精美雙語散文閱讀

英語散文的發展歷程十分曲折,散文大家風格多變,兼之中英語言個性殊異,若要成功地把英語散文大家的作品翻譯到中文,既須瞭解英語散文發展的概況,又須注意保證氣韻邏輯通暢,文氣沛然,才能傳神譯出,曲盡其妙,令漢語讀者獲得相同或相近的審美感受。下面本站小編爲大家帶來精美雙語散文閱讀，希望大家喜歡!

　精美雙語散文：愛情不是商品

A reader in Florida, apparently bruised by somepersonal experience, writes in to complain, “If Isteal a nickel’s worth of merchandise, I am a thiefand punished; but if I steal the love of another’swife, I am free.”

佛羅里達州的一位讀者顯然是在個人經歷上受過創傷, 他寫信來抱怨道: “如果我偷走了五分錢的商品, 我就是個賊, 要受到懲罰, 但是如果我偷走了他人妻子的愛情, 我沒事兒。”

This is a prevalent misconception in many people’s minds—that love, like merchandise, canbe “stolen”. Numerous states, in fact, have enacted laws allowing damages for “alienation ofaffections”.

這是許多人心目中普遍存在的一種錯誤觀念——愛情, 像商品一樣, 可以 “偷走”。實際上，許多州都頒佈法令，允許索取“情感轉讓”賠償金。

But love is not a commodity; the real thing cannot be bought, sold, traded or stolen. It is anact of the will, a turning of the emotions, a change in the climate of the personality.

但是愛情並不是商品;真情實意不可能買到，賣掉，交換，或者偷走。愛情是志願的行動，是感情的轉向，是個性發揮上的變化。

When a husband or wife is “stolen” by another person, that husband or wife was already ripe forthe stealing, was already predisposed toward a new partner. The “love bandit” was only takingwhat was waiting to be taken, what wanted to be taken.

當丈夫或妻子被另一個人“偷走”時，那個丈夫或妻子就已經具備了被偷走的條件，事先已經準備接受新的伴侶了。這位“愛匪”不過是取走等人取走、盼人取走的東西。

We tend to treat persons like goods. We even speak of the children “belonging” to theirparents. But nobody “belongs” to anyone else. Each person belongs to himself, and to dren are entrusted to their parents, and if their parents do not treat them properly, thestate has a right to remove them from their parents’ trusteeship.

我們往往待人如物。我們甚至說孩子“屬於”父母。但是誰也不“屬於”誰。人都屬於自己和上帝。孩子是託付給父母的，如果父母不善待他們，州政府就有權取消父母對他們的託管身份。

Most of us, when young, had the experience of a sweetheart being taken from us by somebodymore attractive and more appealing. At the time, we may have resented this intruder—but aswe grew older, we recognized that the sweetheart had never been ours to begin with. It was notthe intruder that “caused” the break, but the lack of a real relationship.

我們多數人年輕時都有過戀人被某個更有誘惑力、更有吸引力的人奪去的經歷。在當時，我們興許怨恨這位不速之客—但是後來長大了，也就認識到了心上人本來就不屬於我們。並不是不速之客“導致了”決裂，而是缺乏真實的關係。

On the surface, many marriages seem to break up because of a “third party”. This is, however, apsychological illusion. The other woman or the other man merely serves as a pretext fordissolving a marriage that had already lost its essential integrity.

從表面上看，許多婚姻似乎是因爲有了“第三者”才破裂的。然而這是一種心理上的幻覺。另外那個女人，或者另外那個男人，無非是作爲藉口，用來解除早就不是完好無損的婚姻罷了。

Nothing is more futile and more self-defeating than the bitterness of spurned love, thevengeful Feeling that someone else has “come between” oneself and a beloved. This is always adistortion of reality, for people are not the captives or victims of others—they are free agents,working out their own destinies for good or for ill.

因失戀而痛苦，因別人“插足”於自己與心上人之間而圖報復，是最沒有出息、最自作自受的樂。這種事總是歪曲了事實真相，因爲誰都不是給別人當俘虜或犧牲品——人都是自由行事的，不論命運是好是壞，都由自己來作主。

But the rejected lover or mate cannot afford to believe that his beloved has freely turned awayfrom him— and so he ascribes sinister or magical properties to the interloper. He calls him ahypnotist or a thief or a home-breaker. In the vast majority of cases, however, when a home isbroken, the breaking has begun long before any “third party” has appeared on the scene.

但是，遭離棄的情人或配偶無法相信她的心上人是自由地背離他的——因而他歸咎於插足者心術不正或迷人有招。他把他叫做催眠師、竊賊或破壞家庭的人。然而，從大多數事例看，一個家的破裂，是早在什麼“第三者”出現之前就開始了的。

精美雙語散文：第二次生命的啓示

Just ten years ago, I sat across the desk from adoctor with a stethoscope. “Yes, ” he said, “there isa lesion in the left, upper lobe. You have amoderately advanced case…” I listened, stunned, ashe continued, “You’ll have to give up work at onceand go to bed. Later on, we’ll see.” He gave noassurances.

