四个四重奏:第38期 小吉丁(8)
Thus, love of a country
这样，对一个地方的爱恋
Begins as attachment to our own field of action
始于我们对自己的活动场所的依附
And comes to find that action of little importance
终于发现这种活动没多大意义
Though never indifferent. History may be servitude,
虽然决不是冷漠。历史也许是奴役，
History may be freedom.
历史也许是自由。
See, now they vanish, the faces and places, with the self which, as it could, loved them,
瞧，那一张张脸一处处地方随着那尽其是能爱过它们的自我一起，现在它们都消失了，
To become renewed, transfigured, in another pattern.
而在另一种模式下更新，变化。
Sin is Behovely, but all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
罪是不可避免的，但是一切终将安然无恙，而且时间万物也终将安然无恙。
If I think, again, of this place,
如果我又一次想起这个地方，
And of people, not wholly commendable,
又一次想起那些人，他们并非全都值得称道，
Of no immediate kin or kindness,
既非直系亲属也非性情和善之辈，
But some of peculiar genius,
却是一些具有特殊才能的人，
All touched by a common genius,
他们都受了一种共同的思潮的感召，
United in the strife which divided them;
而联合在把他们分裂为营垒的斗争中；
If I think of a king at nightfall,
如果我在黄昏时分想起一位国王，
Of three men, and more, on the scaffold
想起三个和更多的人被处决在绞刑架上
And a few who died forgotten in other places, here and abroad,
还有一些死后默默无闻的人在其他地方，在这里和国外，
And of one who died blind and quiet
我也想起一个双目失明悄然死去的人，