Shakespeare 【译】屠岸
If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, laboring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done;
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whe'r better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O, sure I am the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.
假如除原有的事物以外,世界上
没新的东西,那么,我们的脑袋,
苦着想创造,就等于教自己上当,
白白去孕育已经出世的婴孩!
呵,但愿历史能回头看已往
(它甚至能追溯太阳的五百次运行),
为我在古书中显示出你的形象,
既然思想从来是文字所表明。
这样我就能明了古人会怎样
述说你形体的结构是一种奇观;
明了究竟是今人好,还是古人强,
究竟事物变不变,是不是循环。
呵!我断言,古代的天才只是
给次等人物赠送了美言和赞辞。
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