米沃什“时间”
时间
千百年来,我们人类一直在思考,这世界到底从何而来。有人说,它肯定有一个开始;又有人说,它一直存在着。对我们而言,“一直”已失去所有意义,因为在“大爆炸”之前,没有时间。不论我们的想象,还是我们的语言,都无法理解“没有时间”这个概念。在“有”之前存在的是什么呢?查特斯大学和牛津大学的中世纪研究者们认为,那是神圣之光,神圣之光转变成物理之光创造出了整个宇宙。他们会乐于接受“大爆炸”理论,他们会说:“对,就这么回事。”
思考时间就是思考人的生命,而时间这个题目如此辽阔,思考它就意味着在普遍的意义上进行思考。那些区隔我们的因素———性别、种族、肤色、习俗、信仰以及观念,相比于我们是时间的产物这一事实是何其苍白。我们活着又死去。蜉蝣只能活一天。难以捕捉的“现在”要么逃往过去,要么奔向未来;要么已成回忆,要么构成渴望。言语,是被调和的时间,一如音乐。绘画和建筑不也是在把节奏转化为空间吗?
我的头脑中满是对那些活过又死去的人的回忆。我在写他们的时候,总是意识到,我自己也会随时消逝。在20世纪人类的星空中,我们聚在一起,就像一团云,或一团星云。我的同时代人:尽管我们生在不同的国家和不同的地理环境,但由于我们同处一个时代,我们便有了血缘之亲。在某种意义上说,这种血缘之亲比任何部落联盟都要牢固。
摘自西川、北塔译《米沃什词典》,据英译对原译文有改动。
所据英译如下:
Time
Our human species has pondered for centuries the question of where the world came from. Some have said that it must have had a beginning; others, that it has always existed. For us, “always” has lost all meaning, because there was no time before the Big Bang, even if neither our imagination nor our language can grasp the concept of timelessness.What existed before there was something? The medieval scholastics from the schools of Chartres and Oxford held that there was divine light. Its transmutatio into physical light created the universe. They would have been delighted to accept the theory of the big Bang, and would have said, “Well, of course.”
To think about time means to think about human life, and this is such a broad topic that to consider it means to think in general. The differences that divide us—sex, race, skin color, customs, beliefs, ideas—pale in comparison with the fact that we are all woven out of time, that we are born and we die, mayflies who live but a day. The inconceivable “now”escapes backward or inclines forward, it is already a memory or an aspiration. Speech, in which we communicate, is modulated time, just like music. And do not painting and architecture translate rhythm into space?
I am filled with the memory of people who lived and died; I write about them, conscious all the while that in a moment, I, too, will be gone. Together we are like a cloud or a nebula among the human constellations of the twentieth century. My contemporaries: our kinship rests on our having lived at the same time, although in different countries and geographic expanses. In a sense, that kinship is stronger than any tribal bonds.
千百年来,我们人类一直在思考,这世界到底从何而来。有人说,它肯定有一个开始;又有人说,它一直存在着。对我们而言,“一直”已失去所有意义,因为在“大爆炸”之前,没有时间。不论我们的想象,还是我们的语言,都无法理解“没有时间”这个概念。在“有”之前存在的是什么呢?查特斯大学和牛津大学的中世纪研究者们认为,那是神圣之光,神圣之光转变成物理之光创造出了整个宇宙。他们会乐于接受“大爆炸”理论,他们会说:“对,就这么回事。”
思考时间就是思考人的生命,而时间这个题目如此辽阔,思考它就意味着在普遍的意义上进行思考。那些区隔我们的因素———性别、种族、肤色、习俗、信仰以及观念,相比于我们是时间的产物这一事实是何其苍白。我们活着又死去。蜉蝣只能活一天。难以捕捉的“现在”要么逃往过去,要么奔向未来;要么已成回忆,要么构成渴望。言语,是被调和的时间,一如音乐。绘画和建筑不也是在把节奏转化为空间吗?
我的头脑中满是对那些活过又死去的人的回忆。我在写他们的时候,总是意识到,我自己也会随时消逝。在20世纪人类的星空中,我们聚在一起,就像一团云,或一团星云。我的同时代人:尽管我们生在不同的国家和不同的地理环境,但由于我们同处一个时代,我们便有了血缘之亲。在某种意义上说,这种血缘之亲比任何部落联盟都要牢固。
摘自西川、北塔译《米沃什词典》,据英译对原译文有改动。
所据英译如下:
Time
Our human species has pondered for centuries the question of where the world came from. Some have said that it must have had a beginning; others, that it has always existed. For us, “always” has lost all meaning, because there was no time before the Big Bang, even if neither our imagination nor our language can grasp the concept of timelessness.What existed before there was something? The medieval scholastics from the schools of Chartres and Oxford held that there was divine light. Its transmutatio into physical light created the universe. They would have been delighted to accept the theory of the big Bang, and would have said, “Well, of course.”
To think about time means to think about human life, and this is such a broad topic that to consider it means to think in general. The differences that divide us—sex, race, skin color, customs, beliefs, ideas—pale in comparison with the fact that we are all woven out of time, that we are born and we die, mayflies who live but a day. The inconceivable “now”escapes backward or inclines forward, it is already a memory or an aspiration. Speech, in which we communicate, is modulated time, just like music. And do not painting and architecture translate rhythm into space?
I am filled with the memory of people who lived and died; I write about them, conscious all the while that in a moment, I, too, will be gone. Together we are like a cloud or a nebula among the human constellations of the twentieth century. My contemporaries: our kinship rests on our having lived at the same time, although in different countries and geographic expanses. In a sense, that kinship is stronger than any tribal bonds.
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