unit13marriage課文翻譯綜合教程四

1、Unit 13MarriageRobert Lynd1“Conventional people,”says Mr. Bertrand Russell,“l(fā)ike to pretend thatdifficulties in regard to marriage are a new thing.”I could not help wondering, as I read thissentence, where one can meet these conventional people who think, or pretend to think, asconventional people d

2、o. I have known hundreds of conventional people, and I cannotremember one of them who thought the things conventional people seem to think. They wereall, for example, convinced that marriage was a state beset with difficulties, and that thesedifficulties were as old, if not as the hills, at least as

3、 the day on which Adam lost a rib and gaineda wife. A younger generation of conventional people has grown up in recent years, and it maybe that they have a rosier conception of marriage than their ancestors; but the conventionalpeople of the Victorian era were under no illusions on the subject. Thei

4、r cynical attitude tomarriage may be gathered from the enthusiastic reception they gave toPunchs a dvice tothose aboutto marry“Dont.”2I doubt, indeed, whether the horrors of marriage were ever depicted morecruelly than during the conventional nineteenth century. The comic papers and music- hallsmade

5、 the miseries a standing dish.“You can always tell whethera mans married or single from the way hes dressed,”said the comedian.“Look at the single man: no buttons on his shirt. Look at the married man: no shirt.”Thehumour was crude; but it went hometo the honest Victorian heart. If marriage were to

6、bejudged by the songs conventional people used to sing about it in the music-halls, it would seema hell mainly populated by twins and leech-like mothers-in-law. The rare experiences of Darbyand Joan were, it is true, occasionally hymned, reducing strong men smelling strongly ofalcohol to reverent si

7、lence; but, on the whole, the audience felt more normal when a comediancame out with an anti-marital refrain such as:O why did I leave my little back roomIn Bloomsbury,Where I could live on a pound a weekIn luxury(I forget the next line).But since I have married Maria,Ive jumped out of the frying-pa

8、nInto the blooming fire.3No difficulties Why, the very nigger-minstrels of my boyhood used to open their performancewith a chorus which began:Married! Married! O pity those whore married.Those who go and take a wife must be very green.4It is possible that the comedians exaggerated, and that Victoria

9、n wives were not all viragos withpokers, who beat their tipsy husbands for staying out too late. But at least they and theiraudiences refrained from painting marriage as an inevitable Paradise. Even the clergy would gono farther than to say that marriages were made in Heaven. That they did not belie

10、ve thatmarriage necessarily ended there is shown by the fact that one of them wrote a“best -seller”bearing the titleHow to Be Happy Though Married.5I doubt, indeed, whether common opinion in any age has ever looked on marriage as anuntroubled Paradise. I consulted a dictionary of quotations on the s

11、ubject and discovered thatfew of the opinions quoted were rose-coloured. These opinions, it may be objected, are theopinions of unconventional people, but it is also true that they are opinions treasured and keptalive by conventional people. Wehave the reputed saying of the henpecked Socrates, forex

12、ample, when asked whether it was better to marry or not:“Whichever you do, you willrepent.”Wehave Montaigne writing:“It happens as one sees in cages. The birds outsidedespair of ever getting in; those inside are equally desirous of getting out.”Bacon is no moreprenuptial with his caustic quotation:“

13、He was reputed one of the wise men that made answerto the question when a man should marry:A young man not yet; an elder man not at all.”Burton isfar from encouraging!“One was never married, and thats his hell; anotheris, and thats his plague.”Pepys scribbled in his diary:“Strange to saywhat delight

14、 we married people have to see these poor folk decoyed into our condition.”6The pious Jeremy Taylor was as keenly aware that marriage is not all bliss.“Marriage,”hedeclared,“hath in it less of beauty and more of safety than the single lifeit hath more carebut less danger; it is more merry and more s

15、ad; it is fuller of sorrows and fuller of joys.”Thesentimental and optimistic Steele can do no better than:“The marriage state, with and without1伯特蘭羅素先生說：“凡人百姓喜歡假裝說婚姻中遇到的困難是新鮮事。當(dāng)我讀到the affection suitable to it, is the completest image of Heaven and Hell weare capable of receiving inthis life.”7Rouss

16、eau denied that a perfect marriage had ever been known.“I have often thought,”hewrote,“that if only one could prolong the joy of love in marriage we should have paradise onearth. That is a thing which has never been hitherto .”Dr. Johnson is not quoted in thedictionary; but everyone will remember ho

17、w, devoted husband though he was, he denied thatthe state of marriage was natural to man.“Sir,”he declared,“it is so far from beingnatural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage that we find all the motives whichthey have for remaining in that connexion and the restraints which civilised

18、 society imposes toprevent separation are hardly sufficient to keep them together.8When one reads the things that have been said about marriage from onegeneration to another, one cannot but be amazedat the courage with which theyoung go on marrying. Almost everybody, conventional and unconventional,

19、 seems to havepainted the troubles of marriage in the darkest colours. So pessimistic were the conventionalnovelists of the nineteenth century about marriage that they seldom dared to prolong theirstories beyond the wedding bells. Married people in plays and novels are seldom enviable, and,as time g

20、oes on, they seem to get more and more miserable. Even conventional peoplenowadays enjoy the story of a thoroughlyunhappy marriage. It is only fair to say, however, thatin modern times we like to imagine that nearly everybody, single as well as married, is unhappy.As social reformers we are all for

21、happiness, but as thinkers and aesthetes we are on the side ofmisery.9The truth is that we are a difficulty-conscious generation. Whether or not we make life evenmore difficult than it would otherwise be by constantly talking about our difficulties I do notknow. I sometimes suspect that half our dif

22、ficultiesare imaginary and that if we kept quietabout them they woulddisappear. Is it quite certain that the ostrich by burying his head in the sand never escapes hispursuers I look forward to the day when a great naturalist will discover that itis to thispractice that the ostrich owes his survival.

