to_be_or_not_to_be_威廉莎士比亚名段的英汉互译版

"To be or not to be." Outside the Bible, these six words are the most famous in all the literature of the world. They were spoken by Hamlet when he was thinking aloud, and they are the most famous words in Shakespeare because

not to live, to live richly and abundantly and eagerly, or to live dully and meanly and scarcely. A philosopher once wanted to know whether he was alive or not, which is a good question for everyone to put to himself occasionally. He answered it by saying: "I think, therefore 1 am."“生存还是死亡”，如果把《圣经》除外，这便是整个世界文学中最有名的六个字了。这六个字是哈姆雷特思考时大声讲出的内心独白（语出沉思中的哈姆雷特之口），也是莎十比亚最著名的句子，因为哈姆雷特不仅说出了白己的想法（表达了自己的困惑），更道出了所有沉思男女的心声：生存还是死亡——是活着还是死亡，是丰富、充实、积极地活着，还是单调、空虚地、消极地活着。（多姿多彩、激情四溢地活着，还是浑浑噩噩、消极沉闷地度日）。曾经有位哲学家希望知道自己是死是活——这个问题不错，我们大家偶尔也应当问问自己——他对这个问题的问答是“我思故我在。”

But the best definition of existence I ever saw was one written by another philosopher who said: "To be is to be in relations." If this is true, then the more relations a living thing has, the more it is alive. To live abundantly means simply to increase the range and intensity of our relations. Unfortunately we are so constituted that we get to love our routine. But apart from our regular occupation, how much are we alive? If you are interested only in your regular occupation, you are alive only to that extent. So far as other things are concerned---poetry and prose, music, pictures, sports, unselfish friendships, politics, international affairs---you are dead.

（我曾见到的关于生存的最佳定义源自另一位哲学家：“生存就是置身于联系之中。”）如果这一定义是正确的，那么一个生命体所拥有的联系越多，它就越活跃。所谓充实地生活即拓

宽我们的联系范围（广度），增加联系的强度。然而不幸的是，我们天生热爱一成不变的生活。

除了我们固定的职业，我们的生活还剩下什么？如果你只对固定的职业（日常工作）感兴趣，那

么你只在这个范围内（这个层面）是活着的。在其它诸如诗歌、散文、音乐、美术、运动、无私

的友谊、政治、国际事务这些领域,你已经死了（不复存在）。

Contrariwise, it is true that every time you acquire a new interest---even more, a new accomplishment---you increase your power of life. No one who is deeply interested in a large variety of subjects can remain unhappy; the real pessimist is the person who has lost interest.

相反，每当你有了新的兴趣——甚至于获得了新的成就——你就增强了自己的生命活力。一个人倘若对众多事物很有兴趣，他就不可能是一个不开心的人，真正的悲观者是失去了兴趣的人。

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