综英大三下第四单元
2017-06-16 01:19阅读：
第四单元
1 Growing older,I learn all the time.
2 Solon often repeated this line in his old age.In a sense I
could say the same,[1]but the knowledge that the experience of
twenty years has brought me is a poor thing,and even ignorance
would be preferable.No doubt adversity is a great teacher,but its
lessons are dearly bought,and often the profit we gain from them is
not worth the price they cost us.What is more,these lessons come so
late in the day that by the time we master them they are of no use
to us.Youth is the time to study wisdom,age the time to practice
it.Experience is always instructive,I admit,but it is only useful
in the time we have left to live.When death is already at the
door,is it worth learning how we should have lived?
“我年事日长而学习不辍。”
梭伦公元前六世纪雅典执政官，梭伦变法的领导者。这行诗引自普鲁塔克的《梭伦传》。晚年经常反复吟咏这行诗。从某种意义上来说，我在晚年也是可以这么说的；但二十年来的经历教给我的知识却是十分可悲的：愚昧倒比知识更为可取。困厄无疑是个很好的老师；
然而这个老师索取的学费很高，学生从他那里所得的时常还抵不上所缴的学费。此外，人们还没从这开始得太晚的功课中学到全部知识，而运用的机会却已经错过了。青年是学习智慧的时期，老年是付诸实践的时期。经验总是有教育意义的，这我承认，然而它只在我们还有余日的时候才有用。在我们快死时才去学当初该怎样生活，那还来得及吗？
3 What use to me are the insights I have gained so late and
so painfully into my destiny and[2]the passions of those who have
made it what it is?[3]If I have learned to know men better,it is
only to feel more keenly the misery into which they have plunged
me,nor has this knowledge,while laying bare all their traps,enabled
me to avoid a single one.Why did I not remain in that foolish yet
blessed faith,which made me for so many years the prey and
plaything of my vociferous friends with never the least suspicion
of all the plots enveloping me?I was their dupe and their victim,to
be sure,but I believed they love me,my heart enjoyed the friendship
they had inspired in me,and I credited them with the same
feelings.Those sweet illusions have been destroyed.The sad truth
that time and reason have revealed to me in making me aware of my
misfortune,has convinced me that there is no remedy[4]and that
resignation is my only course.Thus all the experience of my old age
is of no use to me in my present state,nor will it help me in the
future.
唉！对我自己的命运的认识以及对主宰我命运的人的感情的认识，掌握得已经太晚，经历的过程又那么痛苦，这对我能有什么用呢？我学会了更好地认识别人，但却使我对他们把我投入其中的苦难体会得更深，而这点知识虽能教会我发现他们所设的每个陷阱，却没能使我避开其中的任何一个。在那么多年中，我一直是我那些大吹大擂的朋友们的猎物和玩偶，我处于他们的罗网之中却没有起过丝毫疑心。为什么不让我一直保持这种虽然愚蠢但是甜蜜的信任感呢？不错，我受他们的愚弄，是他们的牺牲品，然而我当时却自以为得到他们的爱，我的心享受着他们在我身上激起的友谊，以为他们也跟我一样满怀友情。这些温馨的幻想已经破灭了。时间和理性终于向我揭示了那个可悲的真相，它在使我感到我的不幸的同时，也使我认识到这不幸已到了无可挽救的地步，唯一的办法就是听天由命。就这样，在我这种年纪取得的全部经验，对我所处的境况来说，已经没有什么实际的效用，对将来也是毫无裨益的。
4 We enter the race when we are born and we leave it when we
die.Why learn to drive your chariot better when you are close to
the finishing post?All you have to consider then is how to make
your exit.If an old man has something to learn,it is[5]the art of
dying,and this is precisely what occupies people least at my age;we
think of anything rather than that.[6]Old men are all more attached
to life than children,and they leave it with a worse grace than the
young.This is because[7]all their labours have had this life in
view,and at the end they see that it has all been in vain.When they
go,they leave everything behind,all their concerns,all their
goods,and the fruits of all their tireless endeavours.They have not
thought to acquire anything during their lives that they could take
with them when they die.
漫步之三我们在呱呱落地的时候就已进入一个竞技场，直到身死时才能离开。当赛程已到终点时，学习如何把车驾得更好又有什么用呢？这时该想的只应是怎样离去。一个老年人如果还该学习的话，那就只该学习怎样去死；而正是这种学习，人们在我这种年纪却极少进行；人们思考一切，唯独这是例外。所有的老人都比孩子更眷恋生活，都比年轻人更舍不得摆脱。这是因为，他们的全部努力都是为了这一生命，但在生命行将结束时却发现往日的辛苦全是白费。他们的事业、他们的财产、他们日以继夜的劳动的成果，当他们离世时统统都得舍弃。他们从不曾考虑过生前能攒下一点死时可带走的东西。
5 I told myself all this when there was still time,and if I
have not been able to make better use of my reflections,this is not
because they came too late or remained undigested.Thrown into the
whirlpool of life while still a child,I learned from early
experience that I was not made for this world,and that in it I
would never attain the state to which my heart aspired.[9]Ceasing
therefore to seek among men the happiness which I felt I could
never find there,my ardent imagination learned to leap over the
boundaries of a life which was as yet hardly begun,as if it were
flying over an alien land in search of a fixed and stable
resting-place.
