愛是艱難的

Love Is Difficult

勒內(nèi)·馬利亞·里爾克 / Rainer Maria Rilke 勒內(nèi)·馬利亞·里爾克（1875—1926），奧地利詩人。大學(xué)攻讀哲學(xué)、藝術(shù)與文學(xué)史。里爾克的詩歌盡管充滿孤獨(dú)痛苦情緒和悲觀虛無思想，但藝術(shù)造詣很高。本篇節(jié)選自他的書信集《給一位青年詩人的十封信》。

Ace in the Hole

Understand these new words before you listen to this article.

1. entrust [in'tr?st] v. 委托，信托

2. solitude ['s?litju:d] n. 孤獨(dú)；隱居

3. inducement [in'dju:sm?nt] n. 誘因  

It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginner sin everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time ahead and far on into life, is solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished, and still incoherent). it is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him, something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves ( “to hearken and to hammer day and night”), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.

參考譯文

愛，很好。因?yàn)閻凼瞧D難的。當(dāng)一個人去愛另一個人，這也許是神給予我們的最艱難、最重大的任務(wù)，是最后的考驗(yàn)與測試，是最崇高的工作，別的工作都不過是為此而做的準(zhǔn)備。所以那些一切都還剛剛開始的青年們還不能去愛，他們必須要學(xué)習(xí)。必須用他們整個的生命，用一切的力量，用集聚了他們寂寞、痛苦和榮譽(yù)感的心去學(xué)習(xí)愛。在學(xué)習(xí)時期這個長久而專注的過程中，愛就會永遠(yuǎn)地銘刻心扉——深深的寂寞中孤獨(dú)地等待，是為了所愛的人。愛的要義并不是什么傾心、獻(xiàn)身，或二人的結(jié)合（那會是怎樣的一種結(jié)合呢？是一種糊涂的、不負(fù)責(zé)任的、輕率的結(jié)合）。它對于個人是一種崇高的動力，是去成熟并實(shí)現(xiàn)自身的圓滿，去完成一個世界，是為了另一個人而完成一個自己的世界，這是一個艱巨的、不可妥協(xié)的目標(biāo)，用堅(jiān)定的信念，向遠(yuǎn)方召喚。青年們應(yīng)把愛當(dāng)做他們的課業(yè)、他們工作的意義，并在其中（“晝夜不停地探索、錘煉”）使用那些給予他們的愛。至于傾心、獻(xiàn)身以及結(jié)合，還不是他們所能做的（他們還需長時間地克制、積累），那是最后的終點(diǎn)，也許是我們現(xiàn)在還幾乎不能達(dá)到的境界。