評論
打印
"That is all very well," you will say, "and no doubt it is a great virtue to care so much for moderation and perfection, but why should the Greeks have been the only people to develop this quality in olden times?" For an answer I shall point to the way in which the Greeks lived.
"那很好啊，"你會說，"注重適度與完美當然是一種優秀的德性。可是為什么在古代只有古希臘人一個民族發展了這種素質呢？"作為對你問題的回答，我必須講一講古希臘人的生活狀態。
The people of Egypt or Mesopotamia had been the "subjects" of a mysterious Supreme Ruler who lived miles and miles away in a dark palace and who was rarely seen by the masses of the population. The Greeks on the other hand, were "free citizens" of a hundred independent little "cities"the largest of which counted fewer inhabitants than a large modern village. When a peasant who lived in Ur said that he was a Babylonian he meant that he was one of millions of other people who paid tribute to the king who at that particular moment happened to be master of western Asia. But when a Greek said proudly that he was an Athenian or a Theban he spoke of a small town, which was both his home and his country and which recognised no master but the will of the people in the market-place.
在埃及或者美索不達米亞，人們僅僅是一個神秘莫測的最高統治者的"臣民"。這位統治者住在遙遠的宮廷里面，統治著他龐大的帝國。他的絕大部分臣民一生都未見過他一面。可希臘人正好相反：他們是分屬數百個小型"城邦"的"自由 公民"。這些城邦中最大的，其人口也超不過一個現代的大型村莊。當一個住在烏爾的農民說自己是巴比倫人時，他的意思是，他屬于數百萬向當時正好是西亞統治者的國王納稅進貢的大眾之一。可當一個希臘人自豪地稱自己是雅典人或底比斯"人，他談到的是那個既是他的家園又是他的國家的小城鎮。那里不承認有什么最高的統治者，一切由集市上的人們說了算。
To the Greek, his fatherland was the place where he was born; where he had spent his earliest years playing hide and seek amidst the forbidden rocks of the Acropolis; where he had grown into manhood with a thousand other boys and girls, whose nicknames were as familiar to him as those of your own schoolmates. His Fatherland was the holy soil where his father and mother lay buried.
對希臘人來說，祖國就是他出生的地方，是他在雅典衛城的石墻間玩捉迷藏游戲而度過童年的地方，是他與許多男孩女孩一起長大成人 的地方。他對他們每一個人的熟悉就如同你知道班級里所有同學的綽號一樣。他的祖國是他的父母親埋骨于此的圣潔土壤。