十年前的一天，我坐在一名手持聽診器的醫生對面。“你的左肺葉上部確實有一處壞損，而且病情正在惡化”——聽到這裏，我整個人一下懵了。“你必須停止工作臥牀休息，有待觀察。”醫生對我的病情也是不置可否。

Feeling like a man who in mid-career has suddenly been placed under sentence of death with anindefinite reprieve, I left the doctor’s office, walked over to the park, and sat down on abench, perhaps, as I then told myself, for the last time. I needed to think. In the next threedays, I cleared up my affairs; then I went home, got into bed, and set my watch to tick off notthe minutes, but the months. 2 years and many dashed hopes later, I left my bed and beganthe long climb back. It was another year before I made it.

就這樣，事業方面方興未艾的我彷彿突然被人判了死刑，卻說不準何時執刑。我離開醫生的辦公室，來到公園的長椅上坐下。這也許是最後一次來這兒了，我對自己說。我真得好好整理一下思緒。接下來的三天我把手頭的事務全部處理完畢。我回到家，躺到牀上，然後把手錶從顯示分鐘改爲顯示月份。兩年半的時間過去了，在無數次的失望之後，我終於可以離開病牀，艱難地向從前的生活狀態迴歸。一年之後，我做到了。

I speak of this experience because these years that past so slowly taught me what to value andwhat to believe. They said to me: Take time, before time takes you. I realize now that this worldI’m living in is not my oyster to be opened but my opportunity to be grasped. Each day, tome, is a precious entity. The sun comes up and presents me with 24 brand new, wonderfulhours—not to pass, but to fill.

我之所以談起這段經歷，是因爲那段度日如年的歲月讓我懂得應該珍惜什麼，信仰什麼。那段歲月讓我明白一個道理：牢牢抓住時間，而不是讓時間將你套牢。現在我終於明白，我生活着的這個世界不是等待我去打開的一扇牡蠣，而是需要我去抓住的一個機會。每一天我都視若珍寶，每一輪太陽帶給我的嶄新的二十四小時都鮮活而精彩，我絕不可將其虛度。

I’ve learned to appreciate those little, all-important things I never thought I had the time tonotice before: the play of light on running water, the music of the wind in my favorite pinetree. I seem now to see and hear and feel with some of the recovered freshness of well, for instance, I recall the touch of the springy earth under my feet the day I firststepped upon it after the years in bed. It was almost more than I could bear. It was likeregaining one’s citizenship in a world one had nearly lost.

如今，我彷彿重返童年，又覺得自己所見所聞所感的一切都那麼新鮮。當我臥牀數年後重新將雙腳踏在大地上的那一刻，腳下那久違了的鬆軟土壤讓我激動得情難自抑，彷彿重新擁有我差一點就失去的世界。

Frequently, I sit back and say to myself, Let me make note of this moment I’m living right now,because in it I’m well, happy, hard at work doing what I like best to do. It won’t always be likethis, so while it is I’ll make the most of it—and afterwards, I remember—and be grateful. Allthis, I owe to that long time spent on the sidelines of life. Wiser people come to thisawareness without having to acquire it the hard way. But I wasn’t wise enough. I’m wisernow, a little, and happier.

我現在時常舒舒服服地坐着，提醒自己要記住當下的每分每秒，因爲現在的我健康、快樂，能努力做自己最愛做的工作。這一切如此美好，卻終將消逝，在如此美好的生活消逝之前，我一定要倍加珍惜。在它逝去之後，我會記得曾經擁有的美好，並心存感激。這一切改變都得益於我在生命邊緣徘徊的那幾年。智者無需被逼到如此境地也能明白這些道理——可惜我從前太愚鈍。現在的我比從前多了幾分睿智，我也因此更加快樂。

“Look thy last on all things lovely, every hour.” With these words, Walter de la Mare sums up forme my philosophy and my belief. God made this world—in spite of what man now and thentries to do to unmake it—a dwelling place of beauty and wonder, and He filled it with moregoodness than most of us suspect. And so I say to myself, Should I not pretty often take timeto absorb the beauty and the wonder, to contribute a least a little to the goodness? Andshould I not then, in my heart, give thanks? Truly, I do. This I believe.

英國詩人沃爾特.德拉.梅爾曾說過：“時刻記住，最後看一眼所有美好的事物!”這句詩正好總結了我的人生哲學與信仰。上帝創造的這個世界——這個人類時常試圖毀滅的世界——是個美麗奇妙的家園。這裏充滿了上帝所賜予的美好事物，超過我們大多數人的想象。我於是常常自問，難道自己不應該去細細品味這些美麗與奇蹟，盡綿薄之力去創造世間的美好嗎?難道我不應心存感激嗎?我確實應該——這就是我的信仰。