愚人节

All Fools' Day

The compliments of the season to my worthy masters, and a merry first of April to us all!

尊敬的先生们，大家节日快乐！愿我们都能度过一个愉快的四月一日！

Many happy returns of this day to you—and you—and you, Sir—nay, never frown, man, nor put a long face upon the matter. Do not we know one another? what need of ceremony among friends? we have all a touch of that same—you understand me—a speck of the motley. Beshrew the man who on such a day as this, the general festival, should affect to stand aloof. I am none of those sneakers. I am free of the corporation, and care not who knows it. He that meets me in the forest to—day, shall meet with no wise—acre, I can tell him. Stultus sum. Translate me that, and take the meaning of it to yourself for your pains. What, man, we have four quarters of the globe on our side, at the least computation.

祝大家能永享这个快乐的节日——祝您——祝您——还祝您，这位先生，请别一听到这件事就皱起眉头、拉长着脸。难道我们还不熟悉对方吗？朋友之间需要什么客套？我们都有几分——你懂我的意思——几分傻气。在这普天同庆的日子里若还有人自命清高，那他真该被诅咒。我可不是那种鬼鬼祟祟的人。我可没有大肚腩，也不怕别人知道。今天在这树林里遇上我的人，可别指望他见到的是个聪明人。我是个Stultus sum。（注：拉丁语，意为最笨的人。）各位自己翻译去吧，随你怎么理解，算是对你一番辛苦的报酬吧。要知道，这世界上少说也有四分之四的人站在我们这一边。

Fill us a cup of that sparkling gooseberry—we will drink no wise, melancholy, politic port on this day—and let us troll the catch of Amiens—duc ad me—duc ad me—how goes it?

为我们倒一杯亮晶晶的醋栗酒吧——今天我们不喝那睿智的、忧郁的、世故的波尔图葡萄酒——让我们轮唱亚眠曲——杜达米——杜达米——那歌是怎么唱的来着？

Here shall he see, gross fools as he.

他会在这里看到，像他一样的粗野傻瓜。

Now would I give a trifle to know historically and authentically, who was the greatest fool that ever lived. I would certainly give him in a bumper. Marry, of the present breed, I think I could without much difficulty name you the party.

现在，我要稍费笔墨，弄明白在历史上，究竟谁才真正算得上世上最大的傻瓜。当然，我可以说出一大堆人。哎！在当今的傻瓜中，我想不必费神去想了，您就榜上有名。

Remove your cap a little further, if you please; it hides my bauble. And now each man bestride his hobby, and dust away his bells to what tune he pleases. I will give you, for my part, the crazy old church clock, and the bewildered chimes.

请您把帽子再挪开一点儿吧，它挡住了我的手杖。现在，大家都有自己的喜好，按自己喜欢的调子敲钟吧。至于我，我会给你们展现教堂里疯狂的老钟，听它敲出杂乱无章的钟鸣声。

Good master Empedocles, you are welcome. It is long since you went a salamander—gathering down Aetna. Worse than samphire—picking by some odds. 'Tis a mercy your worship did not singe your mustachios.

善良的恩佩多克里斯大师，欢迎您！离您上次去埃特纳火山捉火蜥蜴已经很久了吧。这可能要比采集海蓬子困难。没把胡子烧焦就该谢天谢地了。

Ha! Cleombrotus! and what salads in faith did you light upon at the bottom of the Mediterranean? You were founder, I take it, of the disinterested sect of the Calenturists.

哈！克里奥姆布鲁斯！当年您在地中海海底究竟发现了何种沙拉？我相信，您是那一批不为一己之私而去投海的热病患者的开山鼻祖。

Gebir, my old free—mason, and prince of plasterers at Babel, bring in your trowel, most Ancient Grand! You have claim to a seat at my right hand, as patron of the stammerers. You left your work, if I remember Herodotus correctly, at eight hundred million toises, or thereabout, above the level of the sea. Bless us, what a long bell you must have pulled, to call your top workmen to their nuncheon on the low grounds of Sennaar. Or did you send up your garlick and onions by a rocket? I am a rogue if I am not ashamed to show you our Monument on Fish—street Hill, after your altitudes. Yet we think it somewhat.

