for war, and for conquest, wherever war is just, wherever conquest necessary. But the woman's power is for rule, not for battle,—and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. She sees the qualities of things, their claims, and their places. Her great function is Praise: she enters into no contest, but infallibly judges the crown of contest. By her office, and place, she is protected from all danger and temptation. The man, in his rough work in open world, must encounter all peril and trial:—to him, therefore, the failure, the offense, the inevitable error: often he must be wounded, or subdued, often misled, and always hardened. But he guards the woman from all this; within his house, as ruled by her, unless she herself has sought it, need enter no danger, no temptation, no cause of error or offense. This is the true nature of home—it is the place of Peace; the shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home; so far as the anxieties of the outer life penetrate into it, and the inconsistently-minded, unknown, unloved, or hostile society of the outer world is allowed by either husband or wife to cross the threshold, it ceases to be home; it is then only a part of that outer world which you have roofed over, and lighted fire in. But so far as it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, a temple of the hearth watched over by Household Gods, before whose faces none may come but those whom they can receive with love,—so far as it is this, and roof and fire are types only of a nobler shade and light,—shade as of the rock in a weary land, and light as of the Pharos in the stormy sea;—so far it vindicates the name, and fulfills the praise, of Home.

男人和女人之间个性的区别大致如下:男人的力量是积极的、进取的和防御性的。他是出色的行动者、创造者、发现者和保护者。他的才能是思索和发明;他的精力用于冒险、战争和征服,无论哪里,只要战争是正义的,或者征服是必要的,他就会义无反顾地投入。但是,女人的力量在于统治,而不是战斗——她的才能不是发明或创造,而是下达甜蜜的命令、收拾安排和作出决定。她清楚物品的质量、要价和出售地点。她的重要职责是赞扬:她不参与任何竞争,但却总是竞争的裁判。凭借职责和地位,就可以得到保护,免于一切危险和诱惑。而男人在开放的世界里艰苦地工作,必须面对所有危险,经受各种考验——因此,对他来说,就必须面对失败、过失和不可避免的错误;经常会受伤,或者被挫败,经常被误导,却总是磨炼得越来越坚强。然而他保护女人不受这些伤害;在他那由她统治的房子之内,除非是她自找的,否则她不会遇到任何危险和诱惑,不会犯下任何错误或过失。这就是家的真谛——它是和平的领地;它是避难所,不仅使我们免于一切伤害,而且免于一切恐惧、猜疑和分歧。若非如此,就不能称其为家;如果夫妻中任何一方让外界的忧虑入侵它,让外面世界那反复无常的、陌生的、不受欢迎或充满敌意的社会跨进门槛,家就不再是家;那时的它只不过是外部世界的一部分,只不过盖了屋顶、生了火炉而已。然而只要它还是一块圣地,一座贞洁的庙宇,一个有家庭之神守护的庙宇,当着这些家神的面,只有受他们宠爱的人才可以迈入脚步——只要它是这样一个地方,屋顶和炉火只不过是较为华丽的遮蔽物和灯光而已——像荒野中岩石提供的遮蔽,像狂风暴雨的大海上法罗斯岛灯塔放出的光明——只要它无愧于家的名字,无愧于人们对它的赞扬,它就是一个家!

And wherever a true wife comes, this home is always round her. The stars only may be over her head; the glowworm in the night-cold grass may be the only fire at her foot: but home is yet wherever she is; and for a noble woman it stretches far round her, better than ceiled with cedar, or painted with vermilion, shedding its quiet light far, for those who else were homeless.

一个好妻子无论到哪里,这个家都会始终跟随着她。她头顶只是可能会有星星闪烁;寒夜里,草丛中的萤火虫也许是她脚边唯一的灯火。但是,她到哪里,家就跟到哪里,而且对一个高尚的女人来说,家能从她身边远远延伸开去,比松木屋顶和朱红门梁更宝贵,它静静的灯火散溢开去,为无家可归的人带去光芒。

This, then, I believe to be,—will you not admit it to be,—the woman's true place and power? But do not you see that, to fulfil this, she must—as far as one can use such terms of a human creature—be incapable of error? So far as she rules, all must be right, or nothing is. She must be enduringly, incorruptibly good; instinctively, infallibly wise—wise, not for self-development, but for self-renunciation: wise, not that she may set herself above her husband, but that she may never fail from his side: wise, not with the narrowness of insolent and loveless pride, but with the passionate gentleness of an infinitely variable, because infinitely applicable, modesty of service—the true changefulness of woman. In that great sense—"La donna e mobile", not "Qual piùm' al vento"; no, nor yet "Variable as the shade, by the light quivering aspen made"; but variable as the light, manifold in fair and serene division, that it may take the colour of all that it falls upon, and exalt it.

那么,我认为这就是女人真正的地位和权力,你们难道不承认吗?但是,得看到,要实现这一点,她必须——假如这样的词可以用在人类身上的话——不会犯错。只要她管理着家庭,就必须一切正确,否则就会全盘皆输。她必须永远善良,不因外界而改变;她必须有着本能的、绝对无误的智慧——这种智慧不是为了自我发展,而是为了自我牺牲;这种智慧不是为了使她凌驾于夫君之上,而是为了让她不会辜负他身旁的位置。这种智慧没有傲慢冷酷的狭隘,只有变换无限的热情和温柔,因为她的付出可以无限应用而又谦逊节制——这就是女人的善变。在这种高尚的意义上来说,“女人善变”不是“像羽毛一样在空中飘浮”;不,也不是“像颤抖的白杨造成的光影一样变化多端”;而是像光线一样变幻莫测,产生各种美丽宁静的影像,落在什么物体上就染上什么色彩,并将它变得更加鲜亮。

I have been trying, thus far, to show you what should be the place, and what the power of woman. Now, secondly, we ask, What kind of education is to fit her for these?

到目前为止,我一直在试图向你们解释女人的地位和权力应该是什么。接下来,第二个问题是女人为了适应这些应该接受怎样的教育。

And if you indeed think this is a true conception of her office and dignity, it will not be difficult to trace the course of education which would fit her for the one, and raise her to the other.

假如你们确实认为这是女性职责和尊严的正确概念,那么就不难找出与之相适应的教育课程,使她称职,并进一步获得尊严。

The first of our duties to her—no thoughtful persons now doubt this,—is to secure for her such physical training and exercise as may confirm her health, and perfect her beauty; the highest refinement of that beauty being unattainable without splendour of activity and of delicate strength. To perfect her beauty, I say, and increase its power; it cannot be too powerful, nor shed its sacred light too far: only remember that all physical freedom is vain to produce beauty without a corresponding freedom of heart. There are two passages of that poet who is distinguished, it seems to me, from all others—not by power, but by exquisite rightness—which point you to the source, and describe to you, in a few syllables, the completion of womanly beauty. I will read the introductory stanzas, but the last is the one I wish you specially to notice:—

我们对她的首要职责——凡是有思想的人都不会怀疑这一点——保证她足够的体能训练和锻炼,以确保她的健康,完善她的美丽;不从事运动,不培养灵巧的力量,就不能达到美的最高境界。我说,要完善她的美丽,让她的美越来越有力量;美的力量怎么强大都不为过,美的光芒散播得越远越好:只是要记住,心灵若不自由,身体再怎么自由也不可能产生美。有位杰出的诗人写两段诗,我觉得比所有别的诗都要好——不是因为它多么有力,而是因为它异常贴切——寥寥几句就向你指出女性之美的来源,并描述女性之美是如何实现的。我给你们读读开头几段,但我希望你们特别注意的是最后一段:

"Three years she grew in sun and shower,

“她沐浴阳光雨露生长三年,

Then Nature said, 'a lovelier flower

然后大自然说,‘世上从未

On earth was never sown.

长过更美的花朵。

This child I to myself will take;

我要把这孩子据为己有;

She shall be mine, and I will make

她将是我的,我将使她成为

A lady of my own.'

我的爱人。’

'Myself will to my darling be

‘我将成为我心爱人儿的

Both law and impulse; and with me

律法和动力;和我在一起

The girl, in rock and plain,

无论在山川或平原,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,

大地或天空,林间或村舍,

Shall feel an overseeing power

她都会感到一种约束之力

To kindle, or restrain.'

启迪她,或者制约她。’

'The floating clouds their state shall lend

‘浮云借她形态;

To her, for her the willow bend;

杨柳朝她弯腰;

Nor shall she fail to see

即便在暴风雨的移动中,

Even in the motions of the storm,

她也能捕捉到

Grace that shall mould the maiden's form

那塑造出少女体态的优雅,

By silent sympathy.'