我在为时还不太晚时就悟出了这番道理；如果说我还没有学会从这番道理中去得益的话，那并不是因为我没有及时思考，没有很好地加以消化。我从幼年时就被投入这个社会的漩涡里，很早就凭自己的经验认识到，我这个人生来就不适合生活于这一社会之中，我在这里永远也达不到我的心所祈求的境界。我那热烈的想象力不再在人间寻找我感到无法在那里找到的幸福，它超越了我那刚开始不久的生命，飞向一个陌生的领域，在那里定居下来，安享宁静。
6 This desire,fostered by my early education and later
strengthened by the long train of miseries and misfortunes thathave
filled my life, has at all times led me to seek after the nature
and purpose of my being with greater interest and determination
than I have seen in anyone else. I have met many men who were more
learned in their philosophizing, [11 but their philosophy remained
as it were external to them. Wishing to know more than other
people, they studied the working of the universe, as they might
have studied some machine they had come across, out of sheer
curiosity. They studied human nature in order to speak
knowledgeably about it, not in order to know themselves; their
efforts were directed to the instruction of others and not to their
own inner enlightenment. Several of them merely wanted to write a
book, any book, so long as it was successful. Once it was written
and published, its contents no longer interested them in the least.
All they wanted was to have it accepted by other people and to
defend it when it was attacked; beyond this they neither took
anything from it for their own use nor concerned themselves with
its truth or falsehood, provided it escaped refutation. For my
part, when I have set out to learn something, my aim has been to
gain knowledge for myself and not to be a teacher; I have always
thought that before instructing others one should begin by knowing
enough for one’s own
needs, and 12 of all the studies I have undertaken in my life among
men, there is hardly one that I would not equally have undertaken
if I had been confined to a desert island for the rest of my days.
13 What we ought to do depends largely on what we ought to believe,
and 14 in all matters other than the basic needs of our nature our
opinions govern our actions. 15 This principle, to which I have
always adhered, has frequently led me to seek at length for the
true purpose of my life so as to be able to determine its conduct,
and feeling that this purpose was not to be found among men, I soon
became reconciled to my incapacity for worldly
success.
这种情感得到我自幼所受教育的哺育，又被我多灾多难的一生所加强，使我随时都以任何人所不及的兴趣和细心去认识我的本性和用处。我见过许多人在探讨哲理时书生气比我更足，但是他们的哲学可说是同他们自己毫不相干。他们力求显得比别人博学，他们研究宇宙是为了掌握宇宙的体系，就好像是纯粹出于好奇才研究一部机器似的。他们研究人性是为了能夸夸其谈一番，而不是为了认识自己；他们学习是为了教育别人，而不是为了启发自己的内心。他们中有好些人一心只想著书，只想能被欢迎，也不管那是什么样的书。当他们的书写好了，发表了，对它的内容也就再也不感兴趣了，除非是为了要使别人接受，或者在遭到攻击时要为它进行辩护，而且他们也不会从中汲取什么来为己所用，也不为内容是否正确而操心，只要不遭到驳斥就万事大吉。至于我，当我想学点什么东西的时候，那是为了使自己得到知识而不是为了教育他人；我一贯认为，要教育他人，自己首先得有足够的知识；而我一生中想在人群中进行的全部学习，几乎没有哪一项是我不能在原打算在那里度过余年的荒岛上独自进行的。我们应做的事在很大程度上取决于我们的信仰；而除了与我们基本的自然需要有关的事物外，我们的观点是我们的行为的准则。根据我一贯坚持的这个原则，我经常长时间地探索我生命的真正目的究竟是什么，以便指导我一生的工作，而我很快就不再为自己处世的无能而痛苦，因为我感到根本就不该在世间追求这个目的。
7 Born into a moral and pious family and
brought up affectionately by a minister full of virtue and
religion, I had received from my earliest years principles and
maxims—prejudices, some
might say—which
have never entirely deserted me. 17 While I was still a child, left
to my own devices, led on by my kindness, seduced by vanity, duped
by hope and compelled by necessity, I became a Catholic, but I
remained a Christian and soon my heart, under the influence of
habit, became sincerely attached to my new religion. The
instruction and good example I received from Madame de Warens
confirmed me in this attachment. 18 The rural solitude in which I
spent the best days of my youth, and reading of good books which
completely absorbed me, strengthened my naturally affectionate
tendencies in her company and led me to an almost Fenelon-like
devotion, lonely meditation, the study of nature and the
contemplation of the universe lead the solitary to aspire
continually to the maker of all things and to seek with a pleasing
disquiet for the purpose of all he sees and the cause of all he
feels. When my destiny cast me back into the torrent of this world,
I found nothing there which could satisfy my heart for a single
moment. Regret for the sweet liberty I had lost followed me
everywhere and 19 threw a veil of indifference or distaste over
everything around me which might have brought me fame and fortune.
