美國語文第六冊 第233期:馬薩諸塞人和南卡羅來納(3)
總統(tǒng)先生，在沒有發(fā)表贊辭的情況下，我開始說說馬薩諸塞州。實際上，她不需要任何溢美之詞。
There she is, behold her, and judge for yourselves.
所有的一切都顯而易見。注視著她，由你自己做出判斷。
There is her history; the world knows it by heart.
她的歷史，世界都記在心里了。
The past, at least, is secure.
至少，過去的一切都是可靠的。
There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever.
波士頓、康科爾、萊克星頓，還有邦克山。它們會永遠屹立在世人心中。
And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice,
先生，美國的自由精神在哪里發(fā)出最初的吶喊，
and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives,in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit.
那里的年輕人就會得到精神上的滋養(yǎng)，并將對自由的吶喊傳承下去。還有一些生命，在他們的男子氣概所彰顯的力量中，充滿了最初的精神。
If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it;
如果沖突與分裂傷害到它，如果黨派之間的紛爭和盲目的抱負抓住并撕扯它;
if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made sure,
如果愚蠢的行為和瘋狂之舉，如果有益的限制下所產(chǎn)生的不適，通過確保它的存在成為單獨的現(xiàn)象而成功地將它從聯(lián)邦里分離出來，
it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked;
到頭來它將站在它的童年顛沛流離中的搖籃旁邊;
it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gathered around it;
它會向前伸出胳膊，拼盡也許僅存的氣力，夠向圍攏在四周的朋友;
and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proudest monuments of its glory and on the very spot of its origin.
最終，它會倒在，如果它必然倒下的話，它的榮譽最值得驕傲自豪的紀(jì)念碑和記錄它起源的特別之地中央。
