美文欣賞：On the Fear of Death談怕死

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Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives me no concern - why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be? I have no wish to have been alive a hundred years ago, or in the reign of Queen Anne. Why should I regret and lay it so much to heart that I shall not be alive a hundred years hence, in the reign of I cannot tell whom?

也許克服對死亡恐懼的最好方法是想一想，人生有始也就必 有終。在過去一段時期我們并不存在：這一事實并未讓我 們擔心過——那為什么我們還要為了有一天將不存在而感到困 擾呢?我既然不期望活在一百年之前，或是生活在安妮女王統 治的時代，我何以要因為不能活在一百年以后說不出誰統治的 時代,深感遺憾而耿耿于懷呢?

To die is only to be as we were born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea. It is rather a relief and disburdening of the mind; it seems to have been a holiday time with us then; we were not called to appear upon the stage of life, to wear robes ortatters, to laugh or cry, be hooted or applauded; we had lain perdu all this while, snug out of harm's way; and had slept out our thousands of centuries without wanting to be waked up; at peace and free from care, in a long nonage, in a sleep deeper and calmer than that of infancy, wrapped in the softest and finest dust. And the worst that we dread is, after a short fretful, feverish being, after vain hopes, and idle fears, to sink to final repose again, and forget the troubled dream of life!

死亡只不過是恢復到生前狀況而已。當我們在思忖這個新 觀念時,沒有人會感到一絲絲的懊悔、遺憾或是厭煩，反而感到 心靈的舒緩慰藉和如釋重負。我們在生前仿佛在度假一般：我 們沒有被召喚而出現在人生舞臺上，穿著華貴的禮袍或襤褸的 衣衫、大笑或是哭嚎、被人呵斥或是接受喝彩;相反地,我們埋伏 了很久很久，安詳自在而且遠離傷害，熟睡千百個世紀也不愿意 被喚醒,平和愜意而無憂無慮，長期處于胚胎階段，遠比嬰兒時 期睡得更為深沉和靜謐，并被最輕柔和最細致的塵埃所包裹著。 而最糟糕的是，我們擔心在短暫的煩躁和狂熱的生存之后，在空 虛的期盼以及無謂的恐懼之后，再度沉入最終的長眠，而忘卻了 人生煩惱痛苦的夢境!