_戴奥真尼斯和亚历山大
Diogenes and Alexander 戴奥吉尼斯和亚历山大
The Dog Has His Day
Gilbert Highet
This article by the late classicist Gilbert Highet describes a meeting between two sharply contrasting personalities of history: Alexander the Great and Diogenes. This selection originally appeared in Horizon, the first in a series entitled Great Confrontations.
此文是由晚期著名的古典学者Gilbert Highet 所写,描述了历史上两位性格极端伟大人物的会面场面:亚历山大国王和戴奥吉尼斯。本文选择来自 Horizon,一篇名叫“伟大的会面”的开始部分。
Lying on the bare earth, shoeless, bearded, half-naked, he looked like a beggar or a lunatic(神经病,疯子). He was one, but not the other. He had opened his eyes with the sun at dawn (拂晓), scratched, done his business like a dog at the roadside, washed at the public fountain, begged a piece of breakfast bread and a few olives, eaten them squatting on the ground, and washed them down with a few handfuls of water scooped from the spring. (Long ago he had owned a rough wooden cup, but he threw it away when he saw a boy drinking out of his hollowed hands.) Having no work to go to and no family to provide for, he was free. 他躺在光溜溜的地上,赤着脚,胡子拉茬的,半裸着身子,模样活像个乞丐或疯子。他是乞丐,而不是疯子。大清早,他随着初升的太阳睁开双眼,搔了搔痒,便像狗一样在路边忙开了他的公事”。他在公共喷泉边抹了把脸,向路人讨了一块面包和几颗橄榄,然后蹲在地上大嚼起来,又掬起几捧泉水送入肚中。他不需要去工作,也不需要养家,是一个逍遥自在的人。As the market place filled up with shoppers and merchants and gossipers and sharpers (a cheater, esp. a cardsharper) and slaves and foreigners, he had strolled through it for an hour or two. Everybody knew him, or knew of him. They would throw sharp questions at him and get sharper answers. Sometimes they threw jeers, and got jibes; sometimes bits of food, and got scant thanks; sometimes a mischievous pebble, and got a shower of stones and abuse(漫骂). They were not quite sure whether he was mad or not. He knew they were mad, all mad, each in a different way; they amused him. 街市上熙熙攘攘,到处是顾客、商人、奴隶、异邦人,这时他也会在其中转悠一二个钟头。人人都认识他,或者都听说过他。他们会问他一些尖刻的问题,而他也更尖刻地回答。有时他们丢给他一些食物,得到很少的感谢;有时他们恶作剧地扔给他卵石子,他破口大骂,毫不客气地回敬一阵石头雨。他们拿不准他是不是疯了。他却认定他们疯了,只是他们的疯各有各的不同;他们令他感到好笑。
Now he was back at his home. It was not a house, not even a squatter's hut. He thought everybody lived far too elaborately, expensively, anxiously. What good is a house? No one needs privacy: natural acts are not shameful; we all do the same thing, and need not hide them. 此刻他正走回家去。他没有房子,甚至连一个茅庐都没有。他认为人们为生活煞费苦心,过于精致奢华。房子有什么用处?人不需要隐私;自然的行为并不可耻;我们做着同样的事情,没什
么必要把它们隐藏起来。No one needs beds and chairs and such furniture: the animals live healthy lives and sleep on the ground. All we require, since nature did not dress us properly, is one garment to keep us warm, and some shelter from rain and wind. So he had one blanket—to dress him in the daytime and cover him at night—and he slept in a cask. His name was Diogenes. 人实在不需要床榻和椅子等诸如此类的家具,动物睡在地上也活得很健康。既然大自然没有给我们穿上适当的东西。那我们惟一需要的是一件御寒的衣服,某种躲避风雨的遮蔽。所以他拥有一张毯子——白天披在身,晚上盖在身上——他睡在一个桶里,他的名字叫狄奥真尼斯。He was the founder of the creed called Cynicism (the word means "doggishness"); he spent much of his life in the rich, lazy, corrupt Greek city of Corinth, mocking and satirizing its people, and occasionally converting one of them.人们称他为“狗”,把他的哲学叫做“犬儒哲学”。他一生大部分时光都在希腊的克林斯城邦度过,那是一个富裕、懒散、腐败的城市,他挖苦嘲讽那里的人们,偶尔也会让他们当中的某个人转而追随他。