盖比尔，我的老石匠，巴别塔泥水匠中的头领，把您的泥刀带来吧，远古的大人物！这次您有资格坐在我的右边，来保护口吃者。如果我没记错希罗多德的记载的话，您的那个未完工的建筑物海拔高达八亿突阿斯（注：长度单位，约等于1.95米）左右。上帝保佑啊！那时您要打多长时间的钟，才能通知高处的工人到森纳尔的低地上用午餐啊。还是说您是用火箭把大蒜和洋葱送上去的？有了您创造的高度，我要是再不知羞耻地把我们鱼街山上的纪念塔在您面前炫耀，就太不知好歹了。虽然，我们觉得它也还算不错了。

What, the magnanimous Alexander in tears? —cry, baby, put its finger in its eye, it shall have another globe, round as an orange, pretty moppet!

什么？心胸宽广的亚历山大居然流泪了？这小宝贝用手揉着眼睛，他闹着再要一个地球，圆圆的似桔子一样，多漂亮的宝宝呀！

Mister Adams—’ odso, I honour your coat—pray do us the favour to read to us that sermon, which you lent to Mistress Slipslop—the twenty and second in your portmanteau there—on Female Incontinence—the same—it will come in most irrelevantly and impertinently seasonable to the time of the day.

亚当斯牧师——老天保佑，我敬重您这一身牧师袍——劳驾您给我们念一念当年你借给废话太太的那篇布道文吧——就是装在您箱子里的第二十二篇——论妇女的饶舌——这篇完全毫无关系、不知所云的文章很适合今天这个日子。

Go Master Raymund Lully, you look wise. Pray correct that error. Duns, spare your definitions. I must fine you a bumper, or a paradox. We will have nothing said or done syllogistically this day. Remove those logical forms, waiter, that no gentleman break the tender shins of his apprehension stumbling across them. Master Stephen, you are late. —Ha! Cokes, is it you? —Ague—cheek, my dear knight, let me pay my devoir to you. —Master Shallow, your worship's poor servant to command. —Master Silence, I will use few words with you. —Slender, it shall go hard if I edge not you in somewhere. You six will engross all the poor wit of the company to—day. I know it, I know it.

来吧，雷蒙德·拉莱先生，您看上去很聪明。请纠正一下个中错误。邓斯，把你的那些定义抛到一边吧。我要罚你一杯，或者给你出个难题。今天，我们说话、做事都不能用三段论。侍者，把那些逻辑程式弄走，免得哪位先生的理解力无意碰到它们受到了损害，就像被绊倒了，折了胫骨一样。司提反先生，您迟到啦——哈！焦炭，是您吗？冷面，我亲爱的骑士，我向您致敬。浅薄先生，我是您卑贱的仆人，听候您的吩咐。沉默先生，我也不会跟您多言的。苗条先生，我得特别护您，以免您在哪儿受了伤。你们六位今天会让来宾开开心心的。这一点我清楚，清楚得很。

Ha! honest R—my fine old Librarian of Ludgate, time out of mind, art thou here again? Bless thy doublet, it is not over—new, threadbare as thy stories—what dost thou flitting about the world at this rate? —Thy customers are extinct, defunct, bed—rid, have ceased to read long ago. —Thou goest still among them, seeing if, peradventure, thou canst hawk a volume or two. —Good Granville S—thy last patron, is flown.

哈！老实的拉先生，拉德盖特的图书馆优秀的老管理员。我们可是很久没见面了，您也来了？上帝保佑您身上那件紧身衣，它可有些年头了，和您的故事一样陈旧。您为什么还这样来去匆匆、到处奔波呢？您那些顾客有的不在了，死了，要不就是卧病在床，早就不读书了。可您还是到他们那里去，看看能不能再偶尔卖掉一两卷书。您的最后一位顾客，品德高尚的格朗维尔·夏，也已经撒手人寰了。

