By Henry David Thoreau 文/亨利·戴維·梭羅 譯/李家真

Walden (Exerpt II) 《瓦爾登湖》（節(jié)選二）

By Henry David Thoreau 文/亨利·戴維·梭羅 譯/李家真1

學(xué)生盡可閱讀希臘文的荷馬或埃斯庫羅斯作品，絕無靡費光陰之虞，因為此舉意味著他在一定程度上效仿了他們筆下的英雄人物，并且把晨間的時光獻給了英雄的篇章。這樣的英雄史詩，即便是用我們母語的字母排印出來，依然會呈現(xiàn)為一種墮落后世聞所未聞的語言。因此我們必須仔細推敲一字一句的含義，用盡自己的智慧、膽略和肚量，努力揣摩通常用法之外的超凡意蘊。粗制濫造的現(xiàn)代出版業(yè)雖說炮制了無數(shù)的譯本，卻不曾稍稍拉近我們與古代史詩作家之間的距離。他們的身影依然顯得如此煢獨，他們的作品雖然形諸印版，文字卻依然顯得如此陌生，如此古怪。哪怕只是學(xué)到了古代語言的些許詞匯，青春時日與寶貴光陰也不算白費，因為這些詞匯超越了市井的雞毛蒜皮，包蘊著亙古常新的啟迪與激勵。農(nóng)夫若能記下并念誦聽來的幾個拉丁詞匯，絕不會徒勞無益。人們時或口出妄言，似乎以為古典學(xué)問終將讓位于更加現(xiàn)代、更加實用的學(xué)科，勇于登攀的學(xué)生卻會鍥而不舍地研習(xí)經(jīng)典，不管它用哪種語言寫成，年代又有多么久遠。須知經(jīng)典何物，豈不就是人類最高貴思想的記載？經(jīng)典是僅有的不朽神諭，為最現(xiàn)代的疑問提供了得爾斐和多多納從未提供的答案。要說古老的事物就不值得研究的話，那我們連大自然也不用研究，因為她更加古老。有益的閱讀，換句話說就是以求真的精神閱讀真正的好書，是一種高貴的習(xí)練，比世風(fēng)推崇的任何一種習(xí)練都更能磨礪意志。這種習(xí)練需要跟運動員一樣的嚴格訓(xùn)練，需要幾近一生的堅持不懈。讀書的時候，讀者必須跟作者一樣殫精竭慮，一樣專心致志。哪怕你會說作者使用的語言也不夠，因為口頭語跟書面語存在顯著的差異，聽見的語言和讀到的語言是兩碼事。前者通常變動不居，不過是一種聲音、一種腔調(diào)或一種方言，幾乎類似于野獸的吼叫，我們可以不知不覺地從母親那里學(xué)會它，就跟野獸學(xué)會叫喚一樣。后者卻是前者經(jīng)由千錘百煉獲得的成熟形式，如果說前者是我們的母語，后者便是我們的父語，是一種含蓄精練的表達方式，包含著耳朵無法聽見的深厚意蘊，要想把它學(xué)會，我們必須經(jīng)歷重生的過程。中世紀那些只是會說希臘語或拉丁語的蕓蕓大眾，雖然說土生土長，照樣是讀不懂用這些語言寫成的天才著作，因為這些著作用的不是他們懂的那種希臘語或拉丁語，而是精練的文學(xué)語言。他們不曾學(xué)會古希臘和古羅馬那些更為高貴的方言，用它們寫就的文獻對他們來說形同廢紙，廉價的當(dāng)代文學(xué)倒讓他們珍愛有加。不過，歐洲的幾個國家逐漸發(fā)展出了雖說粗糙也算獨特的本國書面語，足以滿足本國新興文學(xué)的需要，原初的學(xué)問隨之復(fù)興，學(xué)者們也才擁有了從遙遠時代揀選古人遺珍的眼力。古羅馬和古希臘的普羅大眾無法聽見的東西，在漫長歲月之后得到了少數(shù)學(xué)者的解讀，至今仍在解讀它們的學(xué)者，也只是少數(shù)而已。

The student may read Homer or Aeschylus2埃斯庫羅斯（Aeschylus,前525?—前456?），古希臘劇作家，享有“悲劇之父”的美譽。in the Greek without danger of dissipation or luxuriousness,for it implies that he in some measure emulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to their pages. The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have. The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations,as done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which they are printed as rare and curious,as ever. It is worth the expense of youthful days and costly hours, if you learn only some words of an ancient language, which are raised out of the trivialness of the street, to be perpetual suggestions and provocations. It is not in vain that the farmer remembers and repeats the few Latin words which he has heard. Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed,and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona3古希臘的得爾斐神廟（Delphi）和多多納神廟（Dodona）分別是太陽神阿波羅和主神宙斯頒降神諭的地方。never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem. It requires a training such as the athletes underwent,the steady intention almost of the whole life to this object. Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written. It is not enough even to be able to speak the language of that nation by which they are written, for there is a memorable interval between the spoken and the written language, the language heard and the language read. The one is commonly transitory, a sound, a tongue,a dialect merely, almost brutish, and we learn it unconsciously, like the brutes, of our mothers. The other is the maturity and experience of that; if that is our mother tongue, this is our father tongue,a reserved and select expression, too significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak. The crowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and Latin tongues in the Middle Ages were not entitled by the accident of birth to read the works of genius written in those languages; for these were not written in that Greek or Latin which they knew, but in the select language of literature. They had not learned the nobler dialects of Greece and Rome, but the very materials on which they were written were waste paper to them4這句話雖是籠統(tǒng)的議論，但中世紀的神職人員的確經(jīng)常把古代典籍（材質(zhì)通常是羊皮紙）當(dāng)作廢紙，在紙上抄寫經(jīng)文乃至記賬，蓋住了原有的文字。古代的一些典籍借此得以保存，學(xué)者們可以借助各種手段去辨識原有的文字，這樣的典籍名為“重寫本”（palimpsest）。, and they prized instead a cheap contemporary literature. But when the several nations of Europe had acquired distinct though rude written

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languages of their own, sufficient for the purposes of their rising literatures, then first learning revived, and scholars were enabled to discern from that remoteness the treasures of antiquity. What the Roman and Grecian multitude could not hear, after the lapse of ages a few scholars read, and a few scholars only are still reading it.

川人，1972年生，曾任《中國文學(xué)》執(zhí)行主編及《英語學(xué)習(xí)》副主編，現(xiàn)居北京，專事文字。寫有大量隨筆，譯有《采果集》（Fruit-Gathering）、《流螢集》（Fireflies）、《吉檀迦利》（Gitanjali）、《園丁集》（The Gardener）、《丘吉爾傳》（Churchill: An Unruly Life）、《先知》（The Prophet）、《沙與沫》（Sand and Foam）、《流浪者》（The Wanderer）、《福爾摩斯探案全集》（The Complete Sherlock Holmes）、《王爾德小說童話全集》（The Complete Oscar Wilde Stories）、《培根隨筆全集》（Essays）等作品。譯文節(jié)選自李家真譯《瓦爾登湖》第三章“閱讀”。