His home was not a barrel made of wood: too expensive. It was a storage jar made of earthenware, something like a modern fuel tank—no doubt discarded because a break had made it useless. He was not the first to inhabit such a thing: the refugees driven into Athens by the Spartan invasion had been forced to sleep in casks. But he was the first who ever did so by choice, out of principle.他的住所不是木材做成的,那太贵了。他的桶是泥土做的贮物桶,有点像现在的油桶。这是一个破桶,显然是人们弃之不用的。住这样的地方他并不是第一个,那些因为斯巴达侵略而逃到雅典的人就被迫谁在桶里。但他确实是第一个自愿这么做的人,这出乎众人的想法。
Diogenes was not a degenerate or a maniac(疯子). He was a philosopher who wrote plays and poems and essays expounding(解释) his doctrine; he talked to those who cared to listen; he had pupils who admired him. But he taught chiefly by example. All should live naturally, he said, for what is natural is normal and cannot possibly be evil or shameful. Live without conventions, which are artificial and false; escape complexities and superfluities and extravagances: only so can you live a free life. 狄奥根尼不是疯子,他是一个哲学家,通过戏剧、诗歌和散文的创作来阐述他的学说;他向那些愿意倾听的人传道;他拥有一批崇拜他的门徒。他言传身教地进行简单明了的教学。他说,所有的人都应当自然地生活,所谓自然的就是正常的而不可能是罪恶的或可耻的。抛开那些造作虚伪的习俗;摆脱那些繁文缛节和奢侈享受:只有这样,你才能过自由的生活。The rich man believes he possesses his big house with its many rooms and its elaborate furniture, his pictures and expensive clothes, his horses and his servants and his bank accounts. He does not. He is their slave. In order to procure a quantity of false, perishable goods he has sold the only true, lasting good, his own independence. 富有的人认为他占有着宽敞的房子、精致的家具,名画和华贵的衣服,还有马匹、仆人和银行存款。其实并非如此,他是它们的奴隶。为了攫取这些虚假浮华的东西,他出卖了自己的独立性,这惟一直实长久的东西。
There have been many men who grew tired of human society with its complications, and went away to live simply—on a small farm, in a quiet village, in a hermit's cave, or in the darkness of
anonymity. Not so Diogenes. He was not a recluse(归隐者) or a stylite(修行者), or a beatnik有好些人厌倦了人世的纷繁复杂,跑到一个小农场,一个安静的村庄,一个隐士的洞穴里,在隐姓埋名的默默无闻中,过着简单的生活。狄奥根尼不这样做。他不是一个归隐者或修行者,也不是一个反传统的人。He was a missionary. His life's aim was clear to him: it was "to restamp the currency." (He and his father had once been convicted for counterfeiting, long before he turned to philosophy, and this phrase was Diogenes' bold, unembarrassed joke on the subject.) To restamp the currency: to take the clean metal of human life, to erase the old false conventional markings, and to imprint it with its true values.他是一个传教士。他明确自己的生活目标,那就是“重铸货币”②:(他和他的父亲从前曾一度因制造伪币而被判有罪,那是远在他钻研哲学之前;狄奥真尼斯用这个用语来开这件事的玩笑,它大胆却又不令人尴尬。)重新铸造货币:就是将人生这块洁净的金属拿来,抹掉上面那些陈旧虚假的传统花纹,再给它印上真实的价值。
The other great philosophers of the fourth century before Christ taught mainly their own private pupils. In the shady groves and cool sanctuaries of the Academy, Plato discoursed to a chosen few on the unreality of this contingent existence. Aristotle, among the books and instruments and specimens and archives and research-workers of his Lyceum, pursued investigations and gave lectures that were rightly named esoteric, "for those within the walls." 在基督教文明兴起之前,其他 四 世纪的 伟大 哲学家大多只教导他们自己私人的学生。在学园隐蔽的树林和阴凉的圣地, 柏拉图向选出的几位学生演说这个意外存在的虚幻。 亚里士多德,通过书籍,仪器 ,标本,档案和他的学园里的研究工作者,进行科学研究 并为"那些墙内的人"做可以被准确称为机密深奥的学术讲座 。But for Diogenes, laboratory and specimens and lecture halls and pupils were all to be found in a crowd of ordinary people. Therefore, he chose to live in Athens or in the rich city of Corinth, where travelers from all over the Mediterranean world constantly came and went. And, by design, he publicly behaved in such ways as to show people what real life was. He would constantly take up their spiritual coin, ring it on a stone, and laugh at its false superscription.但对狄奥根尼来说,实验室和标本,大课堂和学生,这些都存在于芸芸众生中间。因此他决定住在雅典或科林斯,那里来自地中海一带的游客络绎不绝。他故意在大庭广众中这样做,目的是向世人显示什么是真正的生活。他不断地拿起他们的精神硬币,把它扔在石头上,叮当作响,然后嘲笑刻在上面的虚假铸文。
