元宵节的来历和传说-让爱住我家串词

Westminster Abbey
肖波译
西敏大寺

ON one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter part of autumn when the shadows
of morning and evening almost mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I
passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. There was something congenial to the
season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile, and as I passed its threshold it seemed like
stepping back into the regions of antiquity and losing myself among the shades of former ages.
I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, through a long, low, vaulted passage that
had an almost subterranean look, being dimly lighted in one part by circular perforations in the
massive walls. Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of the cloisters, with the figure of an
old verger in his black gown moving along their shadowy vaults, and seeming like a spectre from
one of the neighboring tombs. The approach to the abbey through these gloomy monastic remains
prepares the mind for its solemn contemplation. The cloisters still retain something of the quiet
and seclusion of former days. The gray walls are discolored by damps and crumbling with age; a
coat of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and obscured the
death's heads and other funeral emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the rich
tracery of the arches; the roses which adorned the keystones have lost their leafy beauty;
everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidations of time, which yet has something touching and
pleasing in its very decay.
The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of the cloisters, beaming upon a
scanty plot of grass in the centre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of
dusky splendor. From between the arcades the eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky or a passing
cloud, and beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey towering into the azure heaven.
As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating this mingled picture of glory and decay, and
sometimes endeavoring to decipher the inscriptions on the tombstones which formed the pavement
beneath my feet, my eye was attracted to three figures rudely carved in relief, but nearly worn
away by the footsteps of many generations. They were the effigies of three of the early abbots; the
epitaphs were entirely effaced; the names alone remained, having no doubt been renewed in later
times (Vitalis. Abbas. 1082, and Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 1114, and Laurentius. Abbas. 1176).
I remained some little while, musing over these casual relics of antiquity thus left like wrecks
upon this distant shore of time, telling no tale but that such beings had been and had perished,
teaching no moral but the futility of that pride which hopes still to exact homage in its ashes and to
live in an inscription. A little longer, and even these faint records will be obliterated and the
monument will cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was yet looking down upon the gravestones I was
roused by the sound of the abbey clock, reverberating from buttress to buttress and echoing among
the cloisters. It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs
and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave. I
pursued my walk to an arched door opening to the interior of the abbey. On entering here the
magnitude of the building breaks fully upon the mind, contrasted with the vaults of the cloisters.
The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing
from them to such an amazing height, and man wandering about their bases, shrunk into
insignificance in comparison with his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast

edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously and softly about, as if fearful
of disturbing the hallowed silence of the tomb, while every footfall whispers along the walls and
chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensible of the quiet we have interrupted.

It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul and hushes the beholder
into noiseless reverence. We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of the great
men of past times, who have filled history with their deeds and the earth with their renown.


And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition to see how they are crowded
together and jostled in the dust; what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook, a gloomy
corner, a little portion of earth, to those whom, when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy, and how
many shapes and forms and artifices are devised to catch the casual notice of the passenger, and
save from forgetfulness for a few short years a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the
world's thought and admiration.

I passed some time in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles
of the abbey. The monuments are generally simple, for the lives of literary men afford no striking
themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues erected to their memories, but the
greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the
simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remained
longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold curiosity or vague
admiration with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and the heroic. They
linger about these as about the tombs of friends and companions, for indeed there is something of
companionship between the author and the reader. Other men are known to posterity only through
the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse
between the author and his fellowmen is ever new, active, and immediate. He has lived for them
more than for himself; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from the
delights of social life, that he might the more intimately commune with distant minds and distant
ages. Well may the world cherish his renown, for it has been purchased not by deeds of violence
and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may posterity be grateful to his
memory, for he has left it an inheritance not of empty names and sounding actions, but whole
treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language.
和珠玑的文字。

From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll towards that part of the abbey which contains the
sepulchres of the kings. I wandered among what once were chapels, but which are now occupied
by the tombs and monuments of the great. At every turn I met with some illustrious name or the
cognizance of some powerful house renowned in history. As the eye darts into these dusky
chambers of death it catches glimpses of quaint effigies--some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion;
others stretched upon the tombs, with hands piously pressed together; warriors in armor, as if
reposing after battle; prelates, with crosiers and mitres; and nobles in robes and coronets, lying as
it were in state. In glancing over this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still
and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city where every being

had been suddenly transmuted into stone.

I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of a knight in complete armor. A large
buckler was on one arm; the hands were pressed together in supplication upon the breast; the face
was almost covered by the morion; the legs were crossed, in token of the warrior's having been
engaged in the holy war. It was the tomb of a crusader, of one of those military enthusiasts who so
strangely mingled religion and romance, and whose exploits form the connecting link between fact
and fiction, between the history and the fairytale. There is something extremely picturesque in the
tombs of these adventurers, decorated as they are with rude armorial bearings and Gothic
sculpture. They comport with the antiquated chapels in which they are generally found; and in
considering them the imagination is apt to kindle with the legendary associations, the romantic
fiction, the chivalrous pomp and pageantry which poetry has spread over the wars for the
sepulchre of Christ. They are the relics of times utterly gone by, of beings passed from recollection,
of customs and manners with which ours have no affinity. They are like objects from some strange
and distant land of which we have no certain knowledge, and about which all our conceptions are
vague and visionary. There is something extremely solemn and awful in those effigies on Gothic
tombs, extended as if in the sleep of death or in the supplication of the dying hour. They have an
effect infinitely more impressive on my feelings than the fanciful attitudes, the over wrought
conceits, the allegorical groups which abound on modern monuments. I have been struck, also,
with the superiority of many of the old sepulchral inscriptions. There was a noble way in former
times of saying things simply, and yet saying them proudly; and I do not know an epitaph that
breathes a loftier consciousness of family worth and honorable lineage than one which affirms of a
noble house that
In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner stands a monument which is among the most renowned
achievements of modern art, but which to me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb
of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is represented as throwing open
its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling from his fleshless
frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who
strives with vain and frantic effort to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible truth and
spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of
the spectre. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread
horrors round the tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by everything that
might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It is the
place not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation.
While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles, studying the records of the dead, the
sound of busy existence from without occasionally reaches the ear--the rumbling of the passing
equipage, the murmur of the multitude, or perhaps the light laugh of pleasure. The contrast is
striking with the deathlike repose around; and it has a strange effect upon the feelings thus to hear
the surges of active life hurrying along and beating against the very walls of the sepulchre.

