Unit4 牛津
There are certain things in the world that are so praiseworthy that it seems a needless, indeed an almost laughable thing to praise them; such things are love and friendship, food and sleep, spring and summer; such things, too, are the wisest books, the greatest pictures, the noblest cities. But for all that I mean to try and make a little hymn in prose in honour of Oxford, a city I have seen but seldom, and which yet appears to me one of the most beautiful things in the world.
此世间确有诸多凡物，它们本身便是值得人们去品味和赞誉的，譬如说爱情和友谊、美食和睡梦、春色和夏日，还有如那些注满了智慧的书卷、注满了心血的画作和注满了圣意的城邦 。也许对于这些凡物而言，再多的赞誉已无非是陈词滥调，荒唐可笑的，但我之所以还是想要对上述这些事物品味、赞誉一番，都是为了向牛津城表示我的敬意。牛津城对我来说，就是这世间极其罕见，又最为美丽的地方之一。
I do not wish to single out particular buildings, but to praise the whole effect of the place, such as it seemed to me on a day of bright sun and cool air, when I wandered hour after hour among the streets, bewildered and almost intoxicated with beauty, feeling as a poor man might who has pinched all his life, and made the most of single coins, and who is brought into the presence of a heap of piled-up gold, and told that it is all his own.
我并不想单独从牛津城里遴选出一些建筑来赞誉；我想要赞誉的是这块土地上所映射出的一种整体效果。这种效果在我看来，就好比是在一个阳光明媚、天气清爽的日子里，一连花上几个小时，徜徉在牛津城的街道上，痴迷、甚至是沉醉于这番美景之中。这感觉就犹如是把一位穷得一辈子衣衫褴褛、靠一角一分过日子的人带到一堆金矿旁，然后告诉他，这些财富都已归他所有。
I have seen it said in foolish books that it is a misfortune to Oxford that so many of the buildings have been built out of so perishable a vein of stone. It is indeed a misfortune in one respect, that it tempts men of dull and precise minds to restore and replace buildings of incomparable grace, because their outline is so exquisitely blurred by time and decay. I remember myself, as a child, visiting Oxford, and thinking that some of the buildings were almost shamefully ruinous of aspect; now that I am wiser I know that we have in these battered and fretted palace-fronts a kind of beauty that fills the mind with almost despairing sense of loveliness, till the heart aches with gratitude, and thrills with the desire to proclaim the glory of the sight aloud.
我曾在一些荒谬、无理的书里读到说，牛津城里如此之多的建筑都用易被腐蚀、布满裂纹的砖石砌成，这简直就是一场灾难。从某种角度来说，这倒确实是一场灾难，因为随着时间的流逝，用这种砖石砌成的建筑会渐渐破败，建筑的轮廓会很明显地变得七零八落，这便会惹得那些脑袋不灵活的笨家伙们想着整修或重建这些与牛津城魅力格格不入的“破玩意儿”。记得在我儿时游访牛津城时，我也曾这么想——这些建筑如此破旧不堪，几乎都是见不得人了；可现在，随着我年数和阅历的增益，我才知道在那些破旧不堪、磨坏受损的殿堂式房子里，蕴藏着一种别样的魅力。这种魅力乍看上去真是令人几近绝望，直到人们对这壮观之景开始心生感激时，才会猛地萌发出一种要高声赞誉这股魅力的念头。
These black-fronted blistered facades, so threatening, so sombre, yet screening so bright and clear a current of life; with the tender green of budding spring trees, chestnuts full of silvery spires, glossy-leaved creepers clinging, with tiny hands, to cornice and parapet, give surely the sharpest and most delicate sense that it is possible to conceive of the contrast on which the essence of so much beauty depends. To pass through one of these dark and smoke-stained courts,
1 / 5
with every line mellowed and harmonised, as if it had grown up so out of the earth; to find oneself in a sunny pleasaunce, carpeted with velvet turf, and set thick with flowers, makes the spirit sigh with delight.
