英语美文名人励志故事41:林肯发表葛底斯堡演说的故事
41. The Gettysburg Address
41. 葛底斯堡演说
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
87年以前，我们的先辈们在这个大陆上创立了一个新国家。它孕育于自由之中，奉行一切人生来平等的原则。
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of what war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
现在我们正从事一场伟大的内战，以考验这个国家，或者说以考验任何一个孕育于自由而奉行上述原则的国家是否能够存在下去。我们在这场战争中的一个伟大战场上集会。烈士们为使这个国家能够生存下去而献出了自己的生命，我们在此集会是为了把这个战场的一部分奉献给他们作为最后安息之所。我们这样做是完全应该而且非常恰当的。
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate--we can not--we can not consecrate hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to be unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
但是，从更广泛的意义上来说，这块土地我们不能够奉献，不能够圣化，不能够神化。曾在这里战斗过的勇士们，活着的和死了的，已经把这块土地神圣化了。这远不是我们微薄的力量所能增减的。全世界将很少注意到、也不会长期地记起我们在这里所说的话，但全世界永远不会忘记勇士们在这里做过的事。毋宁说，倒是我们这些还活着的人，应该在这里把自己奉献于勇士们已经如此崇高地向前推进但尚未完成的事业，倒是我们应该在这里把自己奉献于仍然留在我们面前的伟大任务，以便使我们从这些光荣的死者身上汲取更多的献身精神，来完成他们已经完全彻底为之献身的事业，以便使我们在这里下定最大的决心，不让这些死者白白牺牲，以便使国家在上帝福佑下得到自由的新生，并且使这个民有、民治、民享的政府永世长存。
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