I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb and from chapel to chapel. The day was
gradually wearing away; the distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent;
the sweet-tongued bell was summoning to evening prayers; and I saw at a distance the choristers
in their white surplices crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood before the entrance to

Henry the Seventh's chapel. A flight of steps leads up to it through a deep and gloomy but
magnificent arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily upon their
hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common mortals into this most gorgeous of
sepulchres.
On entering the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture and the elaborate beauty of
sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into universal ornament encrusted with tracery, and
scooped into niches crowded with the statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning
labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft as if by magic,
and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.

Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights of the Bath, richly carved of oak,
though with the grotesque decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of the stalls are
affixed the helmets and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords, and above them are
suspended their banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the splendor of gold
and purple and crimson with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand
mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder --his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a
sumptuous tomb--and the whole surrounded by a superbly-wrought brazen railing.
There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence, this strange mixture of tombs and trophies, these
emblems of living and aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust and
oblivion in which all must sooner or later terminate. Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper
feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant. On
looking round on the vacant stalls of the knights and their esquires, and on the rows of dusty but
gorgeous banners that were once borne before them, my imagination conjured up the scene when
this hall was bright with the valor and beauty of the land, glittering with the splendor of jewelled
rank and military array, alive with the tread of many feet and the hum of an admiring multitude.
All had passed away; the silence of death had settled again upon the place, interrupted only by the
casual chirping of birds, which had found their way into the chapel and built their nests among its
friezes and pendants--sure signs of solitariness and desertion.


When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were those of men scattered far and wide
about the world--some tossing upon distant seas: some under arms in distant lands; some mingling
in the busy intrigues of courts and cabinets,--all seeking to deserve one more distinction in this
mansion of shadowy honors--the melancholy reward of a monument.
Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touching instance of the equality of the
grave, which brings down the oppressor to a level with the oppressed and mingles the dust of the
bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of
her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day but some ejaculation of pity is
uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of
Elizabeth's sepulchre continually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave of her rival.
A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly
through windows darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls
are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb,
round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem--the thistle. I was

weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the
chequered and disastrous story of poor Mary.
The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I could only hear, now and then, the
distant voice of the priest repeating the evening service and the faint responses of the choir; these
paused for a time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion, and obscurity that were gradally
prevailing around gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the place;
For in the silent grave no conversation,
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,
No careful father's counsel--nothing's heard,
For nothing is, but all oblivion,
Dust, and an endless darkness.
—。

Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and
redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and
grandeur accord with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults,
and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulchre vocal!
And now they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes and
piling sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet
gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty
vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders,
compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What
solemn sweeping concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful; it fills the vast pile and
seems to jar the very walls--the ear is stunned--the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding
up in full jubilee--it is rising from the earth to heaven; the very soul seems rapt away and floated
upwards on this swelling tide of harmony!
。

I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire:
the shadows of evening were gradually thickening round me; the monuments began to cast deeper
and deeper gloom; and the distant clock again gave token of the slowly waning day.
I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight of steps which lead into the body
of the building, my eye was caught by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the
small staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence a general survey of this wilderness of tombs.
The shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are the sepulchres of various
kings and queens. From this eminence the eye looks down between pillars and funeral trophies to
the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs, where warriors, prelates, courtiers, and
statesmen lie mouldering in their of by me stood the great chair of
coronation, rudely carved of oak in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene
seemed almost as if contrived with theatrical artifice to produce an effect upon the beholder. Here
was a type of the beginning and the end of human pomp and power; here it was literally but a step
from the throne to the sepulchre. Would not one think that these incongruous mementos had been
gathered together as a lesson to living greatness?--to show it, even in the moment of its proudest
exaltation, the neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive--how soon that crown which

encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and
be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of the multitude. For, strange to tell, even the grave is
here no longer a sanctuary. There is a shocking levity in some natures which leads them to sport
with awful and hallowed things, and there are base minds which delight to revenge on the
illustrious dead the abject homage and grovelling servility which they pay to the living. The coffin
of Edward the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their funereal
ornaments; the sceptre has been stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth; and the effigy of
Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument but bears some proof how false and fugitive
is the homage of mankind. Some are plundered, some mutilated, some covered with ribaldry and
insult,--all more or less outraged and dishonored.

The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaults
above me; the lower parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The
chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows; the
marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light; the evening
breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of a
verger, traversing the Poet's Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly
retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with
a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes.

I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but
found they were already falling into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies,
had all become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the
threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation--a
huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown and the certainty of oblivion? It is,
indeed, the empire of death; his great shadowy palace where he sits in state mocking at the relics
of human glory and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a
boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are
too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave
interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of
to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection, and will in turn be supplanted by his
successor of tomorrow. fathers,says Sir Thomas Browne, their graves in our short
memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors.
becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue
falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their
epitaphs but characters written in the dust? What is the security of a tomb or the perpetuity of an
embalmment? The remains of Alexander the Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty
sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum.
or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth; Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for
balsams.

What then is to ensure this pile which now towers above me from sharing the fate of mightier
mausoleums? The time must come when its gilded vaults which now spring so loftily, shall lie in
rubbish beneath the feet; when instead of the sound of melody and praise the wind shall whistle

through the broken arches and the owl hoot from the shattered tower; when the garish sunbeam
shall break into these gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine round the fallen column; and
the fox-glove hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus man
passes away; his name passes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and
his very monument becomes a ruin.
。

