"亚历山大" 与 "戴奥真尼斯"

Lyingonthebareearth,shoeless,bearded,half-nak...







Lying on the bare earth, shoeless, bearded, half-naked, he looked like a beggar or a lunatic. He was one, but not the other. He had opened his eyes with the sun at dawn, 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. Having no work to go to and no family to provide for, he was free. As the market place filled up with shoppers and merchants and gossipers and sharpers 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. They were not sure whether he was mad or not. He knew they were mad, all mad, each in a different way; they amused him. Now he was back at his home.

躺在光秃秃的地上、赤着脚、留着大胡子、衣不蔽体，他看上去就像乞丐或疯子。他是个乞丐，但并不疯。太阳刚一升起，他就睁开了睡眼，挠了挠痒痒，去路边像狗一样大小便，然后在公共喷泉处洗了洗，向别人讨了一块面包和几个橄榄，蹲在地上大嚼，又从喷泉捧了几口水一并喝下。他没有班要上，没有家庭要养，完全是个自由的人。当市场上挤满了买东西的、卖东西的、闲聊的、骗钱的、奴隶和外国人的时候，他已经在那里溜达了一两个小时了。大家都认识或听说过他。他们时常问他刁钻的问题，便也得到更刁钻的回答。有时他们会讥笑他，得到的也是嘲弄；有时他们给他点儿吃的，他倒也略表感谢；有时他们戏虐地投他一石子儿，回敬他们的便是一阵石块和大骂。人们搞不清他是不是疯了。他知道他们疯了，全疯了，只是每个人疯的不一样而已；他们让他感到好笑。现在呢，他回到了自己的家中。

It was not a house, not even a squatter’s hut. He thought everybody lived fat too elaborately, expensively. What good is a house? No one needs privacy: natural acts are not shameful; we all do the same things, and need not hide them. 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. He was the founder of the creed 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.

这哪里算个家啊，连盲流的棚屋都不如。他觉得人们住的都太过奢华。房子有何用？人无需隐私：自然而然的行为并不耻辱，大家谁还不知道谁怎么回事啊，无需遮遮掩掩。人无需床、椅子等诸如此类的家具：动物睡在地上，生活得很健康啊。我们所需要的就是一件保暖的衣服和一个能遮风挡雨的栖身之处，因为大自然没有让我们长出动物的皮毛。所以，他有一张毯子，白天披，晚上盖，他在一个酒桶里睡觉。他叫戴奥真尼斯，是犬儒主义哲学流派的创始人。他一生在希腊富庶、慵懒、贪腐的科林斯城生活了很长时间，对那里的人们连嘲弄带挖苦，偶尔也能转化一个。

Diogenes was not a degenerate or a maniac. He was a philosopher who wrote plays and poems and essays expounding 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. The rich man believes he possesses his big house with its many rooms and its elaborate fuiniture, his pictures and his expensive clothes, his horses and his servants and his bank accounts. He does not! He depends on them, he worries about them, he spends most of his life’s energy looking after them; the thought of losing them makes him sick with anxiety. They possess him. He is theit slave. In order to procure a quantity of false, perishable goods he has sold the only true, lasting good, his own independence.

戴奥真尼斯并不颓废，也不疯狂。他是一位哲学家。他写剧本、诗歌和文章来阐述自己的学说。如有人真心愿意倾听，他便与他们攀谈。他有自己的门生，深受他们爱戴。不过，他主要是以行动做出表率。他说，人们都应该活得自然而然，因为自然的事物是正常的，不可能是罪恶或耻辱的。生活，就要抛弃世俗，因为世俗的东西是造作且虚假的，要避免繁文缛节和铺张奢华。只有这样，才过上自由的生活。富人觉得自己拥有豪宅、高档家具、名画、昂贵服装、马匹、仆人和银行帐户。其实不然！他依赖这些东西，担心失去它们，把一生的大部分精力都用来看护它们，一想到失去它们就会令他焦虑不安。它们拥有着他，他是财富的奴隶。为了获得虚幻易逝的财富，他出卖了自己唯一真正永远的利益--自由。

Diogenes 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.”

戴奥真尼斯认为，大部分人都是半活半死，大多数男人都是半个男人。阳光灿烂的大中午，他徜徉在市场上，拿着一盏点燃的灯，仔细地审视所遇到的每一个人的脸。他们问他这是干什么，戴奥真尼斯答道：“我想找到一个真正的人。”

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.”

一位绅士正由其仆人替其穿鞋，戴奥真尼斯对这位绅士说：“等他为你擦鼻涕的时候，你才是真正地幸福：等这吧，等你的双手不能动弹了，这种幸福就到来啦。”

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.

他就这么个活法---有人说他活得像条狗一样，因为他不顾隐私和习俗，也因为他对自己不喜欢的人会露出牙齿并大声呵斥。此刻，他正躺在地上像狗一样暖洋洋地晒着太阳，比帝王还幸福（他自己常常这么吹嘘）。虽然他知道有一个大人物要来看他，但他还是依旧躺在那里。



The little square began to fill with people. They were the attendants of the conqueror of Greece, the servants of Alexander, the Macedonian King, who was visiting his newly subdued realm.

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. 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.”

小小的广场上开始聚满了人群。希腊的征服者、马其顿国王亚历山大正来巡视这块刚刚被征服的领土，随从和仆人伴其左右。

亚历山大英俊潇洒目光如炬，身体彪悍活力四射。他身披紫金战袍，一副主宰者的气派。人群分立两旁，他大步向犬儒所住的“狗窝”走了过去。亚历山大先开口，亲切地问候他。他看着那只简陋的破酒桶、那件褴褛的单衣和躺在地上的这个粗人，说道：“戴奥真尼斯，我能为你做点什么吗？”

“好吧，”犬儒说道，“那就靠边儿站一站，别挡着我晒太阳。”

There was silence, not the ominous silence preceeding a burst of fury, but a hush of amazement. 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. Alexander was still silent. To those nearest him he said quietly, “If I were not Alexander, I should be Diogenes.”

此言一出，人群一片哑然，这并非暴怒前的不详之兆，而是被惊得哑口无言。慢慢地，亚历山大转身离去。体面优雅的希腊民众中传出一阵窃笑，他们开始逗弄这条瞧着亚历山大大帝的“疯狗”。军事将领们想用脚踹他，但又觉得不值一踢，便开始彼此推搡着哄笑起来。亚历山大依然沉默着。他对离自己最近的人轻声说道：“如果我不是亚历山大，我应该是戴奥真尼斯。”  (完）

译者的话：

作为哲学家亚里士多德的学生，亚历山大大帝最能理解戴奥真尼斯的犬儒主义哲学。一个是主宰国家命运的帝王，一个是街头乞丐，但只有他俩体会到自由的含义。

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