第三届翻译大赛初赛试题

江西省第三届翻译大赛初赛试题及参考译文

一、将下列短文译成汉语（50分）:

Acceptance Speech

William Faulkner

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work—a life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnace from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whose is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it, forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed—love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands(腺).

Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. (422 words)

我感到这份奖不是授予我个人而是授予我的工作的，是对我毕生呕心沥血所从事的讴歌人类的精神的辛勤劳动的褒奖。我从事这项工作不是为名，更不是图利，而是为了从人类的精神世界中发掘出一些前所未有的东西。因此，这份奖只不过是托我保管而已。为这份奖的奖金部分找到与该奖原来的目的和意义相称的用途并不难，但我还想为该奖找到荣誉的承受者。我愿利用这个时刻，利用站在讲坛上受到举世瞩目的时刻，向那些已献身于同一艰苦劳动、正在听我说话的男女青年致意。他们中肯定有人有一天会站到我现在站着的地方。

我们今天的悲剧是人们普遍存在一种生理（实质）上的恐惧。这种恐惧由来已久，如今我们已经习以为常了。现在人们不再谈论精神问题了。他们唯一关心的问题是：我何时会被攻击得体无完肤？正因为如此，当代文学青年已经忘记了人类内心的冲突。然而，只有接触到这种内心冲突，才能产生出优秀作品，因为这是唯一值得写、值得为之呕心沥血的。

文学青年必须重新认识这些问题, 必须告诫自己世界上最没有出息的就是恐惧。与此同时, 要永远忘掉恐惧。在他们的创作中（工作室里）只能容许古老的真理和真实的感情的存在。创作要有真实情感, 包括爱情、荣誉感、同情心、自尊心、怜悯和牺牲精神, 这是一个普遍的真理。作品缺了这些, 就注定是昙花一现。作家若是做不到这一点, 他的一切努力都是费力不讨好。他写的不是高雅的爱情而是低级的情欲; 他描写的失败里没有人失去可贵的东西; 他笔下的胜利是毫无希望的胜利, 最糟糕的是缺乏同情和怜悯。他展示的悲伤不能让人刻骨铭心, 因为他的描写只是皮毛, 没有触及灵魂。

在他重新弄明白这些道理之前, 他的写作犹如身临其境地观察着世界末日的到来。我本人不接受世界末日的说法。说人类有很强的忍耐力而将永恒, 这是很容易的事。我相信人类不只是能够传宗接代: 他还能战胜一切。人类永恒不是因为在所有的动物中只有人才能言语, 而是因为他具有灵魂, 有同情心, 有牺牲精神和忍耐力。（最后一段有删节）