Wavering in my uncertain desires, I hoped for little and obtained
less, and even amidst the gleams of prosperity that came my way I
felt that had I obtained all I thought I wanted, it would not have
given me 20 the happiness that my heart thirsted after without
knowing clearly what it was. 21 In this way everything conspired
detach my affection from this world, even before the onset of those
misfortunes which were to make me a total stranger to it. 22 I
reached the age of forty, oscillating between poverty and riches,
wisdom and error, full of vices born of habit, but with a heart
free of evil inclinations, living at random with no rational
principles, and careless but not scornful of my duties, of which I
was often not fully aware.
我出生于一个讲求道德、虔诚信教的家庭，在一位贤明而笃信宗教的牧师家庭中愉快地成长，从幼年起就接受了以后从没完全抛弃的原则和格言——有人说是成见。还在童年时我就独立生活，在爱抚的吸引下，在虚荣心的蛊惑下，为希望所诱骗，为形势所逼迫，当了天主教徒，但我仍然是个基督徒；不久以后，出于习惯，我的心对我的新的宗教产生了真挚的感情。华伦夫人卢梭于一七二八年三月与华伦夫人初次见面，一七三二年到一七四一年间，曾和她生活在一起。请参看《忏悔录》第一部第二至第六章。的教导和榜样加强了我的这份感情。我在乡间度过了青春年少时期，那里的孤寂生活和我全神贯注地阅读的好书，加强了我对深挚感情的天赋禀性，使我变成类似费纳龙式的虔信者费纳龙(1651—1715)，法国康布雷大主教、作家、教育家，主张寂静主义，认为应该像孩子热爱母亲一样只爱上帝，至于其他宗教仪式则都无所谓。。在隐遁中所作的沉思，对自然的研究，对宇宙的冥想，都促使一个孤寂的人不断奔向造物主，促使他怀着甘美热切的心情去探索他所看到的一切的归宿，探索他所感到的一切的起因。当我的命运把我投进人间的急流时，我再也寻觅不到片刻间能悦我之心的任何东西。对往日温馨的闲暇的怀念始终萦绕心头，使我对身旁一切能为我博得名利的事物都感到冷漠和厌恶。我自己也搞不清究竟想追求什么，也不存多大希望，有所得的时候就更少，而当飞黄腾达的微光显现时，我又感到，当我得到我以为是在寻求的一切时，我一点也得不到我为之心向神往，然而并没有明确目标的那种幸福。这样，就在种种苦难使我感到我跟这世界毫不相干以前，一切就都促使我在感情上跟这个世界日益疏远。直到四十岁以前，我一直在贫困和财富之间、在正道和歧途之间摇摆不定，我有很多由习惯而产生的恶习，然而心中并无半点作恶的倾向，我随遇而安而缺乏理性所明确规定的原则，对我应尽的本分虽有所疏忽但并不予以蔑视，而且对这些本分时常也并没有明确的认识。
8 Since the days of my youth I had fixed on
the age of forty as the end of my efforts to succeed, the final
term of my various ambitions. I had the firm intention, when I
reached this age, of making no further effort to climb out of
whatever situation I was in and of spending the rest of my life
living from day to day with no thought for the future. When the
time came I carried out my plan without difficulty, and although my
fortune at that time seemed to be on the point of changing
permanently for the better, it was not only without regret but with
real pleasure that 23 I gave up these prospects. In shaking off all
these lures and vain hopes, 24 I abandoned myself entirely to the
nonchalant tranquility which has always been my dominant taste and
most lasting inclination. I quitted the world and its vanities, I
gave up all finery—no
more sword, no more watch, no more white stockings, gilt trimmings
and powder, but a simple wig and a good solid coat of
broadcloth—and
what is more than all the rest, I uprooted from my heart the greed
and covetousness which give value to all I was leaving behind. I
gave up the position I was then occupying, a position for which I
was quite unsuited, and set myself to 25 copying music at so much a
page, an occupation for which I had always had a distinct
liking.
我从青年时期起就把四十之年定作一个界限，在这以前可以有各方面的抱负，作出一番努力来力求上进，并且决定，一到这岁数，不管处于什么状况，就不再为摆脱这一状况而挣扎，余生就得过且过，再也不为前途操心了。时候一到，我就顺利地把这一计划执行起来，尽管当时我的命运似乎还可使我获得更稳定的生活条件，我也放弃了，不仅毫无遗憾，而且引为乐事。我摆脱所有那些诱惑，抛弃不切实际的幻想，一心一意过慵懒的生活，让精神安静下来——这从来就是我最突出的爱好，最持久的气质。我摆脱了社交界和它的浮华。我抛弃一切装饰品，不再佩剑，不再戴表，不再穿白色长袜，不再用金色饰带，也不再戴精制头饰，从此只戴一副普普通通的假发，穿一套粗呢的衣服。更重要的是，我把使这一切显得重要的贪婪和垂涎从心底连根拔除了。我也放弃了那时我根本无法胜任的职务卢梭当时在法国财务总管弗兰格耶处担任出纳，经管金库(见《忏悔录》第二部第八章)。，从此开始誊抄乐谱，按页取酬，这项工作我从来就是十分喜爱的。
