Written by John H. Bradley
Read by Molly Herrington
美式发音 适合背诵
“...I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days.”
——Henry David Thoreau
“……虽然我不富甲天下,却拥有无数个艳阳天和夏日。”
——亨利·大卫·梭罗
When Thoreau wrote that line, he was thinking of the Walden Pond he knew as a boy.
写这句话时,梭罗想起的是孩提时代的瓦尔登湖。
Woodchoppers and the Iron Horse had not yet greatly damaged the beauty of its setting. A boy could go to the pond and lie on his back against the seat of a boat, lazily drifting from shore to shore while the 1)loons dived and the swallows dipped around him. Thoreau loved to recall such sunny hours and summer days “when 2)idleness was the most attractive and productive business.”
当时,伐木者和火车尚未严重破坏湖塘的美丽景致。小男孩可以到湖塘那儿去,仰卧小舟中,自一岸缓缓飘向另一岸,周遭有潜鸟戏水,燕子轻盈地掠过湖面。梭罗喜欢回忆这样的艳阳天和夏日。“这时,慵懒是最迷人也是最具生产力的事务!”
I too was a boy in love with a pond, rich in sunny hours and summer days. Sun and summer are still what they always were, but the boy and the pond changed. The boy, who is now a man, no longer finds much time for idle drifting. The pond has been 3)annexed by a great city. The 4)swamps where 5)herons once hunted are now drained and filled with houses. The bay where water lilies quietly floated is now a harbor for motor boats. In short, everything that the boy loved no longer exists—except in the man’s memory of it.
我也曾经是热爱湖塘的小男孩,拥有无数艳阳天和夏日。如今阳光、夏日依旧,男孩和湖塘却已改变。那男孩已长大成人,不再有那么多时间泛舟湖上;而湖塘也为大城市所并。曾有苍鹫觅食的沼泽,如今已枯竭殆尽,上面盖满了房舍。往日睡莲静静漂浮的湖湾,现已成了汽艇的停泊之地。总之,男孩所爱的一切都已不复存在——只留在男人的记忆中。
Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But how much poorer would we be if we really lived by that rule? So much of what we do today is 6)frivolous and 7)futile and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow never happens.
有些人坚持认为只有今日和明日是最重要的,可是如果真的照此生活,我们将是何其可怜?许多今日我们做的事是轻浮妄动、徒劳无用的,很快就会被忘记。许多我们期待明天要做的事情却从来没有发生过。
The past is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession: the memories that give meaning and depth to our lives.
过去是一所银行。我们将最可贵的财产——那些赐予我们生命的意义与内涵的记忆——珍藏其中。
Those who truly treasure the past will not8)bemoan the passing of the 9)good old days, because days 10)enshrined in memory are never lost. Death itself is powerless to 11)still a remembered voice or erase a remembered smile. And for one boy who is now a man, there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change, where he can still spend a quiet hour in the sun.
真正珍惜过去的人,不会悲叹旧日美好时光的逝去,因为藏于记忆中的时光永不流失。死亡本身无力止住一个记忆中的声音,或擦除一个记忆中的微笑。对现已长大的那个男孩来说,总会有一个池塘不会因时间和潮汐而改变,可以让他继续在阳光下享受静谧的时光。
赏析:
梭罗说,瓦尔登湖是神的一滴眼泪。这里的湖水清澈见底,可以看到湖水中的草、流动的鱼和在水流中不动的石子,湖水充满了光明和倒影,成为一个下界天空。《瓦尔登湖》这一文学著作,一直被世人视为逃离喧嚣工业社会的一方净土。
约翰·H·布莱德利(1815—1870)是美国著名专栏作家,著有散文集《幸福时光》。此文也可以算是《瓦尔登湖》对后人思想影响深远的表现之一。
前文带出往日所爱不复存在的点点哀愁,但中途笔锋一转“except in the man’s memory of it”, 便引出“往事不可追,犹可忆”的胸怀。“Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing of the good old days”, 如果花开了,就感激;如果分开了,就怀念。心开之时,值得回忆;心灰之意,理应忘记。
那纯粹的、文字的美,很多时候是不可翻译的。所以我们要一步一步地走近另一种语言,才能体会到它的美。布莱德利在文中引用了《瓦尔登湖》的两行金句,一句是满载阳光的开篇句,另一句则是有趣的比喻:“idleness was the most attractive and productive business”,尽管布莱德利犯了小错误,原文是“productive industry”。这也正好证明了布莱德利并没有生硬地背下梭罗的话语,而是把其精髓真正吸收并融入到了自己的思想中。把“慵懒赋闲”(idleness)比作最迷人且具生产力的“交易,事务” (business)或“产业”(industry)都极具创意,巧妙地把这原本对立的两个单词连在了一块儿。
看回布莱德利的文笔,“the loons dived and the swallows dipped”,用心欣赏,你就会发现一个dive,一个dip,描述湖塘勃勃生气的恰恰是押头韵(alliterate,如这里押的就是d)的两动词。还有最后一段中“there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change”,如果你只读中文,就体会不了作者用“时间和潮汐”表述的微妙之处:英文里有一句话Time and tide wait for no man.(时不我待。)所以常用 “time” 和 “tide” 这对押韵词表达对沧海桑田的感慨。
翻译、赏析:立及夕 