英文自修158：从战争走向未来

本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Thought for the Day节目网站。

转载、翻译、中文标题：武太白

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Thought for the Day 20150425 Martin Wroe

We are in a year of remembering. A century after the outbreak of World War I, today, Australia & New Zealand fall silent on ANZAC Day. Britain falls silent too, the Queen visiting the Cenotaph this morning.

我们处在一个纪念的年份。第一次世界大战爆发一个世纪后，澳大利亚和新西兰都在澳新军团日这一天进行了默哀。英国也默哀了，女王去第一次世界大战阵亡将士纪念碑进行了悼念。

I had to remind myself of how the Allies had planned to capture Gallipoli… retreating in defeat after eight months.

我不得不提醒自己同盟国是如何计划攻占加里波利的……八个月之后又在失败后撤退。

I asked my kids about Anzac Day, about Gallipoli. There was a vague recollection from school history lessons.

我问孩子们知不知道澳新军团日和加里波利战役。他们在学校的历史课上学过，还有模糊的回忆。

I asked a neighbour: Wasn’t that the film with Mel Gibson? No, wait, the new one, The Water Diviner. Russell Crowe.

我问一位邻居：梅尔吉布森不是演过有关的电影吗（《加里波利》，译注）？不，等等，是新片，《占水师》。拉塞尔•克罗。

Popular culture keeps some of our memories alive but still … our memories often let us down. Reminded of the plain truth of our history of conflict we’re often left speechless.

流行文化使我们的一些记忆一直不会褪色，但是仍然……我们的记忆经常会令人失望。回想起我们历史上的冲突中那些直白的真相，经常令我们无言以对。

An educated person is said to know 20,000 words & to use 2,000 in a week. Sometimes none of them are any good.

据说一个受过教育的人能学会20000个词，每周会使用其中的2000个。有时这也都没什么用。

Contemplating the desperate reality of war, we often have nowhere to go but to silence.

细想战争的绝望事实，我们经常无处藏身，只能沉默。

A church is a good place to take your silence… unless there’s a service going on.

教堂是个不错的地方，可以承担你的沉默……除非有仪式在举办。

But silence can arrive in unlikely places. The loudest silences I’ve known have been those that descend on a packed football stadium, on a weekend near Remembrance Day.

但是沉默也能够发生在看似不可能的地方。我所知道的最喧嚣的沉默降落在人山人海的足球场，在临近纪念日的一个周末。

Everyone stilled. Serious. Suddenly aware of your own breathing, of being alive, of how fragile this life is.

所有人都安静了。严肃。突然你会听到自己的呼吸，知道自己还活着，知道此生何等脆弱。

To notice life like this is rare. It becomes a kind of prayer. A freeze-framed wordlessness where you stop to imagine those whose lives were silenced by war.

能够这样察觉自身的生命，是很罕见的。这成了一种祈祷。身体冻结，无语凝咽，你停下来想象那些在战争中失去了生命、变得沉默的人。

We know them by absence - by people not sitting next to us because they were never born, because their father or mother, grandfather or grandmother lost their lives in war.

我们知道有他们，是由他们不在场——是由没坐在我们身边的人们，因为他们从来没有出生过，因为他们的父母或祖父母在战争中丧生。

In this stillness we fill up our present with the past to remember those whose futures were taken away.

在这种寂静中，我们以过去充填当下，以纪念那些被夺走了未来的人们。

And below the surface this silence can hold a longing for a future we can barely articulate.

而在表象之下，这种沉默可能有一种渴望，希望有一种未来，我们几乎无法用语言来描述它。

One that only poetry hints at - like the poet in the Bible who remembered a future where,

这样一种未来，诗篇里曾经暗示过——像是圣经里的诗人，记得这样一种未来：

‘The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion together; and a little child shall lead them.’

“豺狼必与绵羊羔同居，豹子与山羊羔同卧。少壮狮子，与牛犊同群。小孩子要牵引他们。”

Summoning the past into the present we try to remember another kind of future.

我们召唤过去进入当下，试图记住另一种未来。

‘Life can only be understood backwards,’ said Kierkegaard, ‘but it must be lived forwards.’

“生活只能后向理解”，克尔凯郭尔说，“却只能前向生活。”

And in the silence, looking backwards, we can find a little understanding.

在这样的沉默中，我们回看过去，找到了一点理解。

We remember people like those who lost their lives at Gallipoli and try to remember a future where it could never happen again.

我们回忆起那些在加里波利丧生的人们，试图记住一种再也不会发生这样的悲剧的未来。

Try to remember what we can do about that.

试图记住我们该怎样才能做到这一点。

In the stage version of Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse, there’s a setting of a beautiful old folk song.

在迈克尔•摩尔普尔戈的舞台剧版本《战马》中，有一个场景里有一首美丽的古老民歌。

‘Only remembered, only remembered,

Only remembered by what we have done;

Thus would we pass from the earth and its toiling,

Only remembered by what we have done.’

“只有记忆，只有记忆，

只记忆我们所为；

我们这样劳作，经过大地，

只因我们所为被牢记。”