伊壁鸠鲁《致美诺西斯的信》

伊壁鸠鲁《致美诺西斯的信》 Letter to Menoeceus 致美诺西斯的信 By Epicurus 伊壁鸠鲁 Translated by Robert Drew Hicks 希英翻译：罗伯特?D?希克斯，汉英翻译：张江南

Greeting. 致敬 Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it. 一个人年轻时，别让他怠于追寻智慧；一个人年老时，也别让他厌倦探求智慧。心灵的健康不分老幼，借口研究哲学还太早或已经太迟，就好比说现在还不需要幸福或者现在已经不需要幸福了一样荒谬。因此，无论老幼，都应该追寻智慧。对幼者而言，追寻智慧可以让他记住曾经的优雅，当岁月开始侵袭时，仍能够对美好的事物保持一颗年轻的心；对老者而言，追寻智慧可以使他在年轻时心灵就已成熟，因为他不再会害怕衰老的来临。所以我们必须专注在能带来幸福的事物，在其中锻炼自己，因为，如果幸福出现了，我们就一无所求了；如果幸福还没有踪影，那么我们所有的行为都应该指向获得幸福这个目标。 Those things which without ceasing I have declared to you, those do, and exercise yourself in those, holding them to be the elements of right life. First believe that God is a living being immortal and happy, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of humankind; and so of him anything that is at agrees not with about him whatever may uphold both his happyness and his immortality. For truly there are gods, and knowledge of them is evident; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that people do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the person who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious. For the utterances of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are always favorable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in people like to themselves, but reject as alien whatever is not of their kind. 我一刻不停向你灌输的那些东西确有价值，用他们磨练你自己，把他们看成构成正确人生的要素。首先，遵照人类常识所预示的神的概念，要相信神是一个不朽、幸福的活生生的存在；其次，我们为神所做的一切对提升神的幸福和不朽毫无意义，因为诸神是真实存在的，有关他们的知识即明证；但诸神并没有成为群氓的信仰，因为他们并没有坚持习俗观念，尊重神。不是否定群氓所信仰诸神的人，而是肯定群氓所信仰诸神的人才是真正不虔诚的。群氓有关诸神的言论并非真正的预言，而是虚假的猜测；因此，诸神总是把最大的灾难降给邪恶者，把最大的恩赐降给善良者，因为神对自己具有的品质珍爱无比，对和他们相像的人也关爱有加，而对异于他们的任何东西，都一概摒弃。 Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the person who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. 让你自己习惯于相信，死亡对我们一无所是，因为善恶隐含对意识的要求，而死亡是对所有意识的剥夺；因此正确理解死亡对我们而言一无所是，可以让我们凡人的生活快乐逍遥，这靠的不是长生不老，而是靠打消人们对不朽的渴望，生命由此没有了恐惧；对那些能够完全理解这一点的人，在生命终结时不会有任何恐惧。然而，声称害怕死亡的人是愚蠢的，这不是因为在死亡来临之时他会感到痛苦，而是在预想死亡时他会感到痛苦。死亡来临时，无论如何，绝对不会带来烦恼，只有在预想中才会带来一种没有理由的痛苦。 Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer. But in the world, at one time people shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise person does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life. 因而，死亡这一所有罪恶中最可畏者，对我们而言，一无所是，因为，当我们在世时，死亡无影无踪，当死亡到来的时候，我们已驾鹤而去，因此，死亡无论对生者还是死者，都一无所是，因为它无法与生者相伴，也无法与死者共眠。但曾几何时，世间的人们就像躲避最大的恶一样躲避死亡，而另一些时候，又把死亡当成人生中缓解罪恶的手段。智者既不会藐视生命，也不会惧怕死亡。 The thought of life is no offense to him, nor is the cessation of life regarded as an evil. And even as people choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest. And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old to make a good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirability of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well. Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It were easy for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery, his words are foolishness, for those who