读点好英文:What I Have Lived for 我为什么活着

What I Have Lived for 我为什么活着

Bertrand Russell

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagoreans power by which number holds away above the flux. A little of this, but, not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberated in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living. And I would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.

我为什么活着

［英］伯特兰·罗素

对爱的渴望、对知识的追求和对人类苦难难以忍受的怜悯之心——这三种朴素而不可抗拒的情感主宰着我的生活。这些情感似阵阵飓风，任意地把我吹得飘来荡去，穿过痛苦的海洋，抵达绝望的彼岸。

我曾寻求过爱，首先是因为爱可以使人欣喜若狂——它是如此令人狂喜，为了片刻的欢娱，我宁愿牺牲我的余生；我曾寻求过爱，其次是因为它能解除人的孤独感——置身于这可怕的孤独中，那令人震颤的感觉，会掠过这个世界的边缘，把人带入无声无息的寒气袭人的无底深渊；我曾寻求过爱，还因为在爱的结合，在这一神秘的缩影中，我看到了圣贤和诗人们所曾幻想的天堂景色。这也正是我追求的。尽管这对世间凡人而言似乎是一种奢望，但这是我最终所找到的。

带着同样的激情，我曾追求过知识。我曾希望了解人类的心灵，我曾想知道星辰为何发光，我曾试图理解毕达哥拉斯的力量，通过他的力量，数驾驭了万物的变化。我获得了一点知识，但并不多。

爱和知识，它们可以把人引入天堂。但是怜悯之心又常常把我带回尘世。痛苦的呼唤在我心中回响激荡。嗷嗷待哺的孩子，被鞭挞的受压迫者，孤独无助的老人——儿女们憎恨的负担，还有那充满着孤独、贫穷和痛苦的世界，都在嘲弄着人类生活本应有的美好。我渴望减少人间的邪恶，却无能为力，也因此受着煎熬。

这就是我的生活，我觉得活得值。假若天赐良机，我愿高高兴兴地再如此活一次。

实战提升

Practising & Exercise

导读

伯特兰·罗素（Bertrand Russell），二十世纪最有影响力的哲学家、数学家和逻辑学家之一，同时也是活跃的政治活动家。无数人将罗素视为这个时代的先知。1950年，罗素获得诺贝尔文学奖，以表彰其“多样且重要的作品，持续不断的追求人道主义理想和思想自由”。

这篇散文体现了罗素作为哲学家的机智、作为数学家的求实和作为思想家的幽默。在文中，作者把对孤独的恐惧扩大到了极致，这样能突出表达对爱的渴望，也能和读者产生情感上的共鸣。文中的字里行间饱含着巨大的激情，由此显示出罗素博大的情怀和崇高的人格魅力。

核心单词

overwhelmingly [ˌəuvəˈwelmiŋli] adv. 压倒地；无法抵抗地

ecstasy [ˈekstəsi] n. 狂喜；出神；入迷

apprehend [ˌæpriˈhend] v. 理解，领会

victim [ˈviktim] n. 受害者，受骗者

alleviate [əˈliːvieit] v. 减轻；缓和

翻译

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living. And I would gladly live it again if the chance were offered to me.