福克纳诺贝尔获奖致辞

On Accepting Nobel Prize

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work -- a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.

我感到这份奖金不是授予我个人而是授予我的工作的,授予我一生从事关于人类精神的呕心沥血工作.我从事这项工作,不是为名,更不是为利,而是为了从人的精神原料中创造出一些从前不曾有过的东西.因此,这份奖金只不过是托我保管而已.为这份奖金的钱找到与奖金原来的目的和意义相称的用途并不难,但我还想为奖金的荣誉找到承受者.我愿意利用这个时刻,利用这个举世瞩目的讲坛,向那些听到我说话并已献身同一艰苦劳动的男女青年致敬.他们中肯定有人有一天也会站到我现在站着的地方.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

我们今天的悲剧是人们普遍存在一种生理上的恐惧,这种恐惧存在已久,以致我们能够忍受下去了.现在再没有精神上的问题了.唯一的问题是：我什么时候会被炸得粉身碎骨?正因为如此,今天从事写作的男女青年已经忘记了人类内心的冲突.然而,只有接触到这种内心冲突才能产生出好作品,因为这是唯一值得写,值得呕心沥血地去写的.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed -- love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

他一定要重新认识这些问题.他必须使自己明白世间最可鄙的事情莫过于恐惧.他必须使自己永远忘却恐惧,在他的工作室里除了心底古老的真理之外,不允许任何别的东西有容身之地.缺了这古老的普遍真理,任何小说都只能昙花一现,注定要失败;这些真理就是爱情,荣誉,怜悯,自尊,同情,牺牲等感情.若是他做不到这样,他的力气终归白费.他不是写爱情而是写情欲,他写的失败是没有人感到失去可贵东西的失败,他写的胜利是没有希望,甚至没有怜悯或同情的胜利.他不是为有普遍意义的死亡而悲伤,所以留不下深刻的痕迹.他不是在写心灵而是在写器官.

Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

在他重新懂得这些之前,他写作时,就犹如站在人类末日中去观察末日的来临.我不接受人类末日的手法.因为人能传种接代而说人是不朽的,这很容易.因为即使最后一次钟声已经消失,消失在再也没有潮水冲刷,映在落日的余晖里,海上最后一块无用的礁石之旁时,还会有一个声音,那就是人类微弱的,不断的说话声,这样说也很容易.但是我不能接受这种说法.我相信人类不仅能传种接代,而且能战胜一切.人之不朽不是因为在动物中唯独他能永远发出声音,而是因为他有灵魂,有同情心,有牺牲和忍耐精神.

The poet’s, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

诗人和作家的责任就是把这些写出来.诗人和作家的特殊光荣就是去鼓舞人的斗志,使人记住过去曾经有过的光荣他曾有过的勇气,荣誉,希望,自尊,同情,怜悯与牺牲精神以达到不朽.诗人的声音不应只是人类的纪录,而应是帮助人类永存并得到胜利的支柱和栋梁.

Gettysburg Address

(1)Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

By Abraham Lincoln

美国总统林肯葛底斯堡演讲词

八十七年前，我们的先辈们在这个大陆上创立了一个新国家，它孕育于自由之中，奉行一切人生来平等的原则。现在我们正从事一场伟大的内战，以考验这个国家，或者说以考验任何一个孕育于自由而奉行上述原则的国家是否能够长久存在下去。我们在这场战争中的一个伟大战场上集会。烈士们为使这个国家能够生存下去而献出了自己的生命，我们在此集会是为了把这个战场的一部分奉献给他们作为最后安息之所。我们这样做是完全应该而且非常恰当的.但是，从更广泛的意义上来说，这块土地我们不能够奉献，我们不能够圣化，我们不能够神化。曾经在这里战斗过的勇士们，活着的和去世的，已经把这块土地神圣化了，这远不是我们微薄的力量所能增减的。全世界将很少注意到，也不会长期地记起我们今天在这里所说的话，但全世界永远不会忘记勇士们在这里做过的事。勿宁说，倒是我们这些还活着的人，应该在这里把自己奉献于勇士们已经如此崇高地向前推进但尚未完成的事业。倒是我们应该在这里把自己奉献于仍然留在我们面前的伟大任务，以便使我们从这些光荣的死者身上汲取更多的奉献精神，来完成他们已经完全彻底为之献身的事业；以便使我们在这里下定最大的决心，不让这些死者们白白牺牲；以便使国家在上帝幅佑下得到自由的新生，并且使这个民有、民治、民享的政府永世长存。