King Pandion, he is dead, All thy friends are lapt in lead. Nevertheless, noble R—come in, and take your seat here, between Armado and Quisada: for in true courtesy, in gravity, in fantastic smiling to thyself, in courteous smiling upon others, in the goodly ornature of well—apparelled speech, and the commendation of wise sentences, thou art nothing inferior to those accomplished Dons of Spain. The spirit of chivalry forsake me for ever, when I forget thy singing the song of Macheath, which declares that he might be happy with either, situated between those two ancient spinsters—when I forget the inimitable formal love which thou didst make, turning now to the one, and now to the other, with that Malvolian smile—as if Cervantes, not Gay, had written it for his hero; and as if thousands of periods must revolve, before the minor of courtesy could have given his invidious preference between a pair of so goodly—propertied and meritorious—equal damsels. To descend from these altitudes, and not to protract our Fools' Banquet beyond its appropriate day, —for I fear the second of April is not many hours distant—in sober verity I will confess a Truth to thee, reader. I love a Fool—as naturally, as if I were of kith and kin to him. When a child, with child—like apprehensions, that dived not below the surface of the matter, I read those Parables—not guessing at their involved wisdom—I had more yearnings towards that simple architect, that built his house upon the sand, than I entertained for his more cautious neighbour; I grudged at the hard censure pronounced upon the quiet soul that kept his talent; and—prizing their simplicity beyond the more provident, and, to my apprehension, somewhat unfeminine wariness of their competitors—I felt a kindliness, that almost amounted to a tendre, for those five thoughtless virgins. —I have never made an acquaintance since, that lasted; or a friendship, that answered; with any that had not some tincture of the absurd in their characters. I venerate an honest obliquity of understanding. The more laughable blunders a man shall commit in your company, the more tests he giveth you, that he will not betray or overreach you. I love the safety, which a palpable hallucination warrants; the security, which a word out of season ratifies. And take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it you, if you please, that he who hath not a dram of folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in his composition. It is observed, that "the foolisher the fowl or fish, —woodcocks, —dotterels, —cod 's—heads, &c. the finer the flesh thereof, " and what are commonly the world's received fools, but such whereof the world is not worthy? and what have been some of the kindliest patterns of our species, but so many darlings of absurdity, minions of the goddess, and her white boys? —Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their fair construction, it is you, and not I, that are the April Fool.

潘迪翁王已逝。你的朋友们都已经入了铅棺。不过，高贵的拉先生，进来坐吧，坐在阿玛多和吉诃德中间。因为您彬彬有礼，不苟言笑，对自己怪异地微笑，向别人温和地微笑，谈吐措辞华丽，妙语连珠，样样都不逊色于西班牙那两位有学问的唐先生。除非我身上的骑士精神荡然无存，我才有可能忘掉您坐在两个老姑娘中间唱《麦克西斯之歌》的情景。歌里唱道，娶了哪一位都会幸福。我也无法忘记您向那两位女士独特而正式地交合，一会儿看着这个，一会儿又转向那个，脸上还挂着马福里安式的微笑，好像这首歌的作者不是盖伊，而是塞万提斯似的。又好像不经历千万年的等待，这位礼仪之士就不能在这两位富有又美好的姑娘之间作出招人嫉妒的抉择。现在该从这样的高境界下来了，而且，我们这场愚人盛宴也不要拖得太久——因为我担心四月的第二天都快要到了——读者，在这里我对您说这句大实话。我爱傻瓜——这很自然，就好像我和他们沾亲带故似的。小时候，我读过一些寓言故事，孩童的理解力使我只能看到事情的表面，不明白其中包含的智慧。我比较偏爱那个把房子盖在沙子上的头脑简单的建筑师，而不是他那更加谨慎的邻居。当那个默默无闻的人把钱币保存下来，却遭到严厉的斥责时，我心怀怨恨。此外，我对那五个没头脑的女孩心存好感，甚至有点偏爱，在我看来，她们的天真淳朴比对手那种在我看来有些非女性化的精明和世故更为可贵。从那以后，我认识的人和我的朋友中，凡是关系长存、坦诚相待的，性格中必然都带着几分傻气。我尊敬那些在理解力上稍有偏差的老实人。你的某个同伴在你面前犯的错误越可笑，就越能保证他对你的忠诚，他将不会背叛或出卖你。我喜欢明显的幻觉和不合时宜的话语给我带来的安全感。读者，相信我，如果你愿意的话，就当是一个傻子告诉你的：一个人要是不带一丝傻气，那他必然有一大堆的坏心思。常言道： “禽类或鱼类之中，愈是愚钝如山鹬、雎鸠、鳘鱼头者，其肉愈是鲜美。” 世人眼中的傻瓜其实不就是高于俗世之上的人吗？而我们人类之中一些称为最佳典范的人，不都是些荒唐的活宝、女神的宠儿和骄子吗？读者，若你非要曲解我，超出这些话的合理范围，那么，愚人节的傻瓜就是你，而不是我了。