① 艾迪生(Joseph Addison 1672-1719)，英国诗人、散文家、政治家。
② 亨利七世(Henry Ⅶ，1457－1509)，英国国王(1485—1509)。
③ 巴斯骑士——英国国王乔治一世于1725年设立的一种勋位。
④ 玛丽（Mary Stuar t，1542-1587），苏格兰女王（1542－1567），扶旧教而抑新教。因
苏格兰革命，逃 亡英国，投奔伊丽莎白，被囚二十余年，终为伊丽莎白处死。
⑤ 原文诗句引自英国剧作家博蒙特(Francis Beaumont,1584—1616)和弗莱彻(John
Fletcher,1579—1625)两人合著的戏剧Thierry and Theodoret 第四幕第一场。
⑥ 忏悔者爱德华(Edward the Confessor ,1003-1066),英格兰国王，与诺曼第公爵威廉作
战，兵败身死。他于 1045年拆除原来的旧寺，重建规模宏伟的西敏大寺。
⑦ 亨利五世(Henry ⅴ 1387—1422)，英国国王，以文武兼资著称。
⑧ 冈比西斯(Cambyses，公元前 522年卒)，波斯帝国国王，曾征服埃及。米兹腊伊姆，
乃古代希伯莱人对埃及之称谓，此处似借用来 指古埃及贵族之遗骸或木乃伊。
⑨ 原注：这段引语出自英国作家、医师布朗(Thomas Browne,1605—1682)。指当时埃
及的木乃伊曾被冒充药材售卖。

Westminster Abbey
by Washington Irving
西敏大寺
夏济安 译

ON one of those sober and rather melancholy days in the latter part of autumn when the shadows
of morning and evening almost mingle together, and throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I
passed several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. There was something congenial to the
season in the mournful magnificence of the old pile, and as I passed its threshold it seemed like
stepping back into the regions of antiquity and losing myself among the shades of former ages.
时方晚秋，气 象肃穆，略带忧郁，早晨的阴影和黄昏的阴影，几乎连接在一起，不可分别，
岁云将暮，终日昏暗，我就 在这么一天，到西敏大寺去信步走了几个钟头。古寺巍巍，森森
然似有鬼气，和阴沉沉的季候正好相符； 我跨进大门，觉得自己好像已经置身远古世界，忘
形于昔日的憧憧鬼影之中了。

I entered from the inner court of Westminster School, through a long, low, vaulted passage that
had an almost subterranean look, being dimly lighted in one part by circular perforations in the
massive walls. Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of the cloisters, with the figure of an
old verger in his black gown moving along their shadowy vaults, and seeming like a spectre from
one of the neighboring tombs. The approach to the abbey through these gloomy monastic remains
prepares the mind for its solemn contemplation. The cloisters still retain something of the quiet
and seclusion of former days. The gray walls are discolored by damps and crumbling with age; a

coat of hoary moss has gathered over the inscriptions of the mural monuments, and obscured the
death's heads and other funeral emblems. The sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the rich
tracery of the arches; the roses which adorned the keystones have lost their leafy beauty;
everything bears marks of the gradual dilapidations of time, which yet has something touching and
pleasing in its very decay.
我 是从西敏学校的内庭走进去的，先走过一条弧顶的矮矮的长廊，墙壁很厚，墙上有圆孔，
略有光线透入， 廊中幽暗，幽幽然似在地下行走。黑廊尽头，我远远的看见大寺里的回廊，
一个老年香火道人，身穿黑袍 ，正沿着拱廊阴影里踽踽走去，看起来就像从附近的古坟里爬
出来的鬼魂。我从当年僧院遗址那条路进入 古寺，景象分外凄凉，我心也更适宜于往凄凉方
面冥想了。回廊一带依然保留有几分当年的幽静出世之慨 。灰色的墙壁为霉气所蒸，显得斑
斑驳驳，年代己久，颓坏之象，也很明显。墙上长了一层白苍苍的苔薛 ，非但上面的碑文不
可读，连骷髅像和别的丧用标志都模糊不清。弧顶布满雕刻花纹，可是斧钻的痕迹， 也已模
糊；拱心石上面雕有玫瑰花，可是当年枝叶茂美之状，已经不可复见。每样东西都可以看出
年久衰败之象，可是即使处在颓朽之中，依然不乏赏心悦目之处。

The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray into the square of the cloisters, beaming upon a
scanty plot of grass in the centre, and lighting up an angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of
dusky splendor. From between the arcades the eye glanced up to a bit of blue sky or a passing
cloud, and beheld the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey towering into the azure heaven.
一道带有 秋意的黄色阳光，正从回廊环绕的广场上空倾泻下来；照耀着场中央一块稀疏的草
坪，同时把上有拱顶的 过道一角抹上一层阴郁的光辉。从拱廊之间向上望去，可以瞥见一抹
蓝天，或一朵游云，还有那镀着阳光 ，伸向碧空的寺顶尖塔，也巍然在目。

As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating this mingled picture of glory and decay, and
sometimes endeavoring to decipher the inscriptions on the tombstones which formed the pavement
beneath my feet, my eye was attracted to three figures rudely carved in relief, but nearly worn
away by the footsteps of many generations. They were the effigies of three of the early abbots; the
epitaphs were entirely effaced; the names alone remained, having no doubt been renewed in later
times (Vitalis. Abbas. 1082, and Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 1114, and Laurentius. Abbas. 1176).
I remained some little while, musing over these casual relics of antiquity thus left like wrecks
upon this distant shore of time, telling no tale but that such beings had been and had perished,
teaching no moral but the futility of that pride which hopes still to exact homage in its ashes and to
live in an inscription. A little longer, and even these faint records will be obliterated and the
monument will cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was yet looking down upon the gravestones I was
roused by the sound of the abbey clock, reverberating from buttress to buttress and echoing among
the cloisters. It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed time sounding among the tombs
and telling the lapse of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward towards the grave. I
pursued my walk to an arched door opening to the interior of the abbey. On entering here the
magnitude of the building breaks fully upon the mind, contrasted with the vaults of the cloisters.
The eyes gaze with wonder at clustered columns of gigantic dimensions, with arches springing
from them to such an amazing height, and man wandering about their bases, shrunk into
insignificance in comparison with his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of this vast
edifice produce a profound and mysterious awe. We step cautiously and softly about, as if fearful
of disturbing the hallowed silence of the tomb, while every footfall whispers along the walls and

chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensible of the quiet we have interrupted.
我踯躅于回廊之间，时而凝视着这 幅辉煌和颓败交融的景象，时而竭力辨认那些刻在墓石上
的碑文。我脚下的铺道都是墓石砌成，墓石上有 三个浮雕像吸引我的注意，雕工很租陋，经
过好几代人的践踏，差不多已磨损殆尽。这是早先三位寺院住 持的遗像，他们的墓志铭都已
磨光，只剩下三个名字，这三个名字也无疑是后来重刻的：维塔里斯住持， 死于一零八二年；
吉斯尔勃脱斯·克利斯宾纳斯住持，死于一一一四年；劳伦蒂乌斯住持，死于一一七六 年。
我停留了一会儿，对着古人的这些碰巧残留的遗迹，不禁黯然沉思起来。它们就像几艘沉船
的遗骸，被抛弃在遥远的时间的岸边：它们并不告诉你什么故事，只表示这几个人曾经活过，
而且已经死 去。假如它们含有什么道德方面的教训，那只讽示那种希望死后还能受人尊敬，
还能借着墓志铭而永垂不 朽的痴心妄想，徒劳无益。再过些时候，连这些残存的记录都会消
失，纪念碑也将不成其为一件纪念物了 。我正俯视着这几块墓石，耳旁突然传来大寺的悠扬
钟声，回荡于一垛垛扶壁之间，于是整个拱廊响彻了 回声。坟墓间回荡着的钟声，听来令人
悚然惊惧，它警告你又一个钟头业已过去，而时光的消逝，就像一 个大浪，在不停地把我们
卷向坟墓。我继续走去，来到一扇通往大寺正殿的拱门前面。我跨步进入，在拱 廊的衬托之
下，映人眼帘的正殿益显其宏伟，给人深刻的印象。游客抬头一望，只见巨柱森列，柱顶上< br>架着凌空飞跨的高拱，令人心惊。这些建筑也是人类建造，但是人在廊柱下面漫步，不由得
感到自 己好保缩小得微不足道。这座大寺空旷幽暗，使人产生深沉而神秘的敬畏之念。我们
小心翼翼地放轻脚步 ，似乎生怕打扰了墓地的肃静。然而每行一步墙壁间传来了轻轻一声足
音，坟墓间也起了低微的回声，使 我们更体会到被打断了寂静。

It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses down upon the soul and hushes the beholder
into noiseless reverence. We feel that we are surrounded by the congregated bones of the great
men of past times, who have filled history with their deeds and the earth with their renown.
寺里庄严气氛仿佛压制了游客的心灵，大家都有肃然起敬之感。我们觉得 在我们的四周，聚
集着古代伟人的骨骸，他们的名声和业绩彪炳史册，传遍了全球，可是如今他们一个个 只剩
一堆黄土。

And yet it almost provokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition to see how they are crowded
together and jostled in the dust; what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty nook, a gloomy
corner, a little portion of earth, to those whom, when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy, and how
many shapes and forms and artifices are devised to catch the casual notice of the passenger, and
save from forgetfulness for a few short years a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the
world's thought and admiration.
现在这些伟人横七竖八地挤在泥土之中；他们在世 之时，多少王国的疆域都不足以供他们纵
马驰骋，如今为了遵照经济的原则，他们只分得那么小小的一块 土地，那么贫瘠而黑暗的一
个角落。他们曾企图使自己的英名占有世世代代人的思想，获得人人的钦羡， 如今他们的坟
墓上，却千方百计地雕出种种图案和装饰，只为了吸引游客偶然的一顾，免得在短短的几年
之中，就把他们的名字忘怀。看了这些，想到人生的虚空，我又几乎忍不住要惨然一笑了。

I passed some time in Poet's Corner, which occupies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles
of the abbey. The monuments are generally simple, for the lives of literary men afford no striking
themes for the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues erected to their memories, but the
greater part have busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. Notwithstanding the
simplicity of these memorials, I have always observed that the visitors to the abbey remained

longest about them. A kinder and fonder feeling takes place of that cold curiosity or vague
admiration with which they gaze on the splendid monuments of the great and the heroic. They
linger about these as about the tombs of friends and companions, for indeed there is something of
companionship between the author and the reader. Other men are known to posterity only through
the medium of history, which is continually growing faint and obscure; but the intercourse
between the author and his fellowmen is ever new, active, and immediate. He has lived for them
more than for himself; he has sacrificed surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from the
delights of social life, that he might the more intimately commune with distant minds and distant
ages. Well may the world cherish his renown, for it has been purchased not by deeds of violence
and blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. Well may posterity be grateful to his
memory, for he has left it an inheritance not of empty names and sounding actions, but whole
treasures of wisdom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of language.
我在诗人祠里面逗留了一些时候，诗人祠者，只是寺内一个十字形侧堂的一 隅。这儿的纪念
碑，一般都很朴素；因为文人的生涯大多平凡，缺少可供雕刻的惊人题材。莎士比亚和艾 迪
生①有全身的纪念雕像；其他诗人大多只有半身雕像或肖像牌，有些只有碑文。这些纪念碑
虽 然朴素无饰，我发现游客总是在这儿停留的时间最长。伟人和英雄的墓碑，华丽是华丽了，
但只能引起他 们冷淡的好奇心，或是模糊的羡慕之情；诗人的墓碑却勾起了他们一种更为亲
切的情爱。他们留恋左右， 就像置身于朋友和知己的墓旁；因为在作者和读者之间，的确存
在着一种友情。别种人物之闻名后世，完 全要靠历史的媒介，而历史总是变得愈来愈模糊，
愈来愈隔膜；作家和他的读者之间却永远保持着新鲜、 活泼和直接的交谊。作家与其说为了
自己活在世上，不如说为了读者。他为了要和后世的人作更亲密的交 谈．不惜牺牲他当时周
遭的享受，自绝于社交生活的乐趣。但愿世人都珍重作家的声名，因为作家的声名 并非用暴
力和流血的手段攫取而得，而是以不断施与快乐的善行换来的。但愿后世能永远纪念他的恩赐，因为他所遗留下来的，并非空洞的名字和虚夸的行为，而是智慧的宝库，思想的结晶，
和珠玑的 文字。

