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【英译中】弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙遗书手稿：痛苦而深刻的告别

2014-08-05 18:09阅读：

http://blog.sina.cn/dpool/blog/u/1823903185

Virginia Woolf’s Handwritten Suicide Note: A Painful and Poignant Farewell (1941)

弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙遗书手稿：一次痛苦而深刻的告别

【弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙简介：弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙（Virginia Woolf，1882年1月25日－1941年3月28日）。英国女作家，被誉为二十世纪现代主义与女性主义的先锋。两次世界大战期间，她是伦敦文学界的核心人物，同时也是布卢姆茨伯里派（Bloomsbury Group）的成员之一。最知名的小说包括《达洛维夫人》（Mrs. Dalloway）、《到灯塔去》（To the Lighthouse）、《雅各的房间》（Jakob's Room）。】


【英译中】弗吉尼亚·伍尔芙遗书手稿：痛苦而深刻的告别
It seems like a very morbid and inhuman practice to treat the suicide note as a piece of literature, even if the author of said note is a writer as famous as Virginia Woolf. And yet, why not? I can anticipate all sorts of ethical objections having to do with decency, and I share some of those sentiments. Let us not forget, however, that death has often been a literary occasion: the long tradition of recorded last words ranges from deathbed confessions to the strangely theatrical genre of the gallows speech (see Socrates, Anne Boleyn, or John Brown). Like those unforgettable figures of history, Virginia Woolf’s last scripted words are pored over by lay readers and scholars alike (see, for example, pages on Woolf’s final words fromSmith College and Yale).


将遗书当作一份文学作品来欣赏，似乎是种病态且不近人情的行为，即便这份遗书的作者是如伍尔芙一样出名的作家。但，为什么不呢？我可以预想到与礼仪有关的各种伦理上的反对声音，我也同意其中的一些感情。但是，让我们不要忘记，死亡常常见证一次次文学事件：漫长的遗言史记录的是从临终之时的忏悔到古怪的戏剧化的绞刑宣言（参考苏格拉底，安妮博林及约翰布朗）。像那些无法被遗忘的历史人物一样，伍尔芙的遗书得到了外行读者和学者的仔细检阅（可参考史密斯学院和耶鲁大学关于伍尔芙遗言的文章）。


Woolf’s death, in March of 1941, occasioned the third of her suicide letters, and yes, it feels unseemly to linger over her last piece of prose. Perhaps it is the mode of death, suicide still being a societal taboo, thought of as tragic even when it’s undertaken calmly and rationally by someone ready to leave this world. And in many cases, especially those involving mental illness, death seems so needless, so extreme. Such was the case with Woolf, whodrowned herself after a long struggle with what would probably be called today bipolar disorder. Her suicide note, written to her husband Leonard, is a haunting and beautiful document, in all its unadorned sincerity behind which much turmoil and anguish lie. See a scan of the handwritten note at the top, and read the full transcript below. Directly above, you can hear a dramatic reading of Woolf’s note, such a wrenching missive because it is not a farewell to the world at large, but rather to a trusted friend and lover.


伍尔芙于1941年三月的死诞生了她的第三份遗书，确实，细细品味她的最后一篇文章是不太体面的。也许是由于自杀仍然是社会禁忌，死亡的状态——即便是某位已准备好告别这个世界的人平静且自然的死去——仍被认为是一场悲剧。而且在很多情况下，特别是对那些有着心理疾病的人来说，死亡看起来那么不必要，那么极端。这就是伍尔芙的情况，她在经过漫长的与今天被称作躁郁症的斗争后，最终溺水自杀。她写给丈夫Leonard的自杀信是一篇难以忘怀的优美文书，其未加渲染的真诚背后，藏着的是多少纷乱与痛苦的谎言。请看在本文开篇的手稿扫描，并阅读下面的完整副本。你会直接从伍尔芙的遗书中听到一个戏剧化的声音，它是一篇这样让人心痛的诗篇，因为它不是对大千世界的告别，而是对一位信任的朋友和爱人的告别。


Dearest,
I feel certain I am going mad again. I feel we can’t go through another of those terrible times. And I shan’t recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can’t concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don’t think two people could have been happier till this terrible disease came. I can’t fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can’t even write this properly. I can’t read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can’t go on spoiling your life any longer.
I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.


我最爱的人，
我确信我又将陷入狂乱。我感到我们无法再经历 另一次那样的痛苦时刻。而且这一次我不会恢复。我开始听见声音，我无法集中精神。因此我要做的是看起来最该做的。你已经赋予了我所能感到的最大幸福。你已经历过任何人都可能经历的事。在这场可怕的疾病来临前，我没有想过两个人可以更幸福。我无法再坚持下去。我知道我毁了你的生活，也知道没有我你仍会继续工作。你会的，我知道。你看我甚至无法正常的写这封信。我无法说出来。我想说我整个人生的快乐都是你给予的。你对我那么耐心，那么好。我想说的是——而且每个人都知道——如果有一个人能够拯救我，那一定是你。我失去了一切，只剩你的好。我不能再继续摧毁你的生活了。
再没有两个人，可以比我们更幸福。




原文地址：http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/virginia-woolfs-handwritten-suicide-note.html
可参考译言网的翻译：http://article.yeeyan.org/view/498652/418613


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