《莎士比亚戏剧集序言》翻译.docx

1. Shakespeare with his excellencies has likewise faults, and faults sufficient to obscure and overwhelm any other merit. I shall shew them in the proportion in which they appear to me, without envious malignity or superstitious veneration. No question can be more innocently discussed than a dead poet's pretensions to renown; and little regard is due to that bigotry which sets candour higher than truth.莎士比亚的作品纵然出类拔萃，但也同样有缺点，而且这些缺点足以掩盖和碾压任何其 他优点我将如实地说出我对它们的看法，不恶意中伤，也不迷信崇拜没有什么问题能比 讨论一个已故作家的身后之名更加无罪的了；此外，将直率看得比真相更重要这种偏执，也 不会赢得什么敬佩。

2. His first defect is that to which may be imputed most of the evil in books or in men. He sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct, that he seems to write without any moral purpose. From his writings indeed a system of social duty may be selected, for he th thinks reasonably must think morally; but his precepts and axioms drop casually from him; he makes no just distribution of good or evil, nor is always careful to shew in the virtuous a disapprobation of the wicked; he carries his persons indifferently through right and wrong, and at the close dismisses them without further care, anleaves their examples to operate by chance. This fault the barbarity of his age cannot extenuate; for it is always a writer's duty to make the world better, and justice is a virtue independant on time or place.他的第一个缺点是在书中或在人身上的大多数罪恶可能发生的根源他为了方便而牺牲 美德，更用心于取悦他人而疏于教化，他的写作似乎没有任何道德目的。

从他的著作中，倒 是可以筛选出一套社会义务，因为他认为理性的思考必须建立在道德的考量上;但他的训词 和公理只是他的随口一说；他既没有公正地分配善与恶，也不总是谨慎地通过善来表达对恶 的蔑视；他漠然地在是非之间塑造他的人物，并在最后不加关心地将他们消解掉，留他们来 待人解读他的这个缺点不能因他处在那个野蛮时代而掩盖；因为作家总是有责任让这个世 界变得更美好，而且正义是一种不拘于时间或地域的美德3. The plots are often so loosely formed, that a very slight consideration may improve them, and so carelessly pursued, that he seems not always fully to comprehend his own design. He omits opportunities of instructing or delighting which the train of his story seems to force upon him, and apparently rejects those exhibitions which would be more affecting, for the sake of those which are more easy.他作品的情节常常组织地十分松散，以至小费心思就能使它们得到改善，情节开展得也 太过漫不经心，他似乎并不总是充分理解他自己的谋篇布局。

故事的发展为他提供了教化或 取悦读者的机会，他却忽略这些机会虽说这些机会本会让他的描写更为感人，他却显然地 拒绝以此来大显身手，转而关注那些比较容易描写的场面4.It may be observed, that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his work, and, in view of his reward, he shortened the labour, to snatch the profit. He therefore remits his efforts where he should most vigorously exert them, and his catastrophe is improbably produced or imperfectly represented.人们或许可以注意到，他许多剧本的后半部分显然被他忽视了当他发现作品将至尾声 之时，面对近在眼前的报酬，他会为了攫取利润而偷工减料。

他因此在最应该发挥他写作激 情的地方懈怠了，使他的悲剧的收尾不那么真实，或没有得到完美的呈现5.He had no regard to distinction of time or place, but gives to one age or nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions of another, at the expence not only of likelihood, but of possibility. These faults Pope has endeavoured, with more zeal than judgment, to transferto his imagined ininterpolators. We need not wonder to find Hector quoting Aristotle, when we see the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothic mythology of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only violator of chronology, for in the same age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning, has, in his “Arcadia”, confounded the pastoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet and security, with those of turbulence, violence and adventure.他没有考虑时空的差异，毫无顾忌地将一个时代或者国家的风俗习惯，社会体系，意见 主强加到另一个时代或国家上，不仅违反了似然率，也牺牲了可能性。

蒲柏怀以热忱而非明 断的态度，强行设想莎士比亚的作品有篡改者，并将这些缺点推诿给了他们当我们看到忒 修斯和希波吕忒的爱情与哥特仙女神话结合在一起时，我们就不必因为赫克托引用了亚里士 多德的话而感到惊奇实际上，莎士比亚并不是唯一一个违背年代顺序的人，与他同时代的 西德尼，虽说学识深厚，在他的《阿卡迪亚》中，也将田园生活的那些天真，安宁的日子与 动荡，暴力和冒险的封建时代混于一处6.In his comick scenes he is seldom very successful, when he engages his characters in reciprocations of smartness and contest of sarcasm; their jests are commonly gross, and their pleasantry licentious; neither his gentlemen nor his ladies have much delicacy, nor are sufficiently distinguished from his clowns by any appearance of refined manners. Whether he represented the real conversation of his time is not easy to determine; the reign of Elizabeth is commonly supposed to have been a time of stateliness, formality and reserve, yet perhaps the relaxations of that severity were not very elegant. There must, however, have been always some modes of gayety preferable to others, and a writer ought to chuse the best.当莎士比亚让他的角色互耍聪明，展开相互挖苦的竞争时，他的喜剧场面少有很成功的； 这些角色的玩笑往往是粗俗的，他们的幽默往往是淫秽的；他笔下的绅士或淑女都不够优雅， 不足以通过他们的有教养的举止将他们与他笔下的小丑们区分开。

我们很难判断莎士比亚所 展现的是不是他那个时代人们的真实谈话；伊丽莎白时代一般被看作一个庄严，拘谨和矜持 的时代，但是或许将这种严苛放松下来就不太体面了然而，总有一些娱乐方式比其他的更 可取，而作家应当选择其中最适宜的7.In tragedy his performance seems constantly to be worse, as his labour is more. The effusions of passion which exigence forces out are for the most part striking and energetick; but whenever he solicits his invention, or strains his faculties, the offspring of his throes is tumour, meanness, tediousness, and obscurity.在悲剧中，他投入的。