综合教程2翻译之---What-Is-Happiness

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1、 What Is Happiness?1、The right to pursue happiness is issued to Americans with their birth cetificates, but no one seems quite which way it ran. It may be we are issued a hunting license but offered no game. Jonathan Swift seemed to being welldeceived.” The felicty of being “a fool among knaves.” Fo

2、r Swift say society as Vanity Fair, the land of false goals.自从呱呱坠地，美国人就被赋予了追求幸福的权利，但似乎没人确信幸福究竟在哪里。正如它发给我们狩猎证，却不给我们提供猎物。乔纳森斯威福特似乎持此观点，她抨击幸福的想法是“鬼迷心窍的上当，”是“骗子堆中的傻瓜”的自鸣得意。由于她视社会为虚妄目的汇集的名利场。2、It is, of course, un-American to think in terms of fools and knaves. We do, however, seem to be dedicated to the

3、 idea of buying our way to happiness. We shall all have made it to heaven when we possess enough.固然用傻子、骗子这样的字眼来形容是不合美国的人的风俗习惯的，然后我们似乎的确沉溺于用金钱购买幸福的想法：只要有足够的钱，我们百年后就能上天堂。3、And at the same time the forces of American commercialism are hugely dedicated to making us deliberately unhappy. Advertising is o

4、ne of our major industries, and advertising is one of our major industries, and advertising exists not to satisfy desires but to create them-and to create them faster than any mans budget can satisfy them. For that matter, our whole economy is based on a dedicated insatiability. We are taught that t

5、o possess is to be happy, and then we are made to want. We are even told it is our duty to want. It was only a few years ago, to cite a single example, that car dealers across the country were flying banners that read “You Auto Buy Now.” There were calling upon Americans, as an act approaching patri

6、otism, to buy at once, with money they did not have. Automobiles they did not really need, and which they would be required to grow tired of by the time the next years models were released.同步，美国的商业主义却又殚精竟虑故意使我们得不到幸福。广告是我们的支柱产业之一，其存在不是为了满足欲望。而是为了制造欲望其制造速度之快，使我们的腰包应接不暇。就此而言，我们的整个经济是基于一种无法自拔的贪求无厌。我们受到的

7、教育是“占有却为幸福”，然后我们就被迫产生贪欲。我们甚至被告知欲望是我们的义务。引用一种简朴的例子为证：仅仅几年前，全国的汽车销售商还打着“你应当立即购买汽车”的横幅。她们号召美国人民：作为一种爱国主义行为，她们应当立即按揭购买她们并不真正需要的汽车，并且在次年新款汽车发布后她们会对本来这些汽车心生厌倦。4、Or look at any of the womens magazines. There, as Bernard De Voto once pointed out, advertising begins as poetry in the front pages and ends as p

8、harmacopoeia and therapy in the back page. The poetry of the front matter is the dream of perfect beauty. This is the baby skin that must be hers. These, the flawless teeth. This, the perfumed breath she must exhale. This, the sixteen-year-old figure she must display she must display at forty, at fi

9、fty, at sixty, and forever.或者任意浏览一本女性杂志。正如伯尔纳德德渥托曾经指出的那样，这些杂志开头几页的广告诗情画意，而最后则以类似药典和治疗手册结尾。前者是完美美女的梦想：这该是她婴儿般的股肤，这些是她无瑕的牙齿，这该是她呼出的香气，这该是她能保持到40、50、60岁甚至永远的16岁少女般的身材。5、Once past the vaguely uplifting fiction and feature articles, the reader finds the other face of the dream in the back matter. This is

10、 the harness into which Mother must strap herself in order to display that perfect figure. These, the chin straps she must sleep in. This is the slave that restores all, this is her laxative, these are the tablets that melt away fat, these are the hormones of perceptual youth, these are the stocking

