英文自修46：正直之声——记英国已故议员托尼·本

本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Thought for the Day节目网站，朋友们也可以下载节目录音收听。

本篇译者：武太白，沪上某名牌大学英语专业毕业生

审读、定稿、图片、背景图文：武太白

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Thought for the Day 20140315 Brian Draper
 

As soon as my friend heard the news about Tony Benn yesterday, he was on the phone to me, sharing contagiously how he’d seen the politician live, at the Tolpuddle Festival, and how his whole talk had been based on that great Biblical question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” 
昨天友人听到托尼•本逝世的消息后立即打电话给我，说他托布多节听过这位政治家的演说，所说的是基于圣经中的伟大问题：“我是不是兄弟的管家？”友人对本感情真挚，语言恳切，这感染了我。



 

It was Harold Wilson who said that the Labour Party owed more to Methodism than to Marx, but in returning every year as he did so faithfully to Tolpuddle, Tony Benn affirmed his own great admiration both for the workers movement itself that began there, and the roots it had so firmly planted in Christian non-conformism. “I was brought up on the Bible,” he once told Third Way magazine, “and I regard Jesus as my teacher.” 
哈罗德•威尔逊说过，工党更多依靠的是卫理公会的力量而非共产主义，而本每年都如约重返托布多，不仅是确证他本人对起自该地的工人运动本身的深深景仰，也要重申工人运动在英国新教中深深扎根。“我是读圣经长大的，”他曾对《第三道路》杂志说，“我把耶稣看作老师。”
 

This, from a man who was constantly out among the people, in places such as Tolpuddle. “Like John Wesley,” he once said, tellingly, “I just do meetings.” 
这是一位坚持走进群众中间，到类似托布多的各地去的一位政治家。“如同约翰•韦斯利，”有一次他所说甚为清楚，“我就是跟人打交道。”
 

And surely it was this kind of personal affinity which gave resonance to the words of this already eloquent orator. That, and the conviction that his actions should speak even louder than any fine words. “I’d be [most] ashamed,” he told Jim Naughty in a recent interview, “if I ever thought I’d said anything I didn’t believe in, to get on personally.” Behold, perhaps, the lamentably rare voice of integrity. 
的确，正是这种密切的人际关系令这位已然算得上雄辩的演说家的话语赢得了广泛赞同。此其一；其二，公众相信他的行动比任何美妙的言辞都更说明问题。他在最近的采访中告诉吉姆•诺蒂，“就个人而言，要是我觉得自己说的什么东西连自己都不相信，那我可要羞愧死了。”听，这就是正直的声音，可如今这种声音已经少得令人心痛。
 

That his was also a voice which issued, in the end, from beyond the mainstream of politics, was in part at least because he loved to listen most to the very voices he found there - to black voices, women’s voices, gay voices, as well as to so many ordinary constituents. His was a voice of one crying in the latter-day political wilderness, without doubt; but for Tam Dalyell yesterday, there was something positively Biblical about this: “Prophets were educators,” he observed on this programme, “kings were those who had power; and Tony Benn was definitely a prophet.” 
说到底，本的声音也是超越政治主流之上的，这其中部分原因是他热爱聆听托布多之声——黑人之声，妇女之声，同性恋之声，普罗大众之声。无疑问，这是在当代的政治荒野上哭泣的声音；但是对昨天的塔姆•达耶尔来说，这其中包含着神圣的东西：“先知就要教育人民，”他在节目中说，“帝王掌握权力，托尼•本则是先知。”
 

His words, not mine, and they don’t make him a saint, of course - more of a pain, in the traditional prophetic sense; but certainly, his well-documented passion was in representing people, not using politics to manage them. 
这是本的话语，非我所说；这当然并不能令他成为圣徒——更多的是痛苦，是传统意义上先知的痛苦；但是他多有记载的激情是用于代表人民，而非用政治来管制人民。
 

After a standing ovation back at that Tolpuddle festival, a lengthy queue of well-wishers waited patiently in the sunshine for their turn to remind the speaker where they’d previously and personally encountered him, and remarkably, I’m told by the friend who sat close by listening, Tony Benn could place every one of them. 
在托布多节经久不息的掌声之后，排成长队的民众在烈日下耐心等待着轮到他们跟托尼•本表达良好的祝愿，并提一提此前是在哪里跟他见过面；值得一提的是，打电话给我的那位朋友说他坐在一旁倾听，托尼•本竟能指明每一个人在何地有一面之缘。
 

On this programme yesterday, we heard Tony Benn himself say, ”If I had an epitaph, I would like it to be, ‘He encouraged us.’ Such a simple hope, in the end - but inspiring in itself, from a man who tried to give people a voice, through the gift of his own.
在昨天的节目中，我们听到托尼•本自己说，“如果要给我写墓志铭，那就写‘此人激励过我们’。”生命临近终了，竟是如此简单的希望——这希望却真的激励众人，因为他是用自己的天赋声音为民呐喊，为民请命。