牛津大学城里这些满目苍夷、发黑起泡的建筑，乍看上去是如此地阴沉、昏暗，其实也映射出着一番光鲜、清新的生命力——树木在春天冒出了绿叶嫩枝，栗子树上窜满了毛茸茸的幼叶，叶面光亮的爬山虎将它无数细小的藤蔓吸在了建筑的檐口和挡墙上。这便无疑给了人们一种极为强烈又相当细腻的生命感，让人构想出一副融此美景于一体、反差鲜明的画面。随意穿过校园里的那些阴暗、黝黑的院子，院子的墙角线既沉稳又润和，就仿佛是从地下窜出来似的；再找个阳光明媚的日子，到那铺满绒草、缀满繁花的庭子里去，人的一呼一吸之间都能透射出内心中的愉悦之情。那些高大的门柱可是这世上其他地方看不到的，门柱的顶部嵌有一块纹章，细长的爬山虎藤蔓舒展地缠在门柱间的铁格栅上，真是惹人喜爱。
Nowhere in the world can one see such a thing as those great gate-piers, with a cognisance a-top, with a grille of iron-work between them, all sweetly entwined with some slim vagrant creeper, that give a glimpse and a hint—no more—of a fairy-land of shelter and fountains within. I have seen such palaces stand in quiet and stately parks, as old, as majestic, as finely proportioned as the buildings of Oxford; but the very blackness of the city air, and the drifting smoke of the town, gives that added touch of grimness and mystery that the country airs cannot communicate. 透过那些铁格栅，便可略微瞥见——仅仅是可以略微瞥见——那里面如仙境般的屋舍和喷泉。这样的建筑，我倒是在一些庄重而寂静的庭院里看到过，那些建筑也是破旧不堪，但却相当高贵，和牛津大学城里的这些建筑就好像是一个模子里刻出来似的。但是，这儿校园里昏昏沉沉的气息，和镇上一屡一屡的炊烟，给这里增添了一股乡村庭院里找不到的敬畏感和神秘感。
And even fairer sights are contained within; those panelled, dark-roofed halls, with their array of portraits gravely and intently regarding the strangers; the chapels, with their splendid classical screens and stalls, rich and dim with ancient glass. The towers, domes, and steeples; and all set not in a mere paradise of lawns and glades, but in the very heart of a city, itself full of quaint and ancient houses, but busy with all the activity of a brisk and prosperous town; thereby again giving the strong and satisfying sense of contrast, the sense of eager and every-day cares and pleasures, side by side with these secluded havens of peace, the courts and cloister, where men may yet live a life of gentle thought and quiet contemplation, untroubled, nay, even stimulated, by the presence of a bustling life so near at hand, which yet may not intrude upon the older dream. 而牛津大学城里其实还蕴藏着更为悦目的景象——那些黑顶的豪华大厅里整齐地陈放着大量人像画，那画里的人似乎正认真又专心地打量着来客；小教堂的围屏和长凳精致而古雅，五彩的玻璃使里面看上去既昏暗又华丽。还有那塔楼、穹顶和教堂尖顶等，好像都不仅仅是矗立在这校园里天堂般的草坪和林地上，也矗立在整座牛津城的中心。牛津城里也全是些别致又古老的房屋，但忙忙碌碌的城里人，使这里多了一份生机勃勃、繁荣兴旺的景象，又给人们留下了一副强烈却美好的反差印象。那四处静谧的港湾、天井和修道院，可使来客热切地感受到人们日常生活中的忧虑和愉悦。在这儿过日子的居民，不受世俗的侵扰，他们常常会想着什么东西，静静地沉思，又亦或是受到那咫尺间喧嚣与繁华的启发，可那喧嚣和繁华却不会侵扰他们重温旧梦。
I do not know whether my taste is entirely trustworthy, but I confess that I find the Italianate and classical buildings of Oxford finer than the Gothic buildings. The Gothic buildings are quainter, perhaps, about the classical picturesque, but there is an air of solemn pomp and sober dignity about the classical buildings that harmonises better with the sense of wealth and grave security
2 / 5
that is so characteristic of the place.