默默的悲悯正是她的方法。’

'And vital feelings of delight

‘生机勃勃的快乐情感

Shall rear her form to stately height,—

将把她的形体提升至庄严的高度,

Her virgin bosom swell.

使她少女的胸膛变得丰满。

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give,

这些就是我对露茜的情怀,

While she and I together live,

当她和我一起生活

Here in this happy dell.'"

在这个幸福的山谷。’”

"Vital feelings of delight," observe. There are deadly feelings of delight; but the natural ones are vital, necessary to every life.

请注意,“生机勃勃的快乐情感”。虽然死气沉沉的快乐情感是存在的,但是自然的情感都是生机勃勃的,是每个生命不可缺少的。

And they must be feelings of delight, if they are to be vital. Do not think you can make a girl lovely, if you do not make her happy. There is not one restraint you put on a good girl's nature—there is not one check you give to her instincts of affection or of effort—which will not be indelibly written on her features, with a hardness which is all the more painful because it takes away the brightness from the eyes of innocence, and the charm from the brow of virtue.

而且,如果想要生机勃勃,就得是快乐的情感。如果你不让一个女孩快乐,就别指望她可爱。对一个好女孩,不能束缚她的天性——不能遏制她本能的情感或努力——这样,才不会在她的面容上刻下难以磨灭的印记,留下一丝冷酷无情。后者更令人心痛,因为它不只带走了那纯真双眸中的光芒,而且带走了那坚贞眉头上的魅力。

This for the means: now note the end. Take from the same poet, in two lines, a perfect description of womanly beauty—

这是讲实现女性之美的方法,现在请注意结尾。还是这位诗人,他在另外两行诗中对女性之美作了完美的描述:

"A countenance in which did meet

“甜蜜的经历和同样甜蜜的希望

Sweet records, promises as sweet.”

在她的面容上相遇。”

The perfect loveliness of a woman's countenance can only consist in that majestic peace, which is founded in the memory of happy and useful years,—full of sweet records; and from the joining of this with that yet more majestic childishness, which is still full of change and promise;—opening always—modest at once, and bright, with hope of better things to be won, and to be bestowed. There is no old age where there is still that promise—it is eternal youth.

女人的面容之可爱的最高境界只能来自那种庄重的平和,来自对幸福而充实之岁月的回忆——满是甜蜜的经历;与更为庄严的天真相结合,这天真中仍然充满变化和期待——始终是开放的——谦逊而又欢快,带着赢得或被赠予更美好事物的希望。只要有这种希望,人就不会衰老——它是永恒的青春。

Thus, then, you have first to mould her physical frame, and then, as the strength she gains will permit you, to fill and temper her mind with all knowledge and thoughts which tend to confirm its natural instincts of justice, and refine its natural tact of love.

因此,首先你必须塑造她的形体。然后,待她具备所需力量之后,再用知识和思想充实并调和她的心灵,这些知识和思想将强化心灵正义的天性,锻炼它那出于天然的爱的能力。

All such knowledge should be given her as may enable her to understand, and even to aid, the work of men: and yet it should be given, not as knowledge,—not as if it were, or could be, for her an object to know; but only to feel, and to judge, It is of no moment, as a matter of pride or perfectness in herself, whether she knows many languages or one; but it is of the utmost, that she should be able to show kindness to a stranger, and to understand the sweetness of a stranger's tongue. It is of no moment to her own worth or dignity that she should be acquainted with this science or that; but it is of the highest that she should be trained in habits of accurate thought; that she should understand the meaning, the inevitableness, and the loveliness of natural laws; and follow at least some one path of scientific attainment, as far as to the threshold of that bitter Valley of Humiliation, into which only the wisest and bravest of men can descend, owning themselves for ever children, gathering pebbles on a boundless shore. It is of little consequence how many positions of cities she knows, or how many dates of events, or how many names of celebrated persons—it is not the object of education to turn a woman into a dictionary; but it is deeply necessary that she should be taught to enter with her whole personality into the history she reads; to picture the passages of it vitally in her own bright imagination; to apprehend, with her fine instincts, the pathetic circumstances and dramatic relations, which the historian too often only eclipses by his reasoning, and disconnects by his arrangement; it is for her to trace the hidden equities of divine reward, and catch sight, through the darkness, of the fatal threads of woven fire that connect error with its retribution. But, chiefly of all, she is to be taught to extend the limits of her sympathy with respect to that history which is being for ever determined, as the moments pass in which she draws her peaceful breath: and to the contemporary calamity, which, were it but rightly mourned by her, would recur no more hereafter. She is to exercise herself in imagining what would be the effects upon her mind and conduct, if she were daily brought into the presence of the suffering which is not the less real because shut from her sight. She is to be taught somewhat to understand the nothingness of the proportion which that little world in which she lives and loves, bears to the world in which God lives and loves;—and solemnly she is to be taught to strive that her thoughts of piety may not be feeble in proportion to the number they embrace, nor her prayer more languid than it is for the momentary relief from pain of her husband or her child, when it is uttered for the multitudes of those who have none to love them,—and is "for all who are desolate and oppressed."

这些知识必须传授给她,令她得以理解甚至辅助男人的工作,但又不应作为知识传授给她——不能将它作为好像是或可能是一个能被认知的事物传授给她,而应让她去感觉,去判断。就她自身的骄傲或完美而言,懂几门外语或是只会讲一种语言,从来都无关紧要;然而极为重要的是,她得学会对陌生人友善,欣赏陌生人谈吐的可爱。就她自身的价值或尊严而言,熟悉这门或那门科学都无所谓;最重要的是要训练她形成准确思考的习惯;她应该懂得自然规律的意义、必然性和魅力所在;至少遵循一种科学方法,直至来到痛苦的屈辱之谷的入口,只有最聪明、最勇敢的人才能下到屈辱之谷,在那里,他们永远像孩子一样,在茫茫无际的海边拣鹅卵石。对她来说,知道多少城市的位置,多少事件的发生日期,多少名人的名字都没关系——教育的目的不是把女人变成词典,真正必要的是,要教她读历史时全身心地进入历史;发挥出色的想象力生动地描绘出历史的画面;运用她良好的直觉理解悲惨的境遇和戏剧化的关系,这些方面史学家们往往因推理而忽略,又因谋篇布局而将其割裂;她有责任从神的旨意中发现隐藏的公正,从黑暗中看到编织连接错误及其报应之火的命运之线。然而,最重要的是,要教她扩展其同情心的界限,在她那平静的日子流逝的过程中,为永远不可改变的历史叹息;同时也同情现状,当前的灾难经过她的哀悼,也许就不会再发生。她要练习想象:假如每天都被带到灾难现场——这些不会因她未亲眼目睹就不那么真实,自己的思想和行为会受到什么影响。要让她多少明白,她在其中生活与爱恋的小世界和上帝生活与爱恋的世界相比微不足道——要郑重地教她,她虔诚的思想不要随着包含内容的增多而变得无力,或者当她为那些孤苦无依的人们——“所有悲惨和被压迫的人们”祈祷时,不能因为这不是为丈夫和孩子减轻片刻痛苦的祈祷而有所倦怠。

Thus far, I think, I have had your concurrence; perhaps you will not be with me in what I believe is most needful for me to say. There is one dangerous science for women—one which they must indeed beware how they profanely touch—that of theology. Strange, and miserably strange, that while they are modest enough to doubt their powers, and pause at the threshold of sciences where every step is demonstrable and sure, they will plunge headlong, and without one thought of incompetency, into that science in which the greatest men have trembled, and the wisest erred. Strange, that they will complacently and pridefully bind up whatever vice or folly there is in them, whatever arrogance, petulance, or blind incomprehensiveness, into one bitter bundle of consecrated myrrh. Strange, in creatures born to be Love visible, that where they can know least, they will condemn first, and think to recommend themselves to their Master by scrambling up the steps of His judgement throne, to divide it with Him. Most strange, that they should think they were led by the Spirit of the Comforter into habits of mind which have become in them the unmixed elements of home discomfort; and that they dare to turn the Household Gods of Christianity into ugly idols of their own; —spiritual dolls, for them to dress according to their caprice; and from which their husbands must turn away in grieved contempt, lest they should be shrieked at for breaking them.

