美丽新世界Brave New World 第17章(9)（打印版）

　　In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training.

　　在过去，你得做出巨大的努力，经受多年艰苦的道德训练；

　　Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are.

　　现在只需吞下两三个半克的唆麻就行了。

　　Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle.

　　现在谁都可以道德高尚，一个瓶子就可以装下你至少一半的道德，让你带了走。

　　Christianity without tears–that's what soma is.

　　没有眼泪的基督教——唆麻就是这种东西。

　　But the tears are necessary. Don't you remember what Othello said?

　　但是眼泪是需要的。你还记得〈奥塞罗〉的话吧？

　　If after every tempest came such calms, may the winds blow till they have wakened death.

　　要是每一次暴风雨之后都有这样和煦的阳光，就让狂风恣意地吹，把死亡都吹醒了吧。

　　There's a story one of the old Indians used to tell us, about the Girl of Mátaski.

　　有一个印第安老人常告诉我们一个故事。是关于玛塔斯吉的姑娘的。

　　The young men who wanted to marry her had to do a morning's hoeing in her garden.

　　小伙子要想跟她结婚必须到她园子里去锄一上午地。

　　It seemed easy; but there were flies and mosquitoes, magic ones.

　　锄地好像很容易，但是那儿有许多许多有魔法的蚊子和苍蝇。

　　Most of the young men simply couldn't stand the biting and stinging. But the one that could–he got the girl.

　　大部分小伙子都受不了叮咬，可受得住叮咬的却得到了那姑娘。

　　"Charming! But in civilized countries," said the Controller,

　　“这故事很好听！但是在文明的国家里，”总统说，

　　you can have girls without hoeing for them, and there aren't any flies or mosquitoes to sting you. We got rid of them all centuries ago.

　　你可以用不着替姑娘种地就得到她。也没有苍蝇蚊子叮咬。我们好多个世纪以前就消灭了蚊蝇了。

　　The Savage nodded, frowning. You got rid of them. Yes, that's just like you.

　　野蛮人皱起双眉点了点头。你们把苍蝇蚊子消灭了，

　　Getting rid of everytfung unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it.

　　把一切不愉快的东西消灭了，而不是学会忍受它们。

　　Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

　　默然忍受命运的暴虐的毒箭，

　　or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them … But you don't do either.

　　或是面对着苦海，拿起刀子做个一了百了。

　　Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It's too easy.

　　既不‘默然忍受’，也不‘一了百了’。只是把毒箭取消，那太容易了。

　　He was suddenly silent, thinking of his mother.

　　他突然沉默了，想起了他的母亲。