From Poet's Corner I continued my stroll towards that part of the abbey which contains the
sepulchres of the kings. I wandered among what once were chapels, but which are now occupied
by the tombs and monuments of the great. At every turn I met with some illustrious name or the
cognizance of some powerful house renowned in history. As the eye darts into these dusky
chambers of death it catches glimpses of quaint effigies--some kneeling in niches, as if in devotion;
others stretched upon the tombs, with hands piously pressed together; warriors in armor, as if
reposing after battle; prelates, with crosiers and mitres; and nobles in robes and coronets, lying as
it were in state. In glancing over this scene, so strangely populous, yet where every form is so still
and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a mansion of that fabled city where every being
had been suddenly transmuted into stone.
出了诗人祠，走向寺内安置帝王陵寝的地方。这部分以前都是礼拜堂，如今已被伟人的坟 墓
和纪念碑所占有，我每次转身，都可遇见一些显赫的名字，或是一些在历史上以权势著称的
家 族徽号。当目光扫入这些死人之室的时候，我瞥见许多奇形怪状的雕像：有的跪在壁龛里，
好像正在祈祷 ；有的横卧在坟上，虔诚地合着手掌；武士身穿铠甲，好像刚从战场归来；主
教戴着法冠，手持圭杖；贵 族身穿礼服，头戴小冠，好像殡殓以前供人瞻仰似地躺着。此处
的古像，看来异常拥挤，可是每一个形体 又是那样静如止水，寂然无声，使我们觉得简直好
像置身于神话中的古城里的那座大厦，里面所有的人都 已在骤然间化成了石头。

I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the effigy of a knight in complete armor. A large
buckler was on one arm; the hands were pressed together in supplication upon the breast; the face
was almost covered by the morion; the legs were crossed, in token of the warrior's having been
engaged in the holy war. It was the tomb of a crusader, of one of those military enthusiasts who so
strangely mingled religion and romance, and whose exploits form the connecting link between fact
and fiction, between the history and the fairytale. There is something extremely picturesque in the
tombs of these adventurers, decorated as they are with rude armorial bearings and Gothic
sculpture. They comport with the antiquated chapels in which they are generally found; and in
considering them the imagination is apt to kindle with the legendary associations, the romantic
fiction, the chivalrous pomp and pageantry which poetry has spread over the wars for the
sepulchre of Christ. They are the relics of times utterly gone by, of beings passed from recollection,
of customs and manners with which ours have no affinity. They are like objects from some strange
and distant land of which we have no certain knowledge, and about which all our conceptions are
vague and visionary. There is something extremely solemn and awful in those effigies on Gothic
tombs, extended as if in the sleep of death or in the supplication of the dying hour. They have an
effect infinitely more impressive on my feelings than the fanciful attitudes, the over wrought
conceits, the allegorical groups which abound on modern monuments. I have been struck, also,
with the superiority of many of the old sepulchral inscriptions. There was a noble way in former
times of saying things simply, and yet saying them proudly; and I do not know an epitaph that
breathes a loftier consciousness of family worth and honorable lineage than one which affirms of a
noble house that
我走到一座坟前，立住脚步深思起来。坟上躺 卧着一个全副武装的骑士雕像；他一臂挽盾，
两手一起紧按在胸前作祈祷状，脸孔差不多全给头盔掩盖住 了；两腿交叉，表示此骑士曾经
参加圣战。这是一位十字军人之墓，当年的热血武士之一，他们曾奇妙地 把宗教和浪漫事迹
交织在一起；他们的业绩构成了事实与幻想、历史与神仙故事之间的联系。装饰这些冒 险者
的坟墓的虽然只是粗陋的纹章和哥德式的雕刻，它们本身却都生动如画。它们和古老教堂的
格调最为相配，通常也唯有在古老教堂里才会发现这种武士的坟墓。它们很容易引起传奇性
的联想：罗曼 蒂克的故事和豪迈而华贵的武士作风；提起十字军东征，人们就不由得想起这
些曾为诗人歌咏过的题材。 它们所代表的是一些在我们记忆之外的人物，一些对我们完全陌
生的风俗习惯。它们像是从遥远的奇乡异 邦搬来的古董，我们对于那些地方并无确定的知识，
只有模糊而空幻的想像。这些哥特式坟墓上的雕像， 具有一种极其庄严肃穆的气概，它们的
身躯舒展，仿佛是在长眠，或是正在作临终之前的祈祷。现代的纪 念像上虽然多的是奇异的
姿态，过分的雕琢，和象征性的陪讨，却远不如这些雕像能够深探地打动我的心 弦。古墓上
的碑文，很多精心之作。也曾使我感动。古人在立言方面确有高明之处，他们懂得如何把话< br>说得很简短，同时说得很漂亮；有一家贵族的墓碑上这样写道：“男儿皆勇女儿贞”，我不知
道还 有什么碑文能比这句话更为崇高地把家族的价值和荣誉意识表达出来。

In the opposite transept to Poet's Corner stands a monument which is among the most renowned
achievements of modern art, but which to me appears horrible rather than sublime. It is the tomb
of Mrs. Nightingale, by Roubillac. The bottom of the monument is represented as throwing open
its marble doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The shroud is falling from his fleshless
frame as he launches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into her affrighted husband's arms, who
strives with vain and frantic effort to avert the blow. The whole is executed with terrible truth and
spirit; we almost fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting from the distended jaws of

the spectre. But why should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary terrors, and to spread
horrors round the tomb of those we love? The grave should be surrounded by everything that
might inspire tenderness and veneration for the dead, or that might win the living to virtue. It is the
place not of disgust and dismay, but of sorrow and meditation.
在诗人祠对面的十字形侧堂内树立着一座纪念 碑，它是最著名的现代艺术杰作之一；但在我
看来，与其说它壮观，不如说它可怖。这是法国雕刻家罗比 亚所设计南丁格尔夫人之墓。纪
念碑的底脚刻的是两扇撞开的大理石门，门口窜出一个披着尸衣的骷髅。 他正举起标枪，向
受难者投掷，尸衣也正从他枯槁的身上滑卸下来。南丁格尔夫人倒在她那谅惶的丈夫的 臂怀
中，他正发狂似地拼命抵御，徒然地想要挡住那致命的一击。整个作品充满了活力，而且逼
真得可怕；我们几乎觉得魔鬼张开的牙床间，正进发出一阵胜利的呐喊。但我们为何把死亡
妆扮得如此可 怕，在我们所敬爱的死者之墓的周围散布如许恐怖呢?坟墓的装饰应该激发对
死者的柔情和敬意，或者有 一种催人向善的力量。古人的坟墓并不要使人生出憎厌和沮丧的
情感，而是叫人来哀悼和沉思的。