到目前为止,我觉得大家都同意我说的话,但接下来我觉得最需要讲的内容,也许你们并不会认同。对女人来说,有一门危险的学科——她们必须确实地小心对待,谨防渎神——那就是神学。奇怪,而且非常奇怪的是,当她们有足够的谦逊质疑自己的力量时,经过一步步确切、可论证的初始阶段后在科学的路途上停滞不前时,丝毫不会认为自己能力不足,而是毫不犹豫地一头栽进这门令最伟大的人颤抖、令最睿智的人失误的学科。奇怪的是,她们沾沾自喜、骄傲自大地把自身的所有恶习或者愚行,以及所有傲慢、冲动、盲目的狭隘捆在一起成为一捆苦涩的神圣没药树。奇怪的是,对那些显然为爱而生的生物,她们了解得最少,但她们首先谴责,然后一心想着爬上通向上帝判决宝座的阶梯,把自己推荐给上帝,并与上帝共享宝座。最奇怪的是,她们认为自己受到圣灵的指引,才养成这种思维习惯,这些习惯已经成为造成家庭不睦的所有原因;她们胆敢把基督教的家庭之神变成她们的丑陋玩偶——精神玩偶,随心所欲地加以装扮;她们的丈夫必须在令人伤心的轻蔑中离这些玩偶远远的,一不小心将其打破就会遭到厉声责骂。

I believe, then, with this exception, that a girl's education should be nearly, in its course and material of study, the same as a boy's; but quite differently directed. A woman, in any rank of life, ought to know whatever her husband is likely to know, but to know it in a different way. His command of it should be foundational and progressive, hers, general and accomplished for daily and helpful use. Not but that it would often be wiser in men to learn things in a womanly sort of way, for present use, and to seek for the discipline and training of their mental powers in such branches of study as will be afterwards fittest for social service; but, speaking broadly, a man ought to know any language or science he learns, thoroughly, while a woman ought to know the same language, or science, only so far as may enable her to sympathise in her husband's pleasures, and in those of his best friends.

我认为,除了这个例外,女孩的教育在课程和学习材料上应该跟男孩的几乎一样,但是在具体教导上非常不同。对任何阶层的一个女人来说,丈夫可能懂的东西她们也必须掌握,但掌握的方式不一样。男人对知识的掌握应是根本而进取性的;女人对知识的掌握则是笼统而成熟的,用于日常生活和帮助他人。男人若是采用女人的方式来学习,对实际应用、注重自律和磨炼意志力会更有益,就有些学科而言将来也能更适应社会。但广泛地说,男人应该对所学的每一门语言和学科掌握得彻彻底底,而女人对它们的掌握只要使她足够与丈夫及丈夫的好友产生共鸣即可。

Yet, observe, with exquisite accuracy as far as she reaches. There is a wide difference between elementary knowledge and superficial knowledge—between a firm beginning, and a feeble smattering. A woman may always help her husband by what she knows, however little; by what she half-knows, or mis-knows, she will only teaze him.

尽量仔细观察,就会发现,基础知识和肤浅知识之间有很大区别,一个是坚实的开端,一个是微薄的浅尝辄止。女人要始终用自己所学帮助丈夫,哪怕懂得再少也没关系;如果是一知半解,或压根错误的学问,则只能用来逗弄丈夫了。

And indeed, if there were to be any difference between a girl's education and a boy's, I should say that of the two the girl should be earlier led, as her intellect ripens faster, into deep and serious subjects; and that her range of literature should be, not more, but less frivolous, calculated to add the qualities of patience and seriousness to her natural poignancy of thought and quickness of wit; and also to keep her in a lofty and pure element of thought. I enter not now into any question of choice of books; only be sure that her books are not heaped up in her lap as they fall out of the package of the circulating library, wet with the last and lightest spray of the fountain of folly.

如果男孩和女孩的教育真有什么区别的话,我认为女孩的教育应该更早进入深刻、严肃学科的学习,因为女孩智力成熟更快;她们所涉猎的文学的范围应该更深刻而不是更肤浅,以在她们思维深刻、反应敏捷的天性中适当加入耐性和严肃性教育;同时保持她们思想的高尚和纯洁。我现在不是要进入选择书籍的问题,只是想确保她膝盖上不会堆满那些从流通图书馆里借出来、被愚蠢之泉中最肤浅、最后一股泉水打湿的书籍。

Or even of the fountain of wit; for with respect to that sore temptation of novel reading, it is not the badness of a novel that we should dread, but its over-wrought interest. The weakest romance is not so stupefying as the lower forms of religious exciting literature, and the worst romance is not so corrupting as false history, false philosophy, or false political essays. But the best romance becomes dangerous, if, by its excitement, it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, and increases the morbid thirst for useless acquaintance with scenes in which we shall never be called upon to act.

即使是智慧之泉也不行,因为谈到小说令人难以拒绝的诱惑,我们害怕的不是坏小说本身,而是对小说的痴迷。最弱的浪漫小说也没有低级的宗教煽动作品令人麻木,最差的浪漫小说也不及编造的历史、错误的哲学或谬误的政治评论腐蚀人。最好的浪漫小说之所以危险,是因为它的精彩刺激让普通的生活显得无趣,从而增强我们对永远也不会见到的场景的病态的渴望。

I speak therefore of good novels only; and our modern literature is particularly rich in types of such. Well read, indeed, these books have serious use, being nothing less than treatises on moral anatomy and chemistry; studies of human nature in the elements of it. But I attach little weight to this function: they are hardly ever read with earnestness enough to permit them to fulfil it. The utmost they usually do is to enlarge somewhat the charity of a kind reader, or the bitterness of a maliciousone; for each will gather, from the novel, food for her own disposition. Those who are naturally proud and envious will learn from Thackeray 9 to despise humanity; those who are naturally gentle, to pity it; those who are naturally shallow, to laugh at it. So also, there might be a serviceable power in novels to bring before us, in vividness, a human truth which we had before dimly conceived; but the temptation to picturesqueness of statement is so great, that often the best writers of fiction cannot resist it; and our views are rendered so violent and one-sided, that their vitality is rather a harm than good.

因此我只谈论好的小说,在当代文学中这类小说尤其多。好好阅读的话,这些书的确能发挥很大用途,书里对人性的研究比起道德剖析和人际融洽方面的著作毫不逊色。但我并不重视这项用途,因为阅读者很少认真地阅读小说,以使小说实现这一功用。通常它们最大的作用是让善良的读者更善良、邪恶的读者更邪恶,因为每个人都会根据自己的性情从书中获取精神食粮。生性骄傲和善妒的人可以从萨克雷的小说中学会鄙视人性;温和的人学会怜悯;浅薄的人则学会嘲笑。小说总有这样一种力量,它以生动的方式,把蒙蒙眬眬存在于我们脑海中的真理清楚地讲出来;它独特的叙述方式诱惑力之强,连最出色的小说家也无法抵挡;它的表现角度如此激烈、片面,以致它的生动性带来的绝非益处而是坏处。

Without, however, venturing here on any attempt at decision of how much novel reading should be allowed, let me at least clearly assert this, that whether novels, or poetry, or history be read, they should be chosen, not for what is out of them, but for what is in them. The chance and scattered evil that may here and there haunt, or hide itself in, a powerful book, never does any harm to a noble girl; but the emptiness of an author oppresses her, and his amiable folly degrades her. And if she can have access to a good library of old and classical books, there need be no choosing at all. Keep the modern magazine and novel out of your girl's way: turn her loose into the old library every wet day, and let her alone. She will find what is good for her; you cannot: for there is just this difference between the making of a girl's character and a boy's—you may chisel a boy into shape, as you would a rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does, —she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath, as the narcissus does, if you do not give her air enough; she may fall, and defile her head in dust, if you leave her without help at some moments of her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way, if she take any, and in mind as in body, must have always—

在此,我不想就应该允许读多少小说下结论,但至少请允许我清楚地表明,小说、诗歌或历史是否应被阅读,选择的标准不是其外的意旨,而是其包含的内容。一本强大的书中也许散落或隐藏着邪恶,好女孩决不会受到影响,但作者的空虚却会令她压抑,书中和蔼可亲的傻话令她堕落。如果能有个满是经典书籍的好图书馆,就完全用不着选择了。不要让女孩们阅读当代的杂志和小说;每到雨天就让她悠闲地待在古老的图书馆里,别去打扰她。她会找到对自己有益的书籍,而你们却不能,这就是女孩和男孩性格的差异。对于男孩,你可以把他凿成形,就像凿石头那样,或者假如他本身素质更好些,还可以像锤炼一块青铜那样把他敲打成形。但你却无法用敲打的方式来塑造女孩的性格,她的成长就像花儿一样:没有阳光就会枯萎;没有足够的空气,就会像水仙花一样烂在茎里;在她生活的某些时刻,假如没有得到帮助就会垂下脑袋,埋在尘埃之中;你不能束缚她,得让她自己选择想要成为的形状以及方法,如果她愿意选择的话;在肉体和心灵上总是拥有:

"Her household motions light and free

“她轻盈而自由的家居动作,

And steps of virgin liberty.”

