This is the reason why the figure of Socrates disturbs us so profoundly whenever we approach it, and why we are tempted again and again to plumb the meaning and intentions of the most problematical character among the ancients.
关于苏格拉底问题,我们往往陷于异常的疑难;而正是这种疑难,不断鼓舞着我们去认识古代这种最可疑的现象的意义和目的。
Who was this man who dared, singlehanded, to challenge the entire world of Hellenism--embodied in Homer, Pindar, and Aeschylus, in Phidias, Pericles, Pythia, and Dionysus--which commands our highest reverence?
是谁敢于独持己见来否定希腊的天才呢,象荷马、品达、埃斯库罗斯、斐狄亚斯、伯理克斯、乃至阿波罗与狄奥尼索斯等等天才,岂不是使我们肃然起敬,视为文化的最深渊壑和最高峰岭吗?
Who was this daemon daring to pour out the magic philter in the dust?
是甚么魔力竟敢于把这剂魔药泼倒在尘埃呢?
this demigod to whom the noblest spirits of mankind must call out:
是甚么神人呢,甚至万物之灵长的歌队也要对他高呼:
Alas!
哀哉!哀哉!
You have shattered
你已经破坏,
The beautiful world
这美丽世界,
With brazen fist;
以铁拳一击,
It falls, it is scattered.
它倒塌下来
[Goethe's Faust, lines 1607-11.]
(歌德:“浮士德”)