While wandering about these gloomy vaults and silent aisles, studying the records of the dead, the
sound of busy existence from without occasionally reaches the ear--the rumbling of the passing
equipage, the murmur of the multitude, or perhaps the light laugh of pleasure. The contrast is
striking with the deathlike repose around; and it has a strange effect upon the feelings thus to hear
the surges of active life hurrying along and beating against the very walls of the sepulchre.
我正徘徊在幽暗的拱廊和静寂的侧堂中，研究着有 关死者的记录，外面却时时传来忙碌的都
市之声——辚辚的马车声，嘈杂的人声，甚至轻快的笑声。它们 和周围死一般的宁静构成强
烈的对照；在寺里边听到外面紧张生活的浪潮冲激着这个墓堂的墙壁，真有说 不出的奇异感
觉。

I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb and from chapel to chapel. The day was
gradually wearing away; the distant tread of loiterers about the abbey grew less and less frequent;
the sweet-tongued bell was summoning to evening prayers; and I saw at a distance the choristers
in their white surplices crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood before the entrance to
Henry the Seventh's chapel. A flight of steps leads up to it through a deep and gloomy but
magnificent arch. Great gates of brass, richly and delicately wrought, turn heavily upon their
hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of common mortals into this most gorgeous of
sepulchres.
就这样，我继续从一座坟墓移步至另一座，从一所礼拜堂走到另一所 。天色渐暮，深入寺内
的走道上的游客脚步声变得愈来愈稀少了；悦耳的铃声正在召唤人们去晚祷；我远 远看见唱
诗班的成员，披着白架装，跨过通廊，纷纷入席。我站在亨利七世②礼拜堂的入口处。堂前有一道阶梯，进门前先得穿过一座幽深而宏伟的拱门。黄铜大门，雕饰得富丽精巧，开启时
绞链发出 吃力的转动声，好像傲慢得不愿让凡夫俗子擅自闯入这所最华丽的墓堂。

On entering the eye is astonished by the pomp of architecture and the elaborate beauty of
sculptured detail. The very walls are wrought into universal ornament encrusted with tracery, and
scooped into niches crowded with the statues of saints and martyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning
labor of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density, suspended aloft as if by magic,
and the fretted roof achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb.
进得门去，满目华丽的建筑和精美的雕刻，令人目眩神迷。连墙壁上全都布满了装 饰，镶嵌

着哥持式窗顶的线纹格子，凿成一座一座壁龛，里面挤满了圣徒和殉道者的雕像 。石碑经过
斧钻巧妙的凿刻之后，仿佛丧失了原有的重量和密度，还有那雕饰纤细如蛛网的屋顶，都像< br>被一种神奇的力量，高悬在空中。

Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of the Knights of the Bath, richly carved of oak,
though with the grotesque decorations of Gothic architecture. On the pinnacles of the stalls are
affixed the helmets and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords, and above them are
suspended their banners, emblazoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the splendor of gold
and purple and crimson with the cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this grand
mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder --his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a
sumptuous tomb--and the whole surrounded by a superbly-wrought brazen railing.
礼拜堂的两侧，设有巴斯 骑士③的高大座位，那都是雕刻华丽的橡木座位，但缀有哥特式建
筑的古怪装饰。座位的顶端覆着武士的 盔饰，还有他们的绶带和佩剑；其上悬着他们的旌旗，
饰有纹章，它那明艳的金、紫、大红三种色彩，和 屋顶灰暗的浮雕细工恰成对照。在这宏伟
的陵寝中央，坐落着亨利七世之坟，——他和皇后的雕像躺在一 块豪华的墓碑上，四周围绕
着制作精美的黄铜栅栏。

There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence, this strange mixture of tombs and trophies, these
emblems of living and aspiring ambition, close beside mementos which show the dust and
oblivion in which all must sooner or later terminate. Nothing impresses the mind with a deeper
feeling of loneliness than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former throng and pageant. On
looking round on the vacant stalls of the knights and their esquires, and on the rows of dusty but
gorgeous banners that were once borne before them, my imagination conjured up the scene when
this hall was bright with the valor and beauty of the land, glittering with the splendor of jewelled
rank and military array, alive with the tread of many feet and the hum of an admiring multitude.
All had passed away; the silence of death had settled again upon the place, interrupted only by the
casual chirping of birds, which had found their way into the chapel and built their nests among its
friezes and pendants--sure signs of solitariness and desertion.
这是一个由坟墓和战利品混合而成的奇异场所；在一切富丽堂皇之中，在这象征 雄心壮志的
标志之中，却有着凄凉寂寞之感；因为这些标志都和坟墓为邻，紧靠着积满尘埃和被人遗忘< br>的纪念物，而世人无不迟早将会在尘埃和湮没中获得归宿。走在一个寂静荒凉的地方，想起
当年该 地的繁华热闹，再没有比这更使人油然兴起一种深深的寂寞之感。我打量着骑士及其
侍从的空位，和一排 排曾在他们前面飘扬，如今积满尘埃却依然华丽如故的旗帜，眼前不禁
涌现一幅幻象：看到昔日的这座大 厅里，正云集着当时该地的英雄和美人；辉耀着珠光宝气
的仕女和全副戎装的骑士行列；只听见不少人的 脚步声杂沓不停，众人正在赞叹称羡的嘁嘁
喳喧的声音。刹那间，这一切都已消逝；死一般的寂静重新笼 罩下来，耳边只有一两声偶尔
啁啾的鸟鸣——连鸟儿都已闯进这座礼拜堂，并在梁柱间筑起它们的爱巢， 可见此处是如何
的荒凉和寥落。

When I read the names inscribed on the banners, they were those of men scattered far and wide
about the world--some tossing upon distant seas: some under arms in distant lands; some mingling
in the busy intrigues of courts and cabinets,--all seeking to deserve one more distinction in this
mansion of shadowy honors--the melancholy reward of a monument.
族旗上绣有人名,我上前一看，原来他们是曾经派往世界各地的大臣；有些远涉重 洋，有些