以及带着少女的冒失的脚步声。”

Let her loose in the library, I say, as you do a fawn in a field. It knows the bad weeds twenty times better than you; and the good ones too, and will eat some bitter and prickly ones, good for it, which you had not the slightest thought were good.

任她悠闲地呆在图书馆里,我说,就像田野里的小鹿。对于毒草,它懂的比你们多 20 倍,它能辨认出好草,还会吃到一些又苦又多刺的草,这对它有好处,你连做梦都想不出来的好处。

Then, in art, keep the finest models before her, and let her practice in all accomplishments to be accurate and thorough, so as to enable her to understand more than she accomplishes. I say the finest models—that is to say, the truest, simplest, usefullest. Note those epithets; they will range through all the arts. Try them in music, where you might think them the least applicable. I say the truest, that in which the notes most closely and faithfully express the meaning of the words, or the character of intended emotion; again, the simplest, that in which the meaning and melody are attained with the fewest and most significant notes possible; and, finally, the usefullest, that music which makes the best words most beautiful, which enchants them in our memories each with its own glory of sound, and which applies them closest to the heart at the moment we need them.

关于艺术,把最好的榜样放在她面前,让她进行所有才艺的练习,练习时努力做到准确和彻底,以使她懂的比练习的更多。最好的榜样,指的是最真实、最简单、最有用的榜样。请注意这些形容词,它们适用于一切艺术。比如在音乐中,你们可能认为这些词是最不适用的。最真实,指音符最为紧密、忠实地表达歌词的含义或要传达的感情特征;最简单,指用尽可能少而重要的音符表达出含义、创造出旋律;最后,最有用指音乐使最优秀的歌词变成最美妙的乐章,萦绕在我们的记忆里,每个词都带着动听的乐声,在我们需要的时刻,最贴近我们的心灵。

And not only in the material and in the course, but yet more earnestly in the spirit of it, let a girl's education be as serious as a boy's. You bring up your girls as if they were meant for sideboard ornament, and then complain of their frivolity. Give them the same advantages that you give their brothers—appeal to the same grand instincts of virtue in them; teach them also that courage and truth are the pillars of their being: do you think that they would not answer that appeal, brave and true as they are even now, when you know that there is hardly a girl's school in this Christian kingdom where the children's courage or sincerity would be thought of half so much importance as their way of coming in at a door; and when the whole system of society, as respects the mode of establishing them in life, is one rotten plague of cowardice and imposture—cowardice, in not daring to let them live, or love, except as their neighbours choose; and imposture, in bringing, for the purpose of our own pride, the full glow of the world's worst vanity upon a girl's eyes, at the very period when the whole happiness of her future existence depends upon her remaining undazzled?

不仅在教学材料和课程上,更要在精神上,让女孩的教育和男孩的教育一样严肃。你不能把女儿朝餐具柜饰品的方向培养,然后抱怨她们浅薄。为她们提供和兄弟们一样的条件,要求她们培养出同样伟大的操行;也教导她们,勇敢和真理是人生的支柱;当你们知道,在这个基督教国度里几乎没有一所女子学校认为孩子的勇气或诚实有进门的方式一半重要时,当整个社会制度就女孩如何在生活中立足而言,只是一场由怯懦和欺诈——怯懦,不敢让她们去生活、去爱,除非她们的选择和邻居家女孩的一样;欺诈,为了我们自己的骄傲,在她未来的全部幸福取决于不受外界诱惑能力的关键时刻,把世界上最糟的虚荣展现在她们面前——组成的瘟疫时,勇敢和诚实如现在的她们,你认为她们对这些要求会无动于衷吗?

And give them, lastly, not only noble teachings, but noble teachers. You consider somewhat, before you send your boy to school, what kind of a man the master is;—whatsoever kind of a man he is, you at least give him full authority over your son, and show some respect to him yourself: if he comes to dine with you, you do not put him at a side table; you know also that, at his college, your child's immediate tutor will be under the direction of some still higher tutor, for whom you have absolute reverence. You do not treat the Dean of Christ Church or the Master of Trinity as you inferiors.

最后,不但要为她们提供好教育,还要提供好老师。把儿子送进学校之前,你总会考虑一下老师是什么样的人。无论他是什么样的人,至少你会给他绝对的权威,让他管理你的儿子,自己也给予他尊重。如果他与你共进晚餐,你绝不会把他安排在靠墙的桌子。你知道,在大学里,直接教你孩子的老师上面还有更高的领导,对他们你必须绝对尊敬,你绝不会像对待下属那样对待圣公会的教长或三一学院的院长。

But what teachers do you give your girls, and what reverence do you show to the teachers you have chosen? Is a girl likely to think her own conduct, or her own intellect, of much importance, when you trust the entire formation of her character, moral and intellectual, to a person whom you let your servants treat with less respect than they do your housekeeper (as if the soul of your child were a less charge than jams and groceries), and whom you yourself think you confer an honour upon by letting her sometimes sit in the drawing-room in the evening?

但是,你为你的女儿提供什么样的老师?对你挑选的老师又给予怎样的尊敬?假如你把女儿性格的塑造,包括道德上的和智力上的塑造,完全交给老师,但你却让你的仆人对待这位老师还不如对待你的管家(就好像你孩子的心灵还不如酱和杂物重要似的),而你自己认为晚上偶尔让她在客厅坐坐就是给她的恩赐,那么你的女儿可能认为自己的行为或智力非常重要吗?

Thus, then, of literature as her help, and thus of art. There is one more help which we cannot do without—one which, alone, has sometimes done more than all other influences besides,—the help of wild and fair nature. Hear this of the education of Joan of Arc:—

因此,让文学帮助她,让艺术帮助她。此外,还有一种帮助是必须的,这种帮助有时比其他所有影响都重要,那就是,野性而美丽的大自然的帮助。请听听圣女贞德所受的教育吧:

"The education of this poor girl was mean, according to the present standard; was ineffably grand, according to a purer philosophic standard; and only not good for our age, because for us it would be unattainable.

“按当前的标准,这可怜的女孩所受的教育很普通;按更纯粹的哲学的标准,却是难以言喻地伟大;只是对我们这个时代来说无益,因为它是无法达到的……”

"Next after her spiritual advantages, she owed most to the advantages of her situation. The fountain of Domrémy was on the brink of a boundless forest; and it was haunted to that degree by fairies, that the parish priest (curé) was obliged to read mass there once a year, in order to keep them in any decent bound.

“然后,除了思想优势,她最主要得益于生长环境的优势。栋雷米喷泉位于无边无际的森林边缘,精灵们常常在此出现,因此教区的教士每年都得来做一次弥撒,以使她们举止得当……”

"But the forests of Domrémy—those were the glories of the land; for in them abode mysterious powers and ancient secrets that towered into tragic strength. 'Abbeys there were, and abbey windows,'—'like Moorish temples of the Hindoos,' that exercised even princely power both in Touraine and in the German Diets. These had their sweet bells that pierced the forests for many a league at matins or vespers, and each its own dreamy legend. Few enough, and scattered enough, were these abbeys, so as in no degree to disturb the deep solitude of the region; yet many enough to spread a network or awning of Christian sanctity over what else might have seemed a heathen wilderness." (“Joan of Arc: in reference to M. Michelet's 'History of France'." De Quincey's Works. Vol. iii. p. 217.)

“但是,栋雷米森林是大地的荣耀,神奇的力量和古老的秘密在这里凝聚成悲剧的力量。‘这里有修道院,有修道院的窗户’,就像‘印度教徒的摩尔式庙宇’,在都兰和德国议会都行使着高贵的权力。晨祷和晚祷时,悦耳的钟声在森林中回荡,述说着梦幻般的传奇故事。修道院数量少且位置分散,因此不致扰乱这片土地的宁谧,但却足够在一片蛮荒之地上织成一张基督教神圣的网或天蓬。”.(圣女贞德:参见 M. 米歇尔特的《法国史》。见《德 昆西作品集》第3卷第217页。——作者注)

Now, you cannot, indeed, have here in England, woods eighteen miles deep to the center; but you can, perhaps, keep a fairy or two for your children yet, if you wish to keep them. But do you wish it? Suppose you had each, at the back of your houses, a garden large enough for your children to play in, with just as much lawn as would give them room to run,—no more—and that you could not change your abode; but that, if you chose, you could double your income, or quadruple it, by digging a coal shaft in the middle of the lawn, and turning the flower-beds into heaps of coke. Would you do it? I think not. I can tell you, you would be wrong if you did, though it gave you income sixty-fold instead of four-fold.