He thought most people were only half-alive, most men only half-men. At bright noonday he walked through the market place carrying a lighted lamp and inspecting the face of everyone he met. They asked him why. Diogenes answered, "I am trying to find a man." 他认为世人大都是半死不活的,大多数人只是个半人。在大中午,他打着一盏点着的灯笼穿过市井街头, 检查和审视着他碰到的每个人的脸。他们问他何故这样,狄奥根尼回答:“我想试试能否找出一个真正的人来。”
To a gentleman whose servant was putting on his shoes for him, Diogenes said, "You won't be really happy until he wipes your nose for you: that will come after you lose the use of your
hands."有一次,见到一个达官贵人正让仆人帮他穿鞋,狄奥根尼对他说:“他为你揩鼻涕的时候,你才会真正感到幸福:不过这要等到你的双手残废以后。”
Once there was a war-scare so serious that it stirred even the lazy, profit-happy Corinthians. They began to drill, clean their weapons, and rebuild their neglected fortifications. Diogenes took his old cask and began to roll it up and down, back and forward. "When you are all so busy," he said, "I felt I ought to do something!"曾经爆发过一场严重的战争,连慵懒、醉生梦死的科林斯人都不禁惊恐万状。他们开始厉兵秣马,重新修建荒废已入的防御工事。狄奥根尼也推着他那破旧的木桶在地上滚来滚去,“看到你们忙得不亦乐乎,”他说,“我想我也该干点什么事情啦!”
And so he lived—like a dog, some said, because he cared nothing for privacy and other human conventions, and because he showed his teeth and barked at those whom he disliked. Now he was lying in the sunlight, as contented as a dog on the warm ground, happier (he himself used to boast) than the Shah of Persia. Although he knew he was going to have an important visitor, he would not move.他就这么活着――有人说,像一只狗, 因为他毫不在乎隐私及其他的人类习俗, 也因为他龇牙咧嘴向着那些他不喜欢的人狂吠。此刻他正躺在阳光下,心满意足,乐也悠悠,比波斯国王还要快活(他常这样自我吹嘘)。他知道他将有贵客来访,但仍然无动于衷。
The little square began to fill with people. Page boys elegantly dressed, spear men speaking a rough foreign dialect, discreet secretaries, hard-browed officers, suave diplomats, they all gradually formed a circle centered on Diogenes. He looked them over as a sober man looks at a crowd of tottering drunks, and shook his head. 狭小的广场开始充满黑压压的人群。有穿着精致的僮仆、说着粗鄙的外地方言的士兵、小心持重的文书、眉目硬朗的军官,还有圆滑世故的外交家,他们逐渐在狄奥根尼的四周围成一个圈子。他抬眼望去,就像一个清醒的人审视一群蹒跚的醉鬼,然后他摇了摇头。He knew who they were. They were the attendants of the conqueror of Greece, the servants of Alexander, the Macedonian king, who was visiting his newly subdued realm.他知道他们是谁。他们是亚历山大的奴仆。这位马其顿国王、希腊的征服者正在视察他新的王国。年仅20岁,
Only twenty, Alexander was far older and wiser than his years. 亚历山大比他的年龄要成熟和睿智得多。
Like all Macedonians he loved drinking, but he could usually handle it; and toward women he was nobly restrained and chivalrous. Like all Macedonians he loved fighting; he was a magnificent commander, but he was not merely a military automaton. He could think. 他像所有的马其顿人一样嗜酒,但他一般能够适可而止;他对待妇女彬彬有礼,又不失骑士风度。像所有的马其顿人,他热衷打仗;他是一个非常出色的指挥官,但并非只是一部军事自动机器。他善于思
