經典散文英譯漢賞析：On the Fear of Death 談怕死
On the Fear of Death
談怕死
by William Hazlitt
威廉·赫茲裏特
Perhaps the best cure for the fear of death is to reflect that life has a beginning as well as an end. There was a time when we were not: this gives me no concern- why then should it trouble us that a time will come when we shall cease to be?
克服怕死心理的最好辦法，也許是要想到人生不僅有終結，也有開端。本來我們並未生存於世間，這個事實並不使我們憂慮，那麼，我們爲什麼要爲了將來有一天自己會停止生存而煩惱呢？
I have no wish to have been alive a hundred years ago, or in the reign of Queen Anne? Why should I regret and lay it so much to heart that I shall not be alive a hundred years hence, in the reign of I cannot tell whom?
我既然不希望自己在一百年前，或在安女王的朝代活在世上，爲什麼就要爲了自己在一百年後不知哪位皇帝在位的朝代，不能仍然活在世上而抱憾，而耿耿於懷呢？
To die is only to be as we were born; yet no one feels any remorse, or regret, or repugnance, in contemplating this last idea.
死亡只是恢復誕生前的原狀而已；在想到誕生前的情形時，我們都毫無悔恨、遺憾、或厭惡之感.
It is rather a relief and disburdening of the mind: it seems to have been a holiday time with us then: we were not called to appear upon the stage of life, to wear robes or tatters, to laugh or cry, be hooted or applauded; we had lain perdus all this while, snug out of harm’s way; and had slept out our thousands of centuries without wanting to be waked up; at peace and free from care, in a long nonage, in a sleep deeper and calmer than that of infancy, wrapped in the softest and finest dust.
我們反而會覺得輕鬆解脫：那個時候彷佛是我們所度過的一段假期，我們還沒有被召出現在人生舞臺之上，或身着華服，或衣衫襤褸，或笑，或哭，或遭叫囂反對，或受喝采讚揚；在那個時候，我們一直高臥在虛無之境，無人聞問，舒適而又安全；我們在長眠中度過了千百世紀，不希望被人喚醒，一直逍遙於一個漫長的渾渾噩噩的時期之中，享受着一場比嬰兒時代的更爲深沉而平靜的睡眠，覆蔽在最輕柔最微小的塵之中，安安靜靜，無憂無慮。
And the worst that we dread is, after a short fretful , feverish being, after vain hopes, and idle fears, to sink to final repose again, and forget the trouble dream of life!
然後，我們在人世度過了一段短暫、煩躁、而狂熱的生活，曾經抱着種種虛空的希望，懷着種種無意的恐懼，現在所最怕的事情，卻是再度沉入那種最後的安息，和忘記人生的煩惱的夢境！