现在,在英格兰很难找到一片半径 18 英里的森林,但是,假如你们想为孩子们留下一两个精灵,也许还是能行的。可是你们真的有这个意愿吗?假设你们每家房子后面都有个花园,足够孩子们在里面玩耍,草坪也够宽,可以任他们在上面奔跑,而且你不能搬家。假如在草坪中央挖煤,把花圃变成焦炭堆,可以令你们的收入翻一番甚至两番,你们会选择这么做吗?希望你们不会,即使收入不是翻两番而是变成 60 倍,我可以告诉你们,你们这么做也是大错特错。

Yet this is what you are doing with all England. The whole country is but a little garden, not more than enough for your children to run on the lawns of, if you would let them all run there. And this little garden you will turn into furnace-ground, and fill with heaps of cinders, if you can; and those children of yours, not you, will suffer for it. For the fairies will not be all banished; there are fairies of the furnace as of the wood, and their first gifts seem to be "sharp arrows of the mighty"; but their last gifts are "coals of juniper" 10 .

然而,整个英格兰却正在这么做。整个国家就是一个小花园,如果你们允许所有孩子在里面尽情玩耍,那么草坪的大小只刚刚够而已。你们可以把它变成堆满煤渣的矿场,但将会痛苦的不是你们,而是你们的孩子。因为精灵们不会都被驱逐,有森林精灵,也有矿场精灵。他们的第一份礼物似乎是“勇士的利箭”,但最后的礼物却是“罗腾木的炭火”。

And yet I cannot—though there is no part of my subject that I feel more—press this upon you; for we made so little use of the power of nature while we had it that we shall hardly feel what we have lost. Just on the other side of the Mersey you have your Snowdon, and your Menai Straits, and that mighty granite rock beyond the moors of Anglesea, splendid in its heathery crest, and foot planted in the deep sea, once thought of as sacred—a divine promontory, looking westward; the Holy Head or Headland, still not without awe when its red light glares first through storm. These are the hills, and these the bays and blue inlets, which, among the Greeks, would have been always loved, always fateful in influence on the national mind. That Snowdon is your Parnassus 11 ; but where are its Muses? That Holyhead mountain is your Island of Aegina, but where is its Temple to Minerva?

尽管这是我感触最深的部分,但是我不能强加于你们。在拥有自然的力量时,我们没有好好利用,因此几乎察觉不出失去了什么。你们的斯诺登峰就在默西河对面,还有梅奈海峡,还有安格尔西岛沼泽对面的那块巨型花岗岩,它顶端长着茂密的石楠,底部扎进深海,曾被视为圣崖——那望西的圣岬,它发出的红光穿过暴风雨时,依然令人敬畏。这里有山峦、海湾和蓝色的小港。如果换了希腊人,它们会永远得到热爱,并对其民族思想产生巨大影响。斯诺登峰就是你们的帕纳塞斯山,可是它的缪斯在哪儿?那圣岬就是你们的爱琴岛,可是它的雅典娜神庙在哪儿?

Shall I read you what the Christian Minerva had achieved under the shadow of our Parnassus, up to the year 1848?—Here is a little account of a Welsh school, from page 261 of the report on Wales, published by the Committee of Council on Education. This is a school close to a town containing 5,000 persons:—

我可以为你们读读截至 1848 年,基督教的雅典娜女神在我们的帕纳塞斯山的阴影之下取得了哪些成就吗?这里有对一所威尔士学校的简短描述,摘自教育委员会公布的《威尔士报告》第 261 页。这所学校位于一个 5,000 人口的小镇附近。

"I then called up a larger class, most of whom had recently come to the school. Three girls repeatedly declared that they had never heard of Christ, and two that they had never heard of God. Two out of six thought Christ was on earth now" (they might have had a worse thought, perhaps), "three knew nothing about the crucifixion. Four out of seven did not know the names of the months, nor the number of days in a year. They had no notion of addition beyond two and two, or three and three; their minds were perfect blanks."

随后我叫来一个更大的班级,班里大部分学生都刚进学校不久。三位女生一再声称从未听说过基督,有两位从未听说过上帝。六位学生中有两位以为基督尚在人间”(也许还有更糟的想法);“有三位对耶稣受难记一无所知。七位中有四位不知道月份的名字,也不清楚一年有多少天。除了二加二或者三加三之外,他们没有加法的概念。他们的头脑完全一片空白。”

Oh, ye women of England! From the Princess of that Wales to the simplest of you, do not think your own children can be brought into their true fold of rest, while these are scattered on the hills, as sheep having no shepherd. And do not think your daughters can be trained to the truth of their own human beauty, while the pleasant places, which God made at once for their school-room and their playground, lie desolate and defiled. You cannot baptize them rightly in those inch-deep fonts of yours, unless you baptize them also in the sweet waters which the great Lawgiver strikes forth for ever from the rocks of your native land—waters which a Pagan would have worshipped in their purity, and you worship only with pollution. You cannot lead your children faithfully to those narrow axe-hewn church altars of yours, while the dark azure altars in heaven—the mountains that sustain your island throne,—mountains on which a Pagan would have seen the powers of heaven rest in every wreathed cloud—remain for you without inscription; altars built, not to, but by, an Unknown God.

啊,英格兰的妇女们!上至威尔士王妃,下至你们当中头脑最简单的人,别以为不努力就能把你们的孩子带进真正的休息之所,就像满山跑的羊群没有牧羊人就进不了羊栏,道理是一样的。也别以为上帝为她们创造的漂亮教室和运动场被置于荒芜肮脏之中时,她们自身还能通过训练绽放出人性之美。除非使用伟大的立法者从当地岩石里打出的甜水,否则,用你们几寸深的洗礼盆无法令她们得到有效的洗礼。那甘甜的山泉,异教徒崇拜时都会保持其纯净,而你们崇拜时却令它受到污染。天空下深蓝色的圣坛,即维系你们岛国王权的群山——站在山上,连异教徒们都能看到每片云彩里蕴含着上帝的力量——如果你们对此一无所知,你们就无法把孩子们虔诚地引到你们狭窄的、斧凿的圣坛。圣坛不是为未知的神而建,而是被未知的神所建。

III. Thus far, then, of the nature, thus far of the teaching, of woman, and thus of her household office, and queenliness. We come now to our last, our widest question,—What is her queenly office with respect to the state?

目前为止,我们谈论了女性的天性、教育、家庭职责和王后般的权力。现在,到了最后一个也是最广泛的问题:对于国家来说,她们的王后权力是什么?

Generally, we are under an impression that a man's duties are public, and a woman's private. But this is not altogether so. A man has a personal work or duty, relating to his own home, and a public work or duty, which is the expansion of the other, relating to the state. So a woman has a personal work or duty, relating to her own home, and a public work and duty, which is also the expansion of that.

我们通常有这样一个印象,认为男人的职责是公共的,而女人的职责则是个人的,但并非完全如此。男人有涉及家庭的个人工作或职责,也有涉及国家的公共工作或职责,其公共职责是个人职责的延伸。因此,女人也应该既有涉及家庭的个人工作或职责,又有公共工作和职责,女人的公共职责也应该是个人职责的延伸。

Now the man's work for his own home is, as has been said, to secure its maintenance, progress, and defence; the woman's to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness.

男人对家庭的职责是,如前所述,维持家庭、使它进步并保护它;女人的职责则是保证家庭井然有序、温馨舒适并可爱宜人。

Expand both these functions. The man's duty, as a member of a commonwealth, is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance, in the defence of the state. The woman's duty, as a member of the commonwealth, is to assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in the beautiful adornment of the state.

把二者加以扩展,作为一个公民,男人的职责是维持国家、帮国家取得发展并保卫国家;女人的职责则是维持国家秩序、建设舒适的环境并美化国家。

What the man is at his own gate, defending it, if need be, against insult and spoil, that also, not in a less, but in a more devoted measure, he is to be at the gate of his country, leaving his home, if need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there.