11、s that hide varicose veins.一旦读完这些隐约让人振奋的故事和专项文章，读者在杂志最后几页就会发现梦想的真相：这是家庭主妇必须得系上的背带，以呈现其完美身材。这些是她睡觉时必须带上的颚带。这是可以恢复青春的药剂和装备，这是她减肥用的缓泻药，这些是消化脂肪的药片，这些是使外表年轻的荷尔蒙，这些是掩盖静脉曲张的长袜。6、Obviously no half-sane person can be completely persuaded either by such poetry or by such poetry or by such pharmacopoeia and or

12、thopedics. Yet someone is obviously trying to buy the dream as offered and spending billions every year in the attempt. Clearly the happiness-market is not running out of customers, but what is trying to buy? 显而易见 ，虽然心智不健全的人也不会完全相信这些诗境或是这些药典和矫正术。然后有人显然正在竭力购买这些广告所兜的美梦，并为此每年耗资数十亿美元。这种幸福市场无疑不会无人问津，但她们购

13、买的究竟是什么呢？7、The idea “happiness,” to be sure, will not sit still for easy definition: the best one can do is to try to set some extremes to the idea and then work in toward the middle. To think of happiness as acquisitive and competitive will do to set the materialistic extreme. To think of it as the

14、 idea one senses in, say, a holy man of India will do to set the spiritual extreme. The holy mans idea of happiness is in needing nothing from outside himself. In wanting nothing, he lacks nothing. He sits immobile, rapt in contemplation, free even of his own body. Or nearly free of it. If devout ad

15、mirers bring him food he eats it; if not, he starves indifferently. Why be concerned? What is physical is an illusion to him. Contemplation is his joy and he achieves it through afantastically demanding discipline, the accomplishment of which is itself a joy within him.诚然，给“幸福”这一概念下定义远非易事：最佳是尽量为这一概念

16、确立某些极限，然后将两者折中。将幸福视为物质上的拥有和互相攀比，这就确立了其物质上的极限。将其视为一种人（例如印度的圣人）所感知的信念，则是确立了其精神上的极限。圣人的幸福是无需身外之物。无欲则无求。她静坐不动，陷入冥思，甚至脱离或者说近乎脱离自己的肉体。如果有虔诚的信徒带来食物，她硬听； 如果没有，她便淡然地饿着。有什么好挂念的呢？对她而言，物质世界只是虚幻。宴想是她的极乐，而她通过修行来实现。这种修行规定之高，让人难以置信，其完毕自身就是她内心的一种极乐。8、Is he a happy man? Perhaps his happiness is only another sort of i

17、llusion. But who can take it from him? And who will dare say it is more illusory than happiness on the installment plan? 她幸福吗 ？或许她的幸福只是另一种虚幻。但谁又能将幸福从她身边夺走呢？又有谁敢说这种幸福比分期付款筹划中得到的幸福更缥缈呢？9、But, perhaps because I am Western, I doubt such catatonic happiness, as I doubt the dreams of the happiness-market.

18、 What is certain is that his way of happiness would be torture to almost any Western man. Yet these extremes will still serve to frame the area within all of us and must find some sort of balance. Thoreau-a creature of both Eastern and Western thought-had his own firm sense of that balance. His aim

19、was to save on the low levels in order to spend on the high.然而，或许由于我是西方人，我对这种令人精神紧张的幸福持怀疑态度，正如我怀疑幸福市场的梦幻同样。可以确信，她这种幸福方式对几乎任何一种西方人而言都是一种折磨。尽管如此，我们仍然可以运用这些极限来划定幸福的范畴，在这一范畴内每个人都得找到某种平衡。梭罗，一种东西思想交融的人物，对这种平衡有她自己的坚定信念。她的目的是在低层次节省，在高层次上付出。10、Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of th

20、e neighborhood would have been Thoureaus idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening ones perception of what is enduring in nature would have been his idea of the high, What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starva

21、tion, but he would put into feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him functioning for more important efforts. 梭罗所理解的“低层次”，即为自己而去拥有，或与邻里明争暗斗而致拥有。她心目中的“高层次”，则是这样一种积极的人生戒律，即要使自己对自己界永恒之物的感悟臻于完美。对于她从低层次上节省下来的时间和精力，她可将其致力于对高层次的追求。勿庸置疑，梭罗不赞成忍饥挨饿，但她在膳食方面投入的精力仅果腹而已，只要可以保证她能去从事更为重要的事务即可。11、Effort

