那个可怜的女孩儿在赶路,想到一回到家,她就要给她的孩子们水喝,她自己也要喝一点儿,想到这里,她把水罐扶直了。她继续走着……穿过一场非洲旱灾里那可怖的尘土。?
On goes that poor girl, held upright by thoughts of the water she would give her children once home, and drink a little herself. On she goes... through the dreaded dusts of an African drought.
我们是一帮子疲惫不堪的人,生活在我们的世界上——我们这个遭受威胁的世界。我们动辄就讽刺甚至是冷嘲热讽。有些词语和思想我们几乎没有用过,它们已经变得如此的陈腐过时。然而我们也许可以恢复一些已经失去其力量的词语。?
We are a jaded lot, we in our world—our threatened world. We are good for irony and even cynicism. Some words and ideas we hardly use, so worn out have they become. But we may want to restore some words that have lost their potency.
我们有一座宝库——一座文学的宝库,这座宝库可以追溯到古埃及人、古希腊人、古罗马人。它一直存在着,这一文学的财富,不管是谁幸运之至,接触到了它,就会一次又一次地发现它。一座宝库。假如它不复存在了。我们将会变得多么的贫穷,多么的空虚啊。?
We have a treasure-house—a treasure—of literature, going back to the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans. It is all there, this wealth of literature, to be discovered again and again by whoever is lucky enough to come on it. A treasure. Suppose it did not exist. How impoverished, how empty we would be.
我们拥有一份语言、诗歌和历史的遗产,这份遗产是取之不尽、用之不竭的。它一直在这里,总是在这里。
We own a legacy of languages, poems, histories, and it is not one that will ever be exhausted. It is there, always.
我们有一份故事的遗产,由老一代讲故事的人传下来的故事,这些讲故事的人的名字,有的我们知道,有的我们不知道。这些讲故事的人可以往过去走啊,走啊,一直走回到森林里的一片空地,空地上点燃着熊熊大火,萨满教(注:萨满文化是个世界性的文化现象,其流行区域集中在亚洲北部和中部,乃至欧洲北部、北美、南美和非洲,这是广义的萨满教。狭义的萨满教为阿尔泰语系如维吾尔、哈萨克、塔塔尔、蒙古、锡伯等民族所信仰,其信仰主要是万物有灵论、祖先崇拜和自然崇拜。萨满教的基本特点是没有始祖、没有教义、崇拜多种神灵,没有组织、没有固定的庙宇教堂、没有专门的神职人员,主要活动是跳神,还有一个显著特点是教徒多为女性。)的老巫师们在跳舞,唱歌,因为我们的故事的遗产是在篝火、魔法、灵异的世界里开始的。如今,这一遗产还在那里保留着。?
We have a bequest of stories, tales from the old storytellers, some of whose names we know, but some not. The storytellers go back and back, to a clearing in the forest where a great fire burns, and the old shamans dance and sing, for our heritage of stories began in fire, magic, the spirit world. And that is where it is held, today.
问一问当今的讲故事的人,他们都会说,总是有那么一刻,他们见了火会被触动,我们现在喜欢把这火叫做灵感。这一点可以往回走啊,走啊,一直走回到我们的种族、火、冰的源头,走回到那大风的源头,正是这些使我们和我们的世界长大成人。?
?Ask any modern storyteller, and they will say there is always a moment when they are touched with fire, with what we like to call inspiration and this goes back and back to the beginning of our race, fire, ice and the great winds that shaped us and our world.
这个讲故事的人在我们每一个人的心灵深处。编故事的人总是和我们在一起。让我们假设我们的世界受到了战争的攻击,受到了恐怖活动的攻击,这些我们大家都容易想象得到。让我们假设洪水淹没了我们的城市,海平面上升……然而这个讲故事的人将会在那里,因为使我们得以成长、生存并创造了我们的,是我们的想象力,不管对我们是好还是坏。当我们遭到蹂躏,受到伤害,甚至遭到毁灭的时候,使我们得以重生的,正是我们的故事和这讲故事的人。我们火中的凤凰是这讲故事的人,编织梦想的人,和创造神话的人,在我们处于辉煌的时候,我们最具有创造力的时候。?
The storyteller is deep inside everyone of us. The story-maker is always with us. Let us suppose our world is attacked by war, by the horrors that we all of us easily imagine. Let us suppose floods wash through our cities, the seas rise…but the storyteller will be there, for it is our imaginations which shape us, keep us, create us—for good and for ill. It is our stories, the storyteller, that will recreate us, when we are torn, hurt, even destroyed. It is the storyteller, the dream-maker, the myth-maker, that is our phoenix, what we are at our best, when we are our most creative.
那个可怜的姑娘在尘土飞扬的土路上跋涉,梦想着让她的孩子受到教育,我们觉得我们比她强吗?——我们倒是饱食终日,衣食无忧,但是我们在我们吃不完用不完的东西中,感到透不过气来。?
That poor girl trudging through the dust, dreaming of an education for her children, do we think that we are better than she is—we, stuffed full of food, our cupboards full of clothes, stifling in our superfluities?
我认为,正是这位姑娘和那些三天没有吃饭,但在谈论书籍和教育的妇女们,才有可能给我们下定义吧。
I think it is that girl and the women who were talking about books and an education when they had not eaten for three days, that may yet define us.
多丽丝·莱辛(1919年10月22日—?),英国女作家,代表作有《金色笔记》等,被誉为继伍尔芙之后最伟大的女性作家,并几次获得诺贝尔文学奖提名以及多个世界级文学奖项。
在2007年10月11日,瑞典皇家科学院诺贝尔奖委员会宣布将2007年度诺贝尔文学奖授予这位英国女作家。她是迄今为止获奖时最年长的女性诺贝尔获奖者。莱辛表示,这已经是文学界的最高荣誉,没有办法不去关注它。