如果一个男人能够守住家门,在必要时保护它不受侮辱和破坏,那么,当他守护国门时只会更投入。必要的时候,甚至会放弃家园,冒着家园遭到破坏的危险,去义不容辞地保卫国家。

And, in like manner, what the woman is to be within her gates, as the center of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty; that she is also to be without her gates, where order is more difficult, distress more imminent, loveliness more rare.

同样,女人在家门里履行她的职责,即维持秩序、抚慰伤痛、创造美丽环境,在家门外则履行她的公共职责,只不过秩序的维持更艰难、抚慰的伤痛更迫切、美丽的环境更稀少而已。

And as within the human heart there is always set an instinct for all its real duties,—an instinct which you cannot quench, but only warp and corrupt if you withdraw it from its true purpose;—as there is the intense instinct of love, which, rightly disciplined, maintains all the sanctities of life, and, misdirected, undermines them; and must do either the one or the other;—so there is in the human heart an inextinguishable instinct, the love of power, which, rightly directed, maintains all the majesty of law and life, and misdirected, wrecks them.

人类内心深处始终存在一种履行自己真正职责的本能,哪怕你阻止它实现自己的目标,它也不会熄灭,而只有当你将其引入邪道时,它才会被弯曲或腐蚀。正如人类都有强烈的爱的本能,倘若得到正确约束,则能保持生命的纯洁;倘被误导,这种纯洁就会遭到破坏;二者必定非此即彼。因此人类心中有种不灭的本能,即对力量的热爱,倘若得到正确引导,能保持法律和生命的权威,否则就会破坏这种权威。

Deep rooted in the innermost life of the heart of man, and of the heart of woman, God set it there, and God keeps it there. Vainly, as falsely, you blame or rebuke the desire of power!—For Heaven's sake, and for Man's sake, desire it all you can. But what power? That is all the question. Power to destroy? The lion's limb, and the dragon's breath? Not so. Power to heal, to redeem, to guide, and to guard. Power of the sceptre and shield; the power of the royal hand that heals in touching,—that binds the fiend, and looses the captive; the throne that is founded on the rock of Justice, and descended from only by steps of mercy. Will you not covet such power as this, and seek such throne as this, and be no more housewives, but queens?

无论男人还是女人,这种本能都深深地植根于他们心灵的最深处。上帝把它放在那儿,并保存在那儿。责备或谴责这种对力量的渴望不仅是徒劳的,也是错误的!为了上天,也为了人类,尽量去追求吧。但是追求什么样的力量呢?这才是问题所在。破坏的力量?狮子的臂膀或是巨龙的吼叫?不。应该追求的是治疗、救赎、指导和守护的力量。权杖和盾牌的力量;王权之手那一触便能治愈的力量——这力量能绑住恶魔和解放俘虏;这王位建立在正义的基础之上,只有迈着慈悲的步子才能走上。难道你们不想得到这样的权力,走上这样的王位,不再做家庭主妇,而是成为王后吗?

It is now long since the women of England arrogated, universally, a title which once belonged to nobility only; and, having once been in the habit of accepting the simple title of gentlewoman, as correspondent to that of gentleman, insisted on the privilege of assuming the title of "Lady," (I wish there were a true order of chivalry instituted for our English youth of certain ranks, in which both boy and girl should receive, at a given age, their knighthood and ladyhood by true title; attainable only by certain probation and trial both of character and accomplishment; and to be forfeited, on conviction, by their peers, of any dishonourable act. Such an institution would be entirely, and with all noble results, possible, in a nation which loved honour. That it would not be possible among us, is not to the discredit of the scheme.) which properly corresponds only to the title of "Lord."

自从英格兰的妇女普遍冒用以前贵族的专属称呼到现在已经很久了。她们曾经习惯被简单地称为“女士”,与“先生”这个称呼相对应;但现在她们坚持享受被称为“夫人”的特权(我希望为英格兰某些阶层的青年设立一种真正的骑士制度,使得青年男女达到一定年龄后能够获得真正的骑士封号和女士封号。这种封号只有在性格和才艺方面通过一定的见习和考验之后才能获得,倘若被判定行为不端,其同伴有权取消其封号。这样的制度只有在热爱荣誉的国度才有可能,并产生一切高尚的结果。这种制度之所以不可能出现在我们之中,并不是因为制度本身丧失了名誉。——作者注),而与之对应的只有“老爷”。

I do not blame them for this; but only for their narrow motive in this. I would have them desire and claim the title of Lady, provided they claim, not merely the title, but the office and duty signified by it. Lady means "bread-giver" or "loaf-giver," and Lord means "maintainer of laws," and both titles have reference, not to the law which is maintained in the house, nor to the bread which is given to the household; but to law maintained for the multitude, and to bread broken among the multitude. So that a Lord has legal claim only to his title in so far as he is the maintainer of the justice of the Lord of Lords; and a Lady has legal claim to her title, only so far as she communicates that help to the poor representatives of her Master, which women once, ministering to Him of their substance, were permitted to extend to that Master Himself; and when she is known, as He Himself once was, in breaking of bread.

我不是为这个指责她们,只是不喜欢她们在其中的狭隘动机。我希望她们渴望和要求被称为“夫人”不仅仅是冲着这个头衔,而是冲着这个头衔意味着的职责和义务。“夫人”意为“发面包的人”,“老爷”意为“法律的维持者”,这两个头衔的意义不在于维持家庭内的法律或发给家庭面包,而是为劳苦大众维持法律,帮劳苦大众维持生计。因此,老爷只有在维持万圣之主的正义时,才是名副其实的老爷;夫人只有乐于帮助基督贫困的子民,就像女人们曾用自己的食物照料基督、将帮助施予基督那样,并像基督一样以乐善好施而闻名时,才是名副其实的夫人。

And this beneficent and legal dominion, this power of the Dominus, or House-Lord, and of the Domina, or House-Lady, is great and venerable, not in the number of those through whom it has lineally descended, but in the number of those whom it grasps within its sway; it is always regarded with reverent worship wherever its dynasty is founded on its duty, and its ambition co-relative with its beneficence. Your fancy is pleased with the thought of being noble ladies, with a train of vassals. Be it so; you cannot be too noble, and your train cannot be too great; but see to it that your train is of vassals whom you serve and feed, not merely of slaves who serve and feed you; and that the multitude which obeys you is of those whom you have comforted, not oppressed,—whom you have redeemed, not led into captivity.

这种仁慈和法律,这种主的力量,或者说男主人和女主人的力量,其伟大和庄严不在于执行这种力量的人有多少,而在于它惠及了多少大众。一个王朝只要建立在责任的基础之上,它具有青云壮志的同时也不失仁慈,就会始终受到尊敬。成为随从成群的贵夫人这个想法令你们的虚荣心得到满足,那么好吧:你们怎么尊贵都行,随从再多也无妨,但是,请注意,这里的随从不是服侍、供养你们的奴隶,而是你们服务和供养的大众;服从你们的大众,是得到你们安慰而非压迫的人,是被你们拯救而非禁锢的人。

And this, which is true of the lower or household dominion, is equally true of the queenly dominion;—that highest dignity is open to you, if you will also accept that highest duty. Rex et Regina—Roi et Reine—“Right-doers”; they differ but from the Lady and Lord, in that their power is supreme over the mind as over the person—that they not only feed and clothe, but direct and teach. And whether consciously or not, you must be, in many a heart, enthroned: there is no putting by that crown; queens you must always be; queens to your lovers; queens to your husbands and your sons; queens of higher mystery to the world beyond, which bows itself, and will forever bow, before the myrtle crown, and the stainless sceptre, of womanhood. But, alas! You are too often idle and careless queens, grasping at majesty in the least things, while you abdicate it in the greatest; and leaving misrule and violence to work their will among men, in defiance of the power, which, holding straight in gift from the Prince of all Peace, the wicked among you betray, and the good forget.

