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And if they point a moral, it is so subtle that we are not conscious of it.
如果说这些作品表达出了一种道德观，那么我们也会因其过于深奥而意识不到它的存在。
My mind opened naturally and joyously to a conception of antiquity. Greece, ancient Greece, exercised a mysterious fascination over me. In my fancy the pagan gods and goddesses still walked on earth and talked face to face with men, and in my heart I secretly built shrines to those I loved best. I knew and loved the whole tribe of nymphs and heroes and demigods—no, not quite all, for the cruelty and greed of Medea and Jason were too monstrous to be forgiven, and I used to wonder why the gods permitted them to do wrong and then punished them for their wickedness. And the mystery is still unsolved. I often wonder how God can dumbness keep While Sin creeps grinning through His house of Time.
我对古代的思想心仪久矣，古希腊的历史把我带入了一个神秘的境界。在我的幻想中，异教徒的神祇依旧行走在世间，而且还同人类面对面地交谈；在心里，我悄悄地为我爱戴的亲人们建造一座座圣殿。我知晓而且喜爱所有部族的女神和英雄，以及半神半人怪——不，并不能说是所有的神，对于残忍而贪婪的美狄亚和伊阿宋我就不喜欢，他们的邪恶是不可饶恕的。我一直很奇怪为什么天神会允许他们行不义之事，可最后又对他们的恶行进行惩罚。这个秘密仍未解开，我常常惊讶于——神是如此地缄默无语，当罪愆讪笑着悄悄爬过“光阴的殿堂”。
It was the Iliad that made Greece my paradise. I was familiar with the story of Troy before I read it in the original, and consequently I had little difficulty in making the Greek words surrender their treasures after I had passed the borderland of grammar. Great poetry, whether written in Greek or in English, needs no other interpreter than a responsive heart. Would that the host of those who make the great works of the poets odious by their analysis, impositions and laborious comments might learn this simple truth! It is not necessary that one should be able to define every word and give it its principal parts and its grammatical position in the sentence in order to understand and appreciate a fine poem.
可以说，正是《伊利亚特》把古希腊变成了我心目中的天堂。在没有读原著之前，我就已经熟悉了特洛伊的故事。虽然当时我已经穿越了语法的边境线，但是在迫使希腊词语交出它们的“财宝”时，我还遇到了少许的困难。伟大的诗篇，无论用希腊文还是英文写就，它需要的不是讲解员，而是一颗敏感的心。难道不正是有那么一群好事之徒，通过他们所谓的分析而令伟大的诗歌变得面目可憎吗？所以，那些强加于人和艰深晦涩的评论的炮制者，真应该好好学一学这条朴素的真理！事实上，理解和欣赏一部杰出的诗篇，并不需要你去对每一个词的作用，或者是它在句子中的语法结构进行解释。
