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When I said earlier that Euripides had brought the spectator on the stage in order to enable him to judge the play,
我们在上文说过，欧里庇德斯曾把观众带上舞台，同时使观众确实有能力评判戏剧；
I may have created the impression that the older drama had all along stood in a false relation to the spectator;
这种说法，会使人误解，以为以前悲剧艺术对观众的关系，是不正确的，
and one might then be tempted to praise Euripides' radical tendency to establish a proper relationship between art work and audience as an advance upon Sophocles.
也会使人贸贸然赞扬欧里庇德斯这一急进的倾向，认为他建立了艺术作品对观众的正确关系，比索福克勒斯向前迈进一步。
But, after all, audience is but a word, not a constant unchanging value.
然而，所谓“观众”毕竟是一个名词罢了；它并不是一个同次常数。
Why should an author feel obliged to accommodate himself to a power whose strength is merely in numbers?
艺术家有甚么义务要迎合这种仅仅以数量见胜的群众力量呢？
If he considers himself superior in his talent and intentions to every single spectator, why should he show respect for the collective expression of all those mediocre capacities rather than for the few members of the audience who seem relatively the most gifted?
如果他觉得自己在才能和志向上都比每个观众高明，那末他为甚么要尊重那些才能较低的群众的舆论，甚于尊重最有才能的个别观众呢？
The truth of the matter is that no Greek artist ever treated his audience with greater audacity and self sufficiency than Euripides;
其实，再没有一个希腊艺术家，象欧里庇德斯那样，以孤傲和自负来对待他的观众了；
who at a time when the multitude lay prostrate before him disavowed in noble defiance and publicly his own tendencies--those very tendencies by which he had previously conquered the masses.
当群众拜倒在他脚下时，他自己竟然以崇高的倔强精神，公开抨击他自己的倾向，而这种倾向正是他所借以获得人心的。
Had this genius had the slightest reverence for that band of Bedlamites called the public, he would have been struck down long before the mid point of his career by the bludgeon blows of his unsuccess.
如果这位天才，对于舆论的地狱，稍存敬畏之心，他也许在失败的打击之下，早在他事业的中途，一蹶不振了。
We come to realize now that our statement, "Euripides brought the spectator on the stage"--implying that the spectator would be able henceforth to exercise competent judgment --was merely provisional and that we must look for a sounder explanation of his intentions.
由此观之，我们说欧里庇德斯把观众带上舞台，是为了使观众确实能有批判能力，——这种说法，不过是一个暂时的假说而已；所以，我们必须进一步探索，以便了解他的倾向。
It is also generally recognized that Aeschylus and Sophocles enjoyed all through their lives and longer the full benefit of popular favor,
反之，如所周知，埃斯库罗斯和索福克勒斯，终其一生，甚至死后很久，都甚孚众望；
and that for this reason it would be absurd to speak in either case of a disproportion between art work and public reception.
由此可见，就欧里庇德斯的前辈而论，断不能说，他们的作品对观众的关系是不正确的。
