『罗素美文』What I Have Lived For

-------Bertrand Russell伯兰特.罗素--(1872-1970)

British philosopher and mathematician,

winner of the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize。

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a  wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

我的一生被三种简单却又无比强烈的激情所控制:对爱的渴望,对知识的探索和人类苦难难以抑制的同情.这些激情象狂风,把我恣情吹向四方,掠过苦痛的大海,迫使我濒临绝望的边缘.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy -  ecstasyso great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the  prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

我寻求爱,首先因为它使我的心为之着迷,这种难以名状的美妙迷醉使我愿意用所有的余生去换取哪怕几个小时这样的幸福.我寻求爱,还因为它能缓解我心灵上的孤独,在这种可怕的孤独中,我感觉心灵的颤栗,仿如站在世界的边缘而面前是冰冷,无底的死亡深渊.我寻求爱,因为在我所目睹的爱的结合中,我仿佛看到了圣贤和诗人们所向往的天堂之景.这就是我所寻找的,虽然对的人的一生而言似乎有些遥不可及,但至少是我用尽一生所领悟到的.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine.And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux.  A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

我用同样的激情去寻求知识.我希望能够理解人类的心灵,希望能够知道群星闪烁的缘由.我试图领悟毕达哥斯所景仰的"数即万物"思想.我已经悟出了其中的一点点道理,尽管并不是很多.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate反响in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate减轻this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

爱和知识,用他们的力量把人引入天堂.但是同情却总把人有拽回现实世界中来.痛苦的呼喊声回荡在我的内心.饥饿中的孩子,受压迫的难民,被儿女们当作负担的无助的老人,还有这整个充满孤独,贫穷,战乱和痛苦的世界,都是对人类所憧憬的美好生活的无情嘲弄.我渴望能够减少邪恶,但是我无能为力,甚至连我自己也在劫难逃.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

这就是我的一生.我已经找到了她的价值.而且如果可以,我愿意再活它一次.