評論
打印
And if they point a moral, it is so subtle that we are not conscious of it.
如果說這些作品表達(dá)出了一種道德觀，那么我們也會因其過于深奧而意識不到它的存在。
My mind opened naturally and joyously to a conception of antiquity. Greece, ancient Greece, exercised a mysterious fascination over me. In my fancy the pagan gods and goddesses still walked on earth and talked face to face with men, and in my heart I secretly built shrines to those I loved best. I knew and loved the whole tribe of nymphs and heroes and demigods—no, not quite all, for the cruelty and greed of Medea and Jason were too monstrous to be forgiven, and I used to wonder why the gods permitted them to do wrong and then punished them for their wickedness. And the mystery is still unsolved. I often wonder how God can dumbness keep While Sin creeps grinning through His house of Time.
我對古代的思想心儀久矣，古希臘的歷史把我?guī)肓艘粋€神秘的境界。在我的幻想中，異教徒的神祇依舊行走在世間，而且還同人類面對面地交談；在心里，我悄悄地為我愛戴的親人們建造一座座圣殿。我知曉而且喜愛所有部族的女神和英雄，以及半神半人怪——不，并不能說是所有的神，對于殘忍而貪婪的美狄亞和伊阿宋我就不喜歡，他們的邪惡是不可饒恕的。我一直很奇怪為什么天神會允許他們行不義之事，可最后又對他們的惡行進行懲罰。這個秘密仍未解開，我常常驚訝于——神是如此地緘默無語，當(dāng)罪愆訕笑著悄悄爬過“光陰的殿堂”。
It was the Iliad that made Greece my paradise. I was familiar with the story of Troy before I read it in the original, and consequently I had little difficulty in making the Greek words surrender their treasures after I had passed the borderland of grammar. Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart. Would that the host of those who make the great works of the poets odious by their analysis, impositions and laborious comments might learn this simple truth! It is not necessary that one should be able to define every word and give it its principal parts and its grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand and appreciate a fine poem.
可以說，正是《伊利亞特》把古希臘變成了我心目中的天堂。在沒有讀原著之前，我就已經(jīng)熟悉了特洛伊的故事。雖然當(dāng)時我已經(jīng)穿越了語法的邊境線，但是在迫使希臘詞語交出它們的“財寶”時，我還遇到了少許的困難。偉大的詩篇，無論用希臘文還是英文寫就，它需要的不是講解員，而是一顆敏感的心。難道不正是有那么一群好事之徒，通過他們所謂的分析而令偉大的詩歌變得面目可憎嗎？所以，那些強加于人和艱深晦澀的評論的炮制者，真應(yīng)該好好學(xué)一學(xué)這條樸素的真理！事實上，理解和欣賞一部杰出的詩篇，并不需要你去對每一個詞的作用，或者是它在句子中的語法結(jié)構(gòu)進行解釋。