22、is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfactions we get from a lifetime depend on how hign we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of “The

23、 pleasure of taking pains.” The martal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless.殚精竭虑，全力以赴，便是问题的精髓所在。除非我们乐意直面那些需要我们全身心投入的艰难困苦，否则便不会有幸福可言。正如叶芝所言，除却某些不也许的情形，我们人生中所获取的满足皆取决于我们在多高的境界中选择我们所乐意面对的艰难困苦。当罗伯特弗罗斯特言及“以苦为乐”时，她内心所思，大体如此。商业广告中所宣扬的寻种幸福观，其致使的缺陷就在于它宣

24、称，一切幸福皆唾手可得，不费吹灰之力。12、We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of dificulty. When the spoilsport ruins the fun, he always does so

25、 by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free,at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.虽然于游戏之中，我们也需要有艰难困苦。之因此需要它，是由于若没有困难，便断无游戏可言。游戏即是这样一种方式，为了享有其中的情趣而人为地使事情变得不那么轻而易举。游戏中的种种规则，便是将困难武断地强

26、加于人。有的人将情趣摧毁殆尽，总是由于她拒不按游戏规则行事而使然。这犹如下棋，如果你随心所欲、心血来潮全然武断地去更改那些游戏规则、去赢棋固然会更加容易。但下棋的情趣则在于应在规则的限定范畴内赢取胜利。一言以蔽之，没有艰难，断无情趣。13、The buyers and sellers at the happiness-market seem too often to have lost their sense of the pleasure of difficulty. Heaven knows what they are playing,but it seems a dull game. A

27、nd the Indian holy man seems dull to us, I suppose, because he seems to be refusing to play anyting at all. The Western weakness may be in the illusion that happiness can be bought. Perhaps the Eastern weakness is in the idea that there is such a thing as perfect (therefore static ) happiness.幸福市场上的

28、买卖双方似乎大都体会不到挑战困难的乐趣。天懂得她们在玩些什么，但似乎不外乎那些无聊的游戏。我猜印度的圣人在我们看来有些无聊，由于她似乎回绝玩任何游戏。西方人的弱点在于她们幻想幸福可以买到。或许东方人的弱点在于她们觉得存在产丰一种完美的（因而也是静止的）幸福。14、Happiness is never more than partial. There are no pure states of mankind. Whatever else happiness may be, it is neither in having nor in being, but in becoming. What t

29、he Founding Fathers declared for us as inherent right, we should do well to remember, was not happiness but the pursuit of happiness market, is the cardinal fact that happiness is in the pursuit itself, in the meaningful pursuit of what is life-engaging and life-revealing, which is to say, in the id

30、ea of becoming. A nation is not measured by what it possesses or wants to possess, but by what it wants to become.历来就没有过完美的幸福。人类社会不存在尽善尽美。无论人们如何界定何谓幸福，它既不在于拥有也不在于实现，而在于追求的过程。我们应当牢记：开国元勋们为我们所宣布的与生俱来的权利，不是享有幸福而是追求幸福。如果她们当时预见到目前浮现的幸福市场，她们就会强调指出这样一种基本领实：幸福在于为之奋斗的过程，在于我们终身为之努力并从中获得启迪的事业，也就是说在于追求。对于一种民族的评

31、价不是看它拥有什么或是幸福拥有什么，而是看它想要追求什么。15、By all means let the happiness-market sell us minor satisfactions and even minor follies so long as we keep them in scale and buy them out of spiritual change. I am no customer for either Puritanism or asceticism. But drop any real spiritual capital at those bazaars, and what you come to will be your own poorhouse.固然，只要我们掌握好一种度，或者只作为一种精神调节，不妨从幸福市场买点满足感甚至可以花钱买点愚蠢的东西。我既不信奉清教徒的生活准则也不赞面禁欲主义。但如果我们在这些市场上放弃任何真正意义上的精神财富，那么到头来我们只能是一无所有。