23、婚姻羅伯特林德這句話的時候， 不禁覺得奇怪： 上哪兒去找這些像凡人百姓那樣思考、 或假裝那樣思考的凡 人百姓。我認(rèn)識數(shù)以百計的凡人百姓， 我想不起來他們當(dāng)中任何人看似有那些凡人百姓的想 法。舉例來說吧，他們都堅信， 婚姻是一種充滿困擾的狀態(tài)， 這些困擾即使不像山脈那樣古 老，也如同上帝從亞當(dāng)身上取下一根肋骨給他創(chuàng)造一個妻子的歷史那么古老。近年來， 新一代凡人百姓成長了起來， 可能他們對婚姻的想法比先祖來得美好， 但維多利亞時代的凡人百 姓對這個問題不抱任何幻想。 笨拙雜志給那些即將步入婚姻殿堂的人們的建議是“別結(jié) 婚”，而他們對此建議反響熱烈，由此可以看出他們對于婚姻的憤世嫉俗的態(tài)度。2傳統(tǒng)的

24、19世紀(jì)對于恐怖婚姻的描寫異常殘酷，我真懷疑有沒有出其右者。漫畫報紙和 音樂廳的表演將婚姻的苦難作為永恒不變的話題。 “你總是很容易從一個男人的穿著打扮看 出他是否已婚， ”喜劇演員如是說?！澳憧茨切﹩紊頋h：他們襯衫上沒有紐扣?？纯茨切┮?婚人士：他們索性不穿襯衫?！边@種幽默很粗鄙， 但深得維多利亞時代的誠實人士贊許。假 如婚姻用傳統(tǒng)人士在音樂廳里過去經(jīng)常唱的歌來衡量， 那么婚姻就像地獄， 主要由雙胞胎和 如同水蛭一般惡毒的岳母或婆婆組成。 生活平淡但彼此恩愛的老夫妻并不多見， 然而， 這樣 的故事如果偶爾在歌中吟唱， 倒是會令滿嘴酒氣的硬漢肅然起敬。 這一點是毫無疑問的。 但 總體說來，觀眾

25、們?nèi)绻吹揭晃幌矂⊙輪T唱著反婚姻的副歌出現(xiàn)會覺得比較正常。歌曰： 哦，為何我離開位于 布盧姆斯伯里的小房間， 那里我一周只花費區(qū)區(qū)一英鎊便可豐衣足食（下一行我忘了。）但自從我娶了瑪麗亞， 我跳出油鍋 又落入熊熊火坑。3沒有困難嗎你看， 我小時候的黑人歌手們通常以一首合唱開始表演。 這首歌開頭是這樣 的：結(jié)了婚!結(jié)了婚!哦，可憐那些結(jié)了婚的。 那些去找老婆的人可真青澀。4有可能這些喜劇演員夸張了，有可能維多利亞時代的悍婦們并不都是揮舞著撥火棍教訓(xùn) 深夜遲歸、醉生夢死的老公的。 但至少這些喜劇演員和他們的觀眾不會將婚姻描繪成無人可 免的人間天堂。 即使是教士們最多也就會說婚姻只應(yīng)天上有。 他們當(dāng)中

26、的一員甚至寫了一本 題為如何身陷婚姻卻依然快樂 的暢銷書， 這便說明他們不相信夫妻一定會在幸福天堂白 頭終老。5我真的懷疑是否有哪個時代的普遍觀點視婚姻為萬事順利的天堂。 我查閱了一本關(guān)于婚 姻的引語詞典， 幾乎沒發(fā)現(xiàn)有什么樂觀的看法。 也許有反對意見說， 這些看法來自那些不循 規(guī)蹈矩的人們， 但確定的是這些觀點被傳統(tǒng)人士視若珍寶。 比方說， 怕老婆的蘇格拉底被問 及到底結(jié)婚好還是不結(jié)好，他留下了著名的論斷： “無論結(jié)不結(jié)婚，你都會后悔。 ”蒙田曾 寫道： “看看鳥籠就知道是什么情況了。外面的鳥因為不能飛進(jìn)鳥籠而充滿絕望；里面的鳥 也同樣渴望飛出去?！迸喔瑯右膊恢С纸Y(jié)婚。他曾尖刻地寫道： “昔有智者答人問何時可 婚，曾云：青年未到時，老年不必矣?！辈D的說法也很讓人沮喪：“張三沒結(jié)婚，像 呆在地獄里；李四結(jié)了婚，生活在災(zāi)禍中?！迸迤に乖谌沼浿行殴P寫道：“說來也怪，我們 這些已婚人士看到那些可憐的家伙像我們一樣被誘進(jìn)婚姻這個火坑時，我們是多么高興 啊?！?虔