考。At thirteen he had become a pupil of the greatest mind in Greece, Aristotle. No exact record of his schooling survives. It is clear, though, that Aristotle took the passionate, half-barbarous boy and gave him the best of Greek culture. 亚历山大13岁就师从希腊最伟大的思想家,亚里士多德。关于他的学习时期并没有明确的记载。但是很明显,亚里士多德教导了这个富有激情,半野蛮的孩子并教给他希腊文化的精华。He taught Alexander poetry; the young prince slept with the Iliad under his pillow and longed to emulate Achilles, who brought the mighty power of Asia to ruin. 亚里士多德教授他诗歌,这个年轻的王子睡觉时,枕头下也压着一本,他渴望效仿阿喀琉斯,毁灭强大的亚洲。He taught him philosophy, in particular the shapes and uses of political power: a few years later Alexander was to create a supranational empire that was not merely a power system but a vehicle for the exchange of Greek and Middle Eastern cultures.他教他哲学,特别是政权的形态和应用;几年过后,亚历山大创建了一个超民族的帝国,这不仅仅是一个权力系统,也是一个沟通希腊和中东文化的桥梁。
Aristotle taught him the principles of scientific research: during his invasion of the Persian domains Alexander took with him a large corps of scientists, and shipped hundreds of zoological specimens back to Greece for study. 亚里士多德还向他传授科学研究的方法。在入侵波斯领域的时候,亚历山大用船带了一大批科学家和几百种动物标本回希腊用于研究。Indeed, it was from Aristotle that Alexander learned to seek out everything strange which might be instructive. Jugglers and stunt artists and virtuosos of the absurd he dismissed with a shrug; but on reaching India he was to spend hours discussing the problems of life and death with naked Hindu mystics, and later to see one demonstrate Yoga self-command by burning himself impassively to death.的确,正是从亚里士多德那里,亚历山大学会了从奇怪的事物中找到富有启发性的东西。6.他对那些变戏法、耍魔术、擅长荒诞演奏的艺人们不屑一顾,将他们遣散发落,但是,到了印度后,他却花了不少时间,同那些赤身露体的印度教徒讨论生与死的问题;后来他还亲眼目睹有人演示瑜珈功的自我控制能力,泰然自若地把自己焚烧致死。
Now, Alexander was in Corinth to take command of the League of Greek States which, after conquering them, his father Philip created as a disguise for the New Macedonian Order. 如今,亚历山大在哥林多统领希腊城邦联盟,这联盟是他父亲菲利普在征服了各城邦后为新创建的新马其顿王国秩序设的幌子。He was welcomed and honored and flattered. He was the man of the hour, of the century; he was unanimously appointed commander-in-chief of a new expedition against old, rich, corrupt Asia.他处处都受到欢迎,被人尊敬奉承着。他是一代英雄。他被一致推举为远征军司令,准备向那古老、富饶而又腐败的亚洲进军。 Nearly everyone crowded to Corinth in order to congratulate him, to seek employment with him, even simply to see him: soldiers and statesmen, artists and merchants, poets and philosophers. He received their compliments graciously. Only Diogenes, although he lived in Corinth, did not visit the new monarch. 几乎人人都涌向科林斯,为的是向他祝贺,希望在他麾下效忠,甚至只是想看看他。他受到士兵和政治家,艺术家和商人,诗人和哲学家热烈的追捧。惟独狄奥根尼,他身居科林斯,却拒不觐见这位新君主。With that generosity which Aristotle had taught him was a quality the truly magnanimous man, Alexander determined to call upon Diogenes. 亚里士多德使
他懂得宽容大度是一个真正胸襟宽阔的人的一种品质,正是怀着这样宽阔的胸襟,亚历山大决心造访狄奥真尼斯。Surely Diogenes, the God-born, would acknowledge the conqueror's power by some gift of hoarded wisdom.With his handsome face, his fiery glance, his strong supple body, his purple and gold cloak, and his air of destiny, he moved through the parting crowd, toward the Dog's kennel. 当然,狄奥真尼斯,这位神之子也会因为这位征服者拥有的天赋和智慧而承认他的力量。亚历山大相貌英俊,眼光炯炯有神,拥有一副强健的身躯,披着带金的紫色斗篷,器宇轩昂,胸有成竹,他穿过向两边分开的人群走向“狗窝”。
When a king approaches, all rise in respect. Diogenes did not rise; he merely sat up on one elbow. When a monarch enters a precinct, all greet him with a bow or an acclamation. Diogenes did nothing.There was a silence.