征战异乡；有些纠缠在宫廷内阁层出不穷的密谋之中；他们的目的无非希望在这 个幽暗的光
荣殿堂里，多赢一个显赫的称号，一块阴郁的墓碑，以酬他们生前的辛劳。

Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present a touching instance of the equality of the
grave, which brings down the oppressor to a level with the oppressed and mingles the dust of the
bitterest enemies together. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty Elizabeth; in the other is that of
her victim, the lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the day but some ejaculation of pity is
uttered over the fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her oppressor. The walls of
Elizabeth's sepulchre continually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved at the grave of her rival.
堂两侧的两个小型侧堂里，呈现出一个动人 的景象：显示着坟墓与坟墓之间的平等，它使压
迫者降至和被压迫者相同的地位，使两个冤家的遗骸聚在 一起。一个侧堂之中是倨傲的伊丽
莎白女王之墓，另一侧堂之中是那位被她杀害的可爱的玛丽④之墓。白 天里无时无刻没有人
对后者发出怜悯的叹息，叹息之中还夹杂着对前者的愤恨。游客为玛丽所作的同情之 叹，经
常还在她仇敌的墓墙上传出回声。

A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly
through windows darkened by dust. The greater part of the place is in deep shadow, and the walls
are stained and tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of Mary is stretched upon the tomb,
round which is an iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national emblem--the thistle. I was
weary with wandering, and sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolving in my mind the
chequered and disastrous story of poor Mary. < br>埋葬着玛丽的那个侧堂里弥漫着异样的阴郁气象。从那密布灰尘的窗户里只穿进几丝朦胧的
日光。 那里幽影笼罩，墙壁上满是被时间和气候所侵蚀的痕迹。墓上躺着玛丽的大理石像，
四周围以铁栅，大部 分都己锈坏．上面刻有她的国微——苏格兰的蓟形国微。我已走倦了，
就在她的墓旁坐下休息，心中默念 着玛丽一生的坎坷和不幸。

The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the abbey. I could only hear, now and then, the
distant voice of the priest repeating the evening service and the faint responses of the choir; these
paused for a time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion, and obscurity that were gradally
prevailing around gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the place;
零星的足声已从寺内消失。我只听见 远处时时传来祭司朗诵晚祷经的声音，和唱诗班微弱的
应答声；当这些声音停息之时，整个大寺变得鸦雀 无声。四周的一切逐渐为沉静、孤寂、和
幽暗所笼罩，使这个场所给人一种更为深沉和更为严肃的情趣⑤ ：

For in the silent grave no conversation,
No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers,
No careful father's counsel--nothing's heard,
For nothing is, but all oblivion,
Dust, and an endless darkness.
——因为安静的墓中没有谈话之声，
没有知己的足音，没有情侣的呼唤，
没有严父的叮哼——什么也听不见，
因为什么也不存在，什么都湮没无闻，
只有尘土，和那无尽的黑暗。

Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring organ burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and
redoubled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge billows of sound. How well do their volume and
grandeur accord with this mighty building! With what pomp do they swell through its vast vaults,
and breathe their awful harmony through these caves of death, and make the silent sepulchre vocal!
And now they rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and higher their accordant notes and
piling sound on sound. And now they pause, and the soft voices of the choir break out into sweet
gushes of melody; they soar aloft and warble along the roof, and seem to play about these lofty
vaults like the pure airs of heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling thunders,
compressing air into music, and rolling it forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences! What
solemn sweeping concords! It grows more and more dense and powerful; it fills the vast pile and
seems to jar the very walls--the ear is stunned--the senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding
up in full jubilee--it is rising from the earth to heaven; the very soul seems rapt away and floated
upwards on this swelling tide of harmony!
突然间，耳边轰然响起了深沉的管风琴演奏的声音，一阵强似一阵，仿佛卷起了排山倒海的
声浪。其音量 之大，音色之富丽，和这个宏伟的建筑恰好相配！琴声是何等的壮丽，它从广
大的拱形礼拜堂中滚滚涌出 ，以庄严的和声渗入这些死人的洞穴，使得静默的坟墓发出了声
响!现在，管风琴奏起了激昂高亢的声调 ，随着和音逐渐上升，一声高似一声。一下子管风
琴停了，唱诗班送出了一阵阵柔美的歌声，歌声上扬， 颤悠悠地回绕着屋顶，仿佛把这些高
耸的拱顶当作了天堂，在那纯净的天宇间恣意游荡。管风琴又吼出滚 滚巨雷，激越的轰鸣把
空气化成音乐，翻腾向前，叩击人们的心灵。多么幽长的音调！多么庄严雄浑的和 弦！琴声
愈来愈强，愈来愈有力——整个大寺为其弥漫，好像墙壁都被它震撼；耳朵几乎震聋，五官受其镇慑。现在它奏起了绝顶欢腾的尾声——从地面升向天空——灵魂好像被它摄去而离开
了躯体， 随着那汹涌澎湃的声浪向上飘逝。

I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire:
the shadows of evening were gradually thickening round me; the monuments began to cast deeper
and deeper gloom; and the distant clock again gave token of the slowly waning day.
我在迷离恍惚的状态中坐了一些时候，音乐往往会使 人心荡神移。这时暮色逐渐笼罩在我的
四周；纪念碑开始投射更深更深的幽影，远处又传来钟声，报道白 昼正在消逝。

