英文美文欣賞：What I Have Lived for我為何而生

考研英語來源：文都教育 2017-07-07　

Three passions, simple but overwhelminglystrong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearablepity 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.

對愛情的渴望，對知識的探求和對人類苦難不可遏制的同情，是支配我一生的單純而難以抗拒的三種情感。這些情感如陣陣颶風,隨意地把我吹得飄來蕩去，有時吹過深沉痛苦的海洋，直抵絕望的邊緣。

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 lifeless 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.

我曾經追求過愛情，首先是因為愛情可以給我帶來狂喜，這種狂喜竟如此強烈，以至于我常常會為了體驗幾小時愛的歡娛，而寧愿犧牲生命中的其他一切。我曾經追求過愛情，其次是因為愛情可以擺脫孤寂——置身于那可怕的孤獨之中，那令人戰栗的感覺，有時會掠過世界的邊緣，把人帶到寒氣襲人且沒有生命的無底深淵。我曾經追求過愛情，還因為在愛的結合中，我看到了古今圣賢以及詩人們夢想中天堂的神秘縮影。這也正是我所追尋的人生境界。雖然它對一般的人類生活也許太美好了，但這正是我透過愛情最終所找到的。

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 away above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

我曾以同樣的感情追求知識。我一直渴望去了解人類的心靈，也渴望知道星星為什么會發光，同時我還想理解畢達哥拉斯的力量，通過它的力量，數駕馭了萬物的變化。我學到了一點點知識，但僅是皮毛而已。

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victimstortured 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.

愛情與知識，總是可以把我引領到天堂的境界。可對于人類苦難的同情經常把我帶回現實世界。那些痛苦的呼喚經常在我內心深處回響激蕩。嗷嗷待哺的孩童，壓迫者折磨之下的受害者，給子女造成重負的孤苦無依的老人，以及那充滿孤獨、貧窮和痛苦的世界，是對人類所應該擁有的生活的無視和嘲弄。我常渴望能盡自己的微薄之力去減輕這不必要的痛苦，但是卻無能為力，而我也因此受著痛苦的煎熬。

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

這就是我的生活，我覺得是值得活的。如果有誰再給我一次生活的機會，我將欣然接受這難得的賜予。