美麗心靈晨讀英語美文18: What I Have Lived for 我為何而生
18 What I Have Lived for
18 我為何而生
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search of knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
我的一生被三種簡單卻又元比強(qiáng)烈的激情所控制:對愛的渴望，對知識的探索和對人類苦難難以抑制的憐憫。這些激情量像狂風(fēng)，把我態(tài)情吹向四方，掠過苦痛的大海，迫使我瀕臨絕望中的邊緣。
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness -that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what-at last-I have found.
我尋求愛，首先因?yàn)樗刮倚臑橹觯@種難以名狀的美妙迷醉使我愿意用所有的余生去換取哪怕幾個小時這樣的幸福。我尋求愛，還因?yàn)樗芫徑馕倚睦砩系墓陋?dú)感，我感覺心靈的戰(zhàn)采，仿如站在世界的邊緣而面前是冰冷，無底的死亡深淵。我尋求愛，因?yàn)樵谖宜慷玫慕Y(jié)合中，我仿佛看到了圣賢與詩人們所向往的天堂之景。這就是我所尋找的，雖然對人的一生而言似乎有些遙不可及，但至少是我用盡一生所領(lǐng)悟到的。
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway the flux. A little of this, but most of much, I have achieved.
我用同樣的激情去尋求知識。我希望能理解人類的心靈，希望能夠知道群星閃爍的緣由。我試圖領(lǐng)悟畢達(dá)哥拉斯所景仰的"數(shù)即萬物"的思想。我已經(jīng)悟出了其中的一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)道理，盡管并不是很多。
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
愛和知識，用它們的力量把人引向天堂。但是同情卻總把人又拽回到塵世中來。痛苦的呼喊聲回蕩在我的內(nèi)心。饑餓的孩子，受壓迫的難民，貧窮和痛苦的世界，都是對人類所憧憬的美好生活的無情嘲弄。我渴望能夠減少邪惡，但是我無能為力，我也難逃其折磨。
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
這就是我的一生。我已經(jīng)找到它的價值。而且如果有機(jī)會，我很愿意能再活它一次。
注釋：
overwhelmingly：adv. 壓倒性地;不可抵抗地
例句：On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest,and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him.
相反的，選好他們的立場之后，他們會說服自己，自己所在的一方是最強(qiáng)勢的，并在所有事實(shí)都壓倒性地反對著自己時，仍能堅(jiān)持立場。
consciousness ：n. 意識;知覺;覺悟;感覺
例句：Man's social being determines his consciousness.
存在決定意識。
reverberate：vi. 回響;反響;彈回;
例句：Day in and day out, the flat crack of the tank guns reverberates through the little Bavarian town.
日復(fù)一日地，單調(diào)的坦克炮的轟隆聲在巴伐利亞的這個小鎮(zhèn)上空回響著。