这一点不仅适用于较低的领域,即家庭领域,也适用于王后的领域;倘若你愿意接受最高的职责,那么也将获得最高的尊严。行善者与老爷夫人的区别在于他们的力量不仅影响一个人的身体,还影响他的思想;不仅供他吃饱穿暖,还指导他、教育他。有意识或无意识都好,在许多人心里,你们就是王后。哪怕没有王冠,你们也永远是王后:爱人心中的王后,丈夫和儿子心中的王后,另一个世界更为神秘的王后,他们拜倒在,并将永远拜倒在你们的桃金娘王冠前,拜倒在女性纯洁的权杖前。可是,哎!你们常常懒惰而粗心,在无关紧要的小事上较真,大事上却无动于衷,任由暴政和暴行在男人中间横行,无视耶稣赐予的力量——邪恶的女性背叛了它,善良的女性忘记了它。

"Prince of Peace." Note that name. When kings rule in that name, and nobles, and the judges of the earth, they also, in their narrow place, and mortal measure, receive the power of it. There are no other rulers than they: other rule than theirs is but misrule; they who govern verily "Dei Gratia" are all princes, yes, or princesses, of peace. There is not a war in the world, no, nor an injustice, but you women are answerable for it; not in that you have provoked, but in that you have not hindered. Men, by their nature, are prone to fight; they will fight for any cause, or for none. It is for you to choose their cause for them, and to forbid them when there is no cause. There is no suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth, but the guilt of it lies lastly with you. Men can bear the sight of it, but you should not be able to bear it. Men may tread it down without sympathy in their own struggle; but men are feeble in sympathy, and contracted in hope; it is you only who can feel the depths of pain; and conceive the way of its healing. Instead of trying to do this, you turn away from it; you shut yourselves within your park walls and garden gates; and you are content to know that there is beyond them a whole world in wilderness—a world of secrets which you dare not penetrate; and of suffering which you dare not conceive.

“耶稣基督”,请注意这个名字。当国王们以他之名进行统治,世界上的贵族和法官也在他们狭窄的领域,在人类可及的范围内,接收他的力量。除了他们以外,没有别的统治者,别的都是暴政。实实在在的统治者都是在主的名义下维护和平的王子或公主。世界上的战争和不公,女人都有责任,不是因为战争和不公是女人挑起的,而是因为你们没有阻止。男人本性好斗,无论有没有理由,他们都会争斗。你们应该为他们选择战斗的理由,当没有理由时,就应制止他们。面对世上的痛苦、不公、不幸,最终感到愧疚的应是你们。男人能忍受这些场景,但你们能忍受就是不应该的。在争斗中,男人能毫无怜悯之心地摧毁,但是男人本就缺乏同情,缺乏希望;只有你们能感受到苦难的深重,并构建康复之路。相反,你们没有这么做,反而逃走了;你们把自己关在花园的院墙和大门里,明知外面有个荒凉的世界,却还自得其乐,不敢了解外面世界的秘密,不敢想象外面世界的苦难。

I tell you that this is to me quite the most amazing among the phenomena of humanity. I am surprised at no depths to which, when once warped from its honour, that humanity can be degraded. I do not wonder at the miser's death, with his hands, as they relax, dropping gold. I do not wonder at the sensualist's life, with the shroud wrapped about his feet. I do not wonder at the single-handed murder of a single victim, done by the assassin in the darkness of the railway, or reed-shadow of the marsh. I do not even wonder at the myriad-handed murder of multitudes, done boastfully in the daylight, by the frenzy of nations, and the immeasurable, unimaginable guilt, heaped up from hell to heaven, of their priests, and kings. But this is wonderful to me—oh, how wonderful!—to see the tender and delicate woman among you, with her child at her breast, and a power, if she would wield it, over it, and over its father, purer than the air of heaven, and stronger than the seas of earth—nay, a magnitude of blessing which her husband would not part with for all that earth itself, though it were made of one entire and perfect chrysolite:—to see her abdicate this majesty to play at precedence with her next-door neighbour! This is wonderful—oh, wonderful!—to see her, with every innocent feeling fresh within her, go out in the morning into her garden to play with the fringes of its guarded flowers, and lift their heads when they are drooping, with her happy smile upon her face, and no cloud upon her brow, because there is a little wall around her place of peace: and yet she knows, in her heart, if she would only look for its knowledge, that, outside of that little rose-covered wall, the wild grass, to the horizon, is torn up by the agony of men, and beat level by the drift of their life-blood.

我告诉你们,这就是人性万象中最令我惊奇的部分。一旦失去尊严,人性就会堕落,对此,我一点也不惊讶。守财奴临死松开手时,掉下金币,我不惊讶。酒色之徒的生命消耗将尽,我不惊讶。在漆黑的铁道上或沼泽地的芦苇丛中,一个人赤手空拳地将另外一个人置于死地,我也不惊讶。甚至狂暴的民族在光天化日之下进行大屠杀,牧师和国王那滔天的罪恶从地狱堆积到了天堂,我也不惊讶。但是,我却对此感到惊讶,无比惊讶:你们之中怀抱婴儿的温柔、脆弱的女性,假如她愿意的话,她的力量本可以支配孩子,支配孩子的父亲——这种力量比空气更纯净,比海洋更壮观;它是一种赐福,由一块完美的橄榄石制成;哪怕用全世界来交换,她的丈夫也不愿意放弃——然而她却放弃这种王权,宁愿去跟邻居玩耍!太惊讶了!她每天早上满怀天真、清新无比地跑进花园,抚弄那些被看护的花儿,托起花儿垂下的脑袋;她面带幸福的笑容,眉头上没有一丝阴云笼罩,因为有一圈围墙保护着她的和平小世界。但是,在内心深处,她知道,假如她稍稍留心一点,就会发现爬满蔷薇的围墙外面,是一大片与天相接的野草,它们被男人的痛苦撕碎,被他们流下的热血淌平。

Have you ever considered what a deep under meaning there lies, or at least, may be read, if we choose, in our custom of strewing flowers before those whom we think most happy? Do you suppose it is merely to deceive them into the hope that happiness is always to fall thus in showers at their feet?—that wherever they pass they will tread on the herbs of sweet scent, and that the rough ground will be made smooth for them by depth of roses? So surely as they believe that, they will have, instead, to walk on bitter herbs and thorns; and the only softness to their feet will be of snow. But it is not thus intended they should believe; there is a better meaning in that old custom. The path of a good woman is indeed strewn with flowers; but they rise behind her steps, not before them. "Her feet have touched the meadows, and left the daisies rosy. 12 " You think that only a lover's fancy;—false and vain! How if it could be true? You think this also, perhaps, only a poet's fancy—

你们考虑过没有,如果我们按照风俗,在我们认为最幸福的人面前洒满花瓣,这里面包含着怎样的深意?或者至少能从中明白什么?你们觉得仅仅是为了把她们骗进一种希望,认为幸福总会撒满她们脚下,无论走到哪里都将踏着花香,凹凸不平的地面也会因厚厚的花瓣变得平坦吗?但是,她们一边这么执著地想,一边却不得不走在布满苦草和荆棘的路上,脚下唯一柔软的就是白雪。但是,她们应该相信的不是这些,这个古老的风俗有更好的寓意。一个好女人的道路上的确撒满鲜花,但鲜花在她的步履之后,而非之前。“她的脚步踏上草地,使火红的雏菊绽放。”你们认为这只是一个情人的幻想吗?错误又愚蠢!但怎么可能是真的呢?也许你还以为这只是一个诗人的幻想——

"Even the light harebell raised its head

“连风信子都抬起了头,

Elastic from her airy tread." 13

从她轻快的脚步中获取了弹性。”

But it is little to say of a woman, that she only does not destroy where she passes. She should revive; the harebells should bloom, not stoop, as she passes. You think I am rushing into wild hyperbole? Pardon me, not a whit—I mean what I say in calm English, spoken in resolute truth. You have heard it said—(and I believe there is more than fancy even in that saying, but let it pass for a fanciful one)—that flowers only flourish rightly in the garden of some one who loves them. I know you would like that to be true; you would think it a pleasant magic if you could flush your flowers into brighter bloom by a kind look upon them: nay, more, if your look had the power, not only to cheer, but to guard them—if you could bid the black blight turn away, and the knotted caterpillar spare—if you could bid the dew fall upon them in the drought, and say to the south wind, in frost—"Come, thou south, and breathe upon my garden, that the spices of it may flow out." 14 This you would think a great thing? And do you think it not a greater thing, that all this, (and how much more than this!) you can do for fairer flowers than these—flowers that could bless you for having blessed them, and will love you for having loved them; —flowers that have eyes like yours, and thoughts like yours, and lives like yours; which, once saved, you save forever? Is this only a little power? Far among the moorlands and the rocks, —far in the darkness of the terrible streets, —these feeble florets are lying, with all their fresh leaves torn, and their stems broken—will you never go down to them, nor set them in order in their little fragrant beds, nor fence them in their trembling from the fierce wind? Shall morning follow morning, for you, but not for them; and the dawn rise to watch, far away, those frantic Dances of Death (See note, p.66); but no dawn rise to breathe upon these living banks of wild violet, and woodbine, and rose; nor call to you, through your casement, —call (not giving you the name of the English poet's lady, but the name of Dante's great Matilda, who, on the edge of happy Lethe, stood, wreathing flowers with flowers), saying:—

