评论
打印
In the spirit of these last suggestive questions it must now be said how the influence of Socrates, down to the present moment and even into all future time, has spread over posterity like a shadow that keeps growing in the evening sun,
关于最后这几个疑难问题，我们现在必须阐明，苏格拉底的影响怎样象苍茫暮色逐渐深浓，笼罩着世世代代，直至于今日。甚或直至于未来；
and how it again and again prompts a regeneration of art--of art in the metaphysical, broadest and profoundest sense--and how its own infinity also guarantees the infinity of art.
这影响怎样促成艺术的推陈出新，最抽象、最广泛、最深刻意义的艺术创作；——这影响之恒久也正是艺术之恒久的保证。
Before this could be recognized, before the innermost dependence of every art on the Greeks, from Homer to Socrates, was demonstrated conclusively, we had to feel about these Greeks as the Athenians felt about Socrates.
在能理解这个道理之前，在确实证明一切艺术在本质上是依赖从荷马到苏格拉底那些古希腊人之前，我们必须考察一个古希腊人，正如雅典人考察苏格拉底那样。
Nearly every age and stage of culture has at some time or other sought with profound irritation to free itself from the Greeks, because in their presence everything one has achieved oneself, though apparently quite original and sincerely admired, suddenly seemed to lose life and color and shriveled into a poor copy, even a caricature. And so time after time cordial anger erupts against this presumptuous little people that made bold for all time to designate everything not native as "barbaric."
几乎每个时代和文明阶段都也曾一度愤愤不平地竭力摇脱古希腊人的束缚。因为，后世一切独创的，显然独竖一帜的，人所真诚赞美的作品，在希腊作品相形之下，仿佛突然丧失了色彩和生气，萎缩到失败的仿作甚或歪曲的模拟之地步。所以，人们那由衷的愤恨，时不时发泄出来，反对向来胆敢把一切非本国东西都称为“野蛮”的那个傲慢的小民族。
Who are they, one asks, who, though they display only an ephemeral historical splendor, ridiculously restricted institutions, dubious excellence in their mores, and are marked by ugly vices, yet lay claim to that dignity and pre-eminence among peoples which characterize genius among the masses?
我们要追问：希腊人是甚么人物呢？——他们虽则是没有甚么可以夸耀。只有昙花一现的历史光荣，只有贫弱可怜的政治制度，只有实属可疑的风俗优点，甚至还有秽德丑行的污名；可是他们竟敢在其他诸民族中要求才华出众的荣誉和优越地位。
Unfortunately, no one was lucky enough to find the cup of hemlock with which one could simply dispose of such a character; for all the poison that envy, calumny, and rancor created did not suffice to destroy that self-sufficient splendor.
可惜我们不幸而不能找到一杯鸠酒，毅然解脱这样的小人之心：因为嫉妒、诽谤、仇恨在我们心中酿成的一切毒液，都不足以消灭他们可以自负的威信：
And so one feels ashamed and afraid in the presence of the Greeks, unless one prizes truth above all things and dares acknowledge even this truth:
所以，我们在古希腊人面前不免自渐形秽，肃然起敬。除非我们重视一个真理高于一切，而且我们敢于对自己承认这一真理：
that the Greeks, as charioteers, hold in their hands the reins of our own and every other culture, but that almost always chariot and horses are of inferior quality and not up to the glory of their leaders, who consider it sport to run such a team into an abyss which they themselves clear with the leap of Achilles.
即，古希腊人象一个御者那样，在手中执着我们的和其它民族的文化之缰索，但是破车驽马毕竟是劣质，而且不配这御者的光荣；——除非我们承认这点，否则谁敢驱破车而临深渊，并以此为乐呢？须知希腊人象阿喀琉斯那样善跳，所以能够一跃而跳过这深渊。