我不知道自己的鉴赏能力是不是完全地可靠，但坦白地说，我觉得牛津城里意大利风格和古典风格的建筑要比哥特式风格的建筑好看。哥特式建筑的样子看上去更古雅，或许还更别致，可是古典风格的建筑散发着一番庄重又壮丽的气质，这种气质与这片土地上特有的华贵和沉稳更好地融为了一体。
The Gothic buildings seem a survival, and have thus a more romantic interest, a more poetical kind of association. But the classical porticos and facades seem to possess a nobler dignity, and to provide a more appropriate setting for modern Oxford; because the spirit of Oxford is more the spirit of the Renaissance than the spirit of the Schoolmen; and personally I prefer that ecclesiasticism should be more of a flavour than a temper; Schoolmen I mean that though I rejoice to think that sober ecclesiastical influences contribute a serious grace to the life of Oxford, yet I am glad to feel that the spirit of the place is liberal rather than ecclesiastical.
哥特式建筑已所剩无几，故而透着一股更为传奇和诗意的色彩，而古典风格建筑的门廊和外立面却看似更为堂皇，为现代牛津创造了一副更为贴切的布景——因为相较于腐朽、封建的经院教条风气，现代的牛津精神更贴近于强调个人、精巧新奇的文艺复兴精神，而且即使是有教条主义，我也希望其对于牛津精神更多地是一种补充，而不是一种支配。我的意思是，尽管经院风气那源于基督教会的神圣影响力能给牛津带来上帝的恩典——这让我感到高兴，但我更乐意去感受牛津精神变得自由又开明，而不是严格恪守于教会。
Such traces as one sees in the chapels of the Oxford Movement, in the shape of paltry stained glass, starred reredoses, modern Gothic woodwork, would be purely deplorable from the artistic point of view, if they did not possess a historical interest. They speak of interrupted development, an attempt to put back the shadow on the dial, to return to a narrower and more rigid tone, to put old wine into new bottles, which betrays a want of confidence in the expansive power of God. I hate with a deep-seated hatred all such attempts to bind and confine the rising tide of thought. I want to see religion vital and not formal, elastic and not cramped by precedent and tradition. And thus I love to see worship enshrined in noble classical buildings, which seem to me to speak of a desire to infuse the intellectual spirit of Greece, the dignified imperialism of Rome into the more timid and secluded ecclesiastical life, making it fuller, larger, more free, more deliberate.
牛津精神的这种发展特点，正是人们可以从十九世纪牛津运动时代留下的小教堂中，那小型的花窗玻璃、星星点点的供坛背壁和现代哥特式木工中体会得出的。如果这些玻璃、背壁和木工背后没有丁点文化历史可寻，单单是要从美术角度去品鉴，那可就是糟糕透顶的了——它们所渗透的正是一种断断续续的历史发展过程，这就好比是尝试将拨号转盘倒着转回去，或回归到前人一本正经的说话腔调，不过是使陈酒换上新瓶。这背叛了人类在上帝广泛支配下应当谦卑、恭顺的教会道义，可我压心底里痛恨一切限制与制约新兴思想萌发的企图，我所想要看见的宗教是那种富有生机而不拘泥、擅于变通而不受惯例和传统阻碍的宗教，所以，我希望看到宗教信仰仅仅是被放在那些堂皇的古典风格建筑中供人祀奉。这在我看来，才表达了一种要在那较收敛和隐蔽的经院风气中注入古希腊智慧文明和古罗马高贵势力的愿望，以使那经院风气更完整、更宏大、更自由、也更谨慎。
But even apart from the buildings, which are after all but the body of the place, the soul of Oxford, its inner spirit, is what lends it its satisfying charm. On the one hand, it gives the sense of the dignity of the intellect; one reflects that here can be lived lives of stately simplicity, of high enthusiasm, apart from personal wealth, and yet surrounded by enough of seemly dignity to give life the charm of grave order and quiet solemnity. Here are opportunities for peaceful and congenial work, to the sound of mellodious bells; uninterrupted hours, as much society of a
3 / 5
高级英语1-Unit4-Oxford翻译