但是说女人只是不损坏她经过的地方,那就理解错了。她应该有复活的力量,她经过时,风信子不是低下头,而应该怒放。你们认为我言过其实了吗?请原谅,一点儿也没有。我用的是平静的语言,讲出的是铁一般的真理。你们都听过这句话(我觉得这里面包含的不只是奇幻,但就当它是奇幻的吧)——花儿只有在爱花之人的花园里才会怒放。我知道你们愿意相信这是真的,你们觉得一个爱抚的目光便能让花儿更美地绽放是个令人开心的魔法。不,假如你们的目光有这种力量,你们不仅要欢呼,更要用它来守卫花朵;假如你们能赶走黑枯病和毛毛虫;假如你们能在干旱中让露水洒在花瓣上,在严寒中对南风说:“来吧,南风,吹拂我的花园吧,让它芬芳四溢。”你们认为这是一件了不起的事吗?难道你们不认为能为更美的花儿——以祝福回报你们的祝福,以爱回报你们的爱的花儿;和你们一样拥有明目、思想和有生命的花儿;一旦被救,就永远健康的花儿——去做这一切不是更了不起吗?了不起得多了!这只是微不足道的力量吗?这些较弱的小花长在遥远的沼泽地和岩石边,长在漆黑、泥泞的路边,鲜嫩的叶子被扯掉,花茎被折断。你们从来不愿意向它们走去吗?不愿意把它们好好地种在芬芳的花床上,给它们围起栅栏,让它们不再于寒风中瑟瑟发抖吗?你们能日复一日看着黎明到来,而它们却只能看着远处疯狂的死神之舞(参见 67 页的作者注)吗?不能呼吸野紫罗兰、忍冬和玫瑰的花香,也不能越过窗户呼喊你们(不以英国诗人的情人的名字,而是但丁那伟大的马蒂尔达的名字,她站在快乐的遗忘河边,编织着花环):

"Come into the garden, Maud,

“到花园里来,莫德,

For the black bat, night, has flown,

夜里的黑蝙蝠已经飞走,

And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad

忍冬的芬芳飘送园外,

And the musk of the roses blown?" 15

玫瑰的花香溢满花园。”

Will you not go down among them?—among those sweet living things, whose new courage, sprung from the earth with the deep colour of heaven upon it, is starting up in strength of goodly spire; and whose purity, washed from the dust, is opening, bud by bud, into the flower of promise;—and still they turn to you, and for you, "The Larkspur listens—I hear, I hear! And the Lily whispers—I wait." 16

你们会走到它们中间吗?走到那些芬芳的植物里,它们从土壤里迸发出新的勇气,带着深深的天空的颜色,在美丽幼苗的力量中开始生命;它们的纯洁在洗去尘埃后,正如花蕾般朵朵绽放,终将长成美好的希望之花;它们仍会转向你们,对你们说,“燕草聆听着,听到了,听到了!百合低语——我等待。”

Did you notice that I missed two lines when I read you that first stanza; and think that I had forgotten them? Hear them now:—

你们有没有注意到,我朗读第一节时,省去了两行。以为我遗忘了它们吗?现在听听:

"Come into the garden, Maud,

“到花园里来,莫德,

For the black bat, night, has flown.

夜里的黑蝙蝠已经飞走,

Come into the garden, Maud,

到花园里来,莫德,

I am here at the gate, alone." 17

我正独自在门边,等你。”

Who is it, think you, who stands at the gate of this sweeter garden, alone, waiting for you? Did you ever hear, not of a Maud, but a Madeleine, who went down to her garden in the dawn and found One waiting at the gate, whom she supposed to be the gardener? Have you not sought Him often;—sought Him in vain, all through the night;—sought Him in vain at the gate of that old garden where the fiery sword is set 18 ? He is never there; but at the gate of this garden He is waiting always—waiting to take your hand—ready to go down to see the fruits of the valley, to see whether the vine has flourished, and the pomegranate budded. There you shall see with Him the little tendrils of the vines that His hand is guiding—there you shall see the pomegranate springing where His hand cast the sanguine seed;—more: you shall see the troops of the angel keepers that, with their wings, wave away the hungry birds from the pathsides where He has sown, and call to each other between the vineyard rows, "Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes." 19 Oh—you queens—you queens! Among the hills and happy greenwood of this land of yours, shall the foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; and, in your cities, shall the stones cry out against you, that they are the only pillows where the Son of Man can lay His head? 20

想想,是谁独自站在这更芬芳的花园门边等你们?你们听说过某个名叫马德琳而不是莫德的姑娘,黎明时走到花园,发现有个她以为是园丁的人在门边等她吗?你们没有经常找寻他吗?彻夜找寻,却徒劳无功。没有在插着火焰般利剑的、古老的花园门边徒劳地找寻吗?他不在那儿。但是,他却始终等在这座花园门边,等着牵起你的手,带你去看果实累累的山谷,看葡萄藤是否已经茂盛,石榴有没有发芽。在那里,他指给你看葡萄藤的幼须,看他曾洒下火红石榴子的地方幼苗破土而出,还有更多:你会看见成群的天使守护在那里,用翅膀把饥饿的鸟儿从他种下的林阴树上赶走,在一行行的葡萄藤间相互招呼,“带我们去捉狐狸,破坏葡萄藤的小狐狸,因为我们的藤上正在开花。”啊,王后们,王后们,在你们快乐的青山绿林中,狐狸有洞吗?鸟儿有窝吗?在你们的城市里,石头会向你们抱怨,它们是人子唯一可以枕头的地方吗?

(1) .沃尔特 司各特(1771—1832),英国小说家、诗人,历史小说首创者,浪漫主义运动的先驱。

(2) 安德洛玛刻,特洛伊王子赫克托耳之妻,以对丈夫忠贞著称。

(3) 卡姗德拉,特洛伊国王普里阿摩斯之女;阿波罗向她求爱,赋予她预言能力,后因所求不遂又下令不准人信其预言。

(4) 瑙西凯厄,古希腊史诗《奥德赛》中国王阿尔喀诺俄斯之女,曾给遭船难的奥德修斯以帮助。

(5) 珀涅罗珀,奥德修斯的忠实妻子,丈夫远征离家后拒绝无数求婚者, 20年后等到丈夫归来。

(6) 安提戈涅,俄狄浦斯之女,不顾其舅克瑞翁的禁令为死去的兄长营葬,结果被关入岩洞,自缢身亡。

(7) 依菲琴尼亚,阿加门农之女,被阿加门农献作祭品但被阿尔特弥斯所救,后来成了一名女祭司。

(8) 阿尔刻提斯,塞萨利国王阿德美托斯之妻,以钟情丈夫自愿替他赴死著称后为大力神赫拉克勒斯救活。

(9) 萨克雷(1811—1863),英国作家,代表作有长篇小说《名利场》,作品深刻揭示了资本主义社会的现实关系,玩世不恭、冷嘲热讽是其小说的重要特色。

(10) “勇士的利箭”和“罗腾木的炭火”均出自《圣经》中的《诗篇》第120首。

(11) 帕纳塞斯山,希腊传说中的诗人之山,诗神缪斯的灵地。

(12) 引自阿尔弗雷.德 丁尼生的独白诗剧《莫德》。

(13) 引自沃尔特.司各特《湖上夫人》。

(14) 引自《圣经》中的《所罗门之歌》。

(15) 引自阿尔弗雷.德 丁尼生的独白诗剧《莫德》。

(16) 引自阿尔弗雷.德 丁尼生的独白诗剧《莫德》。

(17) 引自阿尔弗雷.德 丁尼生的独白诗剧《莫德》。

(18) 据《圣经》故事,上帝把人赶出伊甸园之后,为防止人返回,就在门口悬挂一把喷发火焰、不断旋转的利剑。

(19) 引自《圣经》中的《所罗门之歌》。

(20) 源自耶稣的话,“狐狸有洞,天空的飞鸟有窝,人子却没有枕头的地方。”这话是给犹大说的,意思是你所要的我这里没有。 ooR1TyO47UtXIhlnNUi3qm+CsiXhUdpMyK8B3l+XM+2GW5uZdZn+ibJa2W1anpBF

点击中间区域
呼出菜单
上一章
目录
下一章
×