優美文章：工作、勞作和娛樂
摘要:一個人要高興，首先要感到自由，其次是感到重要。如果他被社會強迫做他不願做的事，或者他喜歡做的事被社會忽視，被認爲無價值和不重要，他就不會真正高興。
work. Labor, and Play 工作、勞作和娛樂
By Wystan Hugh Auden
So far as I know, Miss Hannah Arendt was the first person to define the essential difference between work and labor. To be happy, a man must feel, firstly, free and, secondly, important. He cannot be really happy if he is compelled by society to do what he does not enjoy doing, or if what he enjoys doing is ignored by society as of no value or importance. In a society where slavery in the strict sense has been abolished, the sign that what a man does is of social value is that he is paid money to do it, but a laborer today can rightly be called a wage slave. A man is a laborer if the job society offers him is of no interest to himself but he is compelled to take it by the necessity of earning a living and supporting his family.
據我所知，漢納•阿倫特小姐是第一個給予工作和勞作之間本質區別的人。一個人要高興，首先要感到自由，其次是感到重要。如果他被社會強迫做他不願做的事，或者他喜歡做的事被社會忽視，被認爲無價值和不重要，他就不會真正高興。在一個從嚴格意義上來說奴隸制已被廢除的社會裏，一個人所做的事情具有社會價值的樗是他的工作得到了報酬。但今天的勞動者可以恰當地稱爲薪金的奴隸。如果他對社會提供給他的工作不感興趣，但出於謀生和養家而被迫接受，這個人就稱爲勞作者。
The antithesis to labor is play. When we play a game, we enjoy what we are doing, otherwise we should not play it, but it is a purely private activity; society could not care less whether we play it or not.
與勞作相對的是玩，當玩耍時我們在享受，否則是不會去玩的，不過這純粹是私人活動，社會對你玩或不玩是極不關心的。
Between labor and play stands work. A man is a worker if he is personally interested in the job which society pays him to do; what from the point of view of society is necessary labor is from his own point of view voluntary play. Whether a job is to be classified as labor or work depends, not on the job itself, but on the tastes of the individual who undertakes it. The difference does not,for example, coincide with the difference between a manual and a mental job; a gardener or a cobbler may be a worker, a bank clerk a laborer. Which a man is can be seen from his attitude toward leisure. To a worker, leisure means simply the hours he needs to relax and rest in order to work efficiently. He is therefore more likely to take too little leisure than too much; workers die of coronaries and forget their wives' birthdays. To the laborer, on the other hand, leisure means freedom from compulsion, so that it is natural for him to imagine that the fewer hours he has to spend laboring, and the more hours he is free to play, the better.
處於勞作和玩之間的是工作。如果一個人對社會付酬給他的工作感興趣的話，他就是工作者;從社會的觀點看，工作是必要的勞作也是個人心目中自願的玩。例如：這個區別不同於體力勞動和腦力勞動之間的區別;一個園藝工人或一個補鞋匠可能是工作者，一個銀行職員可能是勞作者。一個人屬於哪一種可以從他對休閒的態度看出來。對於工作者來說，休閒只是他爲了有效地工作而放鬆和休息的時間，所以他可能少休息而不是多休閒。工作者可能致於冠狀動脈血栓症，忘記妻子的生日。反之，對於勞作者來說，休閒意味着從強迫中的擺脫，因此他們會很自然地想花在工作上的時間越少，自由自在玩的時間越多就越好。
