新世纪大学英语 第三册 原文 每段翻译 U4

UNIT 4：How to grow old
|如何变老|

Bertrand Russell
In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off. A great grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants. My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow, devoted herself to women's higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to relate how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She inquired the cause of his melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren. "Good gracious", she exclaimed, "I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a dismal existence!" "Madre snaturale," he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable brevity of your future."

1 尽管文章的标题是“如何变老”，真正要谈的却是如何不老。在我这个年纪，讨论“如何不老”，着实更为重要。首要的一条忠告是，要慎重地选择祖先。虽然我的父母皆属早 逝，但是考虑到我其他的祖先，我的选择尚好。我的外祖父在六十七岁风华正茂时早逝，这是事实，可我的外祖母，还有我的祖父、祖母，都活到了八十多岁。在那些与我血缘关系稍疏些的祖先中，我只发现有一位不长寿的，他死于一种当前罕见的病：被砍了头。我的一位曾祖母是吉本的朋友，活到九十二岁，其精神状态之好自始至终都让子孙们敬畏，一直到她撒手人寰的那天。我的外祖母，生养了十个孩子， 其中一个夭折，另外九个健康成长。此外，她还有过多次小产。她守寡

之后，即刻投身于妇女的高等教育事业。她是格顿学院的创始人之一，为促使医疗事业向妇女敞开大门而不遗余力。她过去常讲这样的一个故事：她在意大利遇见一个满面哀伤的老绅士，便询问他为何如此忧伤，老绅士说刚刚和自己两个孙子道别。“天哪！”她叫道，“我有七十二个孙子孙女，如果和其中的一个分别一次就伤心一次，那我的生活岂不太凄惨了！”“非同寻常的母亲啊！”老绅士回答道。 但是，作为七十二子孙中的一员，我更喜欢她的这一处世秘诀。外祖母八十高龄后感到入睡有些困难，她便常常在半夜到凌晨三点这段时间阅读科普书籍。我想，她无暇顾及自己是否老了。我认为这就是保持年轻的秘诀。如果你拥有广泛的、自己钟爱的兴趣和活动，又能从中体会自己老当益壮，你就没有理由从那些只有在统计学中才有意义的数字上考虑生命已经度过多少春秋，更没有理由担忧自己的未来也许很短暂。

As regards health I have nothing useful to say since I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.

2 说到健康，我很少生病，因此无法提供有用的建议。我随心所欲地吃喝，不能清醒时就睡觉。我做任何事情都不是因为这些事情对健康有利。不过，我喜欢做的事情实际上大多都有益于健康。

Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One's thoughts must be directed to the future and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy: one's own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one's emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one's mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.

3 就心理而言，老年人应慎防两种危险。其一就是过度地沉湎于过去。人不能活在记忆中，不能生活在因美好往昔的逝去而怅然若失中，也不能生活在缅怀已故朋友的哀痛中。人的心思必须放在未来上，想想可以有所作为的事情。这并非一件轻而易举的事：一个人经历的往事，渐渐变成一个沉重的包袱。人们很容易以为过去的情感比现在强烈，过去的头脑也比现在敏锐。倘若真的如此，我们就要忘却这个事 实；如果忘却了这个事实，事实也许就不再是事实了。

The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigour from its vitality. When your ch

ildren are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.

4 另一种要提防的危险是：依恋年轻人，希望从他们的勃勃生机中汲取活力。当你的孩子已长大成人，他们就想过自己的生活；如果你仍像他们小时候那样关注他们，你很可能就成了他们的包袱。动物在下一代能够自食其力时就不再给予关注；人类因幼年时期较长而很难做到这一点。

It is no use telling grown-up children not to make mistakes, both because they will not believe you, and because mistakes are an essential part of education. But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be empty unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren. In that case you must realize that while you can still render them material services, such as making them an allowance or knitting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.

5 孩子已长大成人，叮嘱他们不犯错误已经没有意义，因为他们不再相信你的话，再说错误是教育不可或缺的一部 分。但是，如果你的兴趣无法摆脱个人感情的支配，你也许会发现，假如不关注子孙，生活就会空虚无望。在这种情况下，你必须意识到，虽然你仍可以给他们提供物质上的帮 助，比如给他们一笔零花钱或为他们编织毛线外套，但是你绝不能期望他们会乐意和你呆在一起。

Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat ignoble. The best way to overcome it 鈥?so at least it seems to me 鈥?is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river 鈥?small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer from the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, wear

iness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

6 有些老人因害怕死亡而烦恼。年轻人有这种感受是可以理解的。年轻人害怕在战场上牺牲，这情有可原。他们认 为，死亡会剥夺生活赋予的最美好的东西，这让他们深感痛苦。但是，饱尝人世酸甜苦辣的老者已挖掘自己的潜力、实现了自己的抱负，倘若再对死亡产生恐惧之心，未免有些可耻。 克服恐惧之心的最好的办法是 —— 至少我这样看 —— 开拓更广泛的、不局限于个人感情的兴趣，让包围自我的墙壁渐渐地消失，你的生活就渐渐融入人类的生活中。一个人的存在应该像一条河——初始为涓涓细流，裹在狭窄的岸 间，在岩石的缝隙中、在呼啸的瀑布上奔泻。河床渐渐变 宽，河岸逐渐隐退，水流平缓，河水没有明显的停滞，最终融入海洋的怀抱，毫无痛苦地结束了独立个体的存在。上了年纪的人，倘若能以这种态度看待人生，就不会因为害怕死亡而不安，因为他所喜爱的一切将继续存在。而且，当生命力衰竭之时，疲惫感油然而生，长眠的念头并非令人厌恶。我希望在尚能劳作之时告别人世，知道他人会将我未竟的事业继续下去，同时回想这一生有可能做的事情，都尽力而为了，由此可以满意地安息了。