国王走了过来,所有人都肃然起立。Diogenes 没有起立,他只是用一只手肘撑着坐了起来。君主走到哪儿,那里的人们都会鞠躬敬礼或者欢呼致意。Diogenes什么都没做。人群陷入一阵沉默。
Some years later Alexander speared his best friends to the wall, for objecting to the exaggerated honors paid to His Majesty; but now he was still young and civil. 若干年后,亚历山大的一位好友,因为反对他这位国王陛下获得过分的荣耀,被他用长矛刺死墙端。但是现在的亚历山大还很年轻,还讲究礼貌行事。He spoke first, with a kindly greeting. Looking at the poor broken cask, the single ragged garment, and the rough figure lying on the ground, he said, "Is there anything I can do for you, Diogenes?"
"Yes," said the Dog. "Stand to one side. You're blocking the sunlight."亚历山大先开口致以和蔼的问候。他打量着那可怜的破桶,那件破烂的衣衫,还有躺在地上那个邋遢粗野的形象,他说:“狄奥根尼,我能帮你忙吗?”“能,”“狗”说,“站到一边去,你挡住了阳光。”
There was silence, not the ominous silence preceding a burst of fury, but a hush of amazement. 一阵沉默,不是预示着即将爆发的怒火的沉默,而是惊愕的沉默Slowly, Alexander turned away.
A titter broke out from the elegant Greeks, who were already beginning to make jokes about the Cur that looked at the King. The Macedonian officers, after deciding that Diogenes was not worth the trouble of kicking, were starting to guffaw and nudge one another. 慢慢地,亚历山大转过身。那些穿戴优雅的希腊人发出一阵窃笑,已经开始取笑那个看着国王的无赖。马其顿的官兵们判定狄奥根尼不值一踢之后,也互相用肘轻推着哄笑起来。Alexander was still silent. To those nearest him he said quietly, "If I were not Alexander, I should be Diogenes." 亚历山大仍然沉默不语。最后他对着身边的人平静地说:“如果我不是亚历山大,那我肯定也是戴奥吉尼斯)。They took it as a paradox, designed to close the awkward little scene with a polite curtain line. But Alexander meant it. He understood Cynicism as the others could not. 们把这当作一个悖论,无非是以一句彬彬有礼的收场话来结束这令人尴尬的小闹剧。但亚历山大说的却是真心话,他懂得犬儒主义,而其他人则理解不了。Later he took one of Diogenes' pupils with him to India as a philosophical interpreter (it was he who spoke to the naked saddhus). He was what Diogenes
called himself, a cosmopolites, "citizen of the world."。 之后,他带着狄奥根尼的一个学生一起去印第安翻译哲学(这是他说的裸体圣人)他是狄奥根尼所自称的“世界公民”。Like Diogenes, he admired the heroic figure of Hercules, the mighty conqueror who labors to help mankind while all others toil and sweat only for themselves. 像狄奥根尼一样,他崇拜大力神③的英雄形象,当别人只为自己的利益费尽心机之时,这位英雄却在为人类而摩顶放踵。He knew that of all men then alive in the world only Alexander the conqueror and Diogenes the beggar were truly free.他知道世上活着的人当中只有征服者亚历山大和乞丐狄奥根尼是自由的