I rose and prepared to leave the abbey. As I descended the flight of steps which lead into the body
of the building, my eye was caught by the shrine of Edward the Confessor, and I ascended the
small staircase that conducts to it, to take from thence a general survey of this wilderness of tombs.
The shrine is elevated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are the sepulchres of various
kings and queens. From this eminence the eye looks down between pillars and funeral trophies to
the chapels and chambers below, crowded with tombs, where warriors, prelates, courtiers, and
statesmen lie mouldering in their of by me stood the great chair of
coronation, rudely carved of oak in the barbarous taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene
seemed almost as if contrived with theatrical artifice to produce an effect upon the beholder. Here
was a type of the beginning and the end of human pomp and power; here it was literally but a step
from the throne to the sepulchre. Would not one think that these incongruous mementos had been
gathered together as a lesson to living greatness?--to show it, even in the moment of its proudest
exaltation, the neglect and dishonor to which it must soon arrive--how soon that crown which

encircles its brow must pass away, and it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, and
be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of the multitude. For, strange to tell, even the grave is
here no longer a sanctuary. There is a shocking levity in some natures which leads them to sport
with awful and hallowed things, and there are base minds which delight to revenge on the
illustrious dead the abject homage and grovelling servility which they pay to the living. The coffin
of Edward the Confessor has been broken open, and his remains despoiled of their funereal
ornaments; the sceptre has been stolen from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth; and the effigy of
Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal monument but bears some proof how false and fugitive
is the homage of mankind. Some are plundered, some mutilated, some covered with ribaldry and
insult,--all more or less outraged and dishonored.
我起身准备离寺。我正走下亨利七世 礼拜堂的台阶，忽然望见忏悔者爱德华⑥的神龛，于是
从一个小阶梯拾级而登，预备在那高处对这块荒凉 的坟地作一鸟瞰。神龛筑于高坛之上，四
周是列王列后的陵寝。站在这个高坛上，目光可从柱梁和墓碑之 间，俯视下面挤满了坟墓的
礼拜堂和斋舍；其间有无数的武士、教长、大臣和政客正躺在“黑暗之床”上 不停地化为尘
土。我的身旁竖着那张伟大的加冕宝座，座为橡木所制，雕刻简陋，完全是哥特时代的粗犷
作风。此处的景象好像经过一番戏剧性的设计，要使目击者产生某种感触。这儿象征着人生
富贵 荣华的起点和终点；因为御座和坟墓之间的距离实际上只有一步之遥。这些并不相称的
纪念物聚在一起， 怎不令人觉得这是给当代显贵的一个教训?——即使处在人生荣耀顶峰，
不久必将来临的没落的命运也就 近在面前；罩在他额上的皇冠，很快就会消失，而他必须在
坟墓的尘埃和屈辱中躺下，还要被最卑贱的民 众的脚任意践踏。因为，说来奇怪，连这里的
墓地也都己不再是至圣之所了。有些人的气质轻浮得可怕， 使他们对于尊严和神圣的东西竟
也会加以狎弄；有些生性卑劣的人，他们对犹还在世的伟人卑躬屈膝，却 把由此而产生的那
股怨毒发泄在威名显赫的先贤身上，以图报复。忏悔者爱德华的棺木曾遭破坏而开启， 殉葬
之物已被掠夺一空，威仪显赫的伊丽莎白女王手中的节杖已经被盗，亨利五世⑦的雕像已成
了无头之躯。这里的每位君主的纪念碑上都留有一些痕迹，证明世人的恭敬祟仰是多么虚妄
无据。有些遭 掠夺，有些被肢解；有些被涂上了淫词秽语——他们或多或少都遭受过亵渎和
侮辱！

The last beams of day were now faintly streaming through the painted windows in the high vaults
above me; the lower parts of the abbey were already wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The
chapels and aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the kings faded into shadows; the
marble figures of the monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain light; the evening
breeze crept through the aisles like the cold breath of the grave; and even the distant footfall of a
verger, traversing the Poet's Corner, had something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly
retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with
a jarring noise behind me, filled the whole building with echoes.
从我上面的那些 高大拱顶的彩色玻璃窗里，现在正泻下几丝残余的日光；寺院较低的部分业
已笼罩在薄暮的阴影之中，礼 拜堂和两旁侧廊幽暗益深。那些帝王的偶像逐渐模糊而成—个
个阴影；一座座纪念碑上的大理石像在朦胧 恍惚的光线中变得奇形怪状；侧廊上晚风袭人，
森森然像是坟墓中吹来的阵阵寒气；甚至从诗人祠那边传 来的一位教士的足音，都令人悚然
产生奇异的恐怖之感。我慢慢地踏着早晨的来路回去，当我穿出回廊的 门口，廊门在我后面
嘎嘎作声地关上，回声响彻整座屋宇。

I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind of the objects I had been contemplating, but

found they were already falling into indistinctness and confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies,
had all become confounded in my recollection, though I had scarcely taken my foot from off the
threshold. What, thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but a treasury of humiliation--a
huge pile of reiterated homilies on the emptiness of renown and the certainty of oblivion? It is,
indeed, the empire of death; his great shadowy palace where he sits in state mocking at the relics
of human glory and spreading dust and forgetfulness on the monuments of princes. How idle a
boast, after all, is the immortality of a name! Time is ever silently turning over his pages; we are
too much engrossed by the story of the present to think of the characters and anecdotes that gave
interest to the past; and each age is a volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The idol of
to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of our recollection, and will in turn be supplanted by his
successor of tomorrow. fathers,says Sir Thomas Browne, their graves in our short
memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors.
becomes clouded with doubt and controversy; the inscription moulders from the tablet; the statue
falls from the pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they but heaps of sand, and their
epitaphs but characters written in the dust? What is the security of a tomb or the perpetuity of an
embalmment? The remains of Alexander the Great have been scattered to the wind, and his empty
sarcophagus is now the mere curiosity of a museum.
or time hath spared, avarice now consumeth; Mizraim cures wounds, and Pharaoh is sold for
balsams.
我很想把我在大寺里的所见所思在心中理出一个头绪，但 是所有的一切已经变得模糊而混
乱。我的脚刚刚跨出门槛，那些人名、碑文、纪念物都已在我的记忆里混 淆不清了。我心中
想道：这座大寺，聚葬如许名人，不就等于一部警世宝鉴，一部一再申述盛名之虚妄和 湮没
无闻之必然的伟大教训吗?它是死神的帝国，黑暗的皇宫；死神堂皇地坐着，向伟人的遗骸
嘲笑，在王公贵族的纪念碑上洒着尘土，同时也使它们被世人所遗忘。“英名不朽”这句大
话，毕竟是多 么空虚!时间永远是在静静地翻动着他的书页；我们忙着注意眼前的新闻，无
暇去想那些曾经轰动一时的 古人和轶事；每个时代都只是一卷历史，很快的被后人丢弃一旁，
置谙脑后。今天的偶像把昨天的英雄推 出我们记忆之外；但是明天又有明天的偶像，他又把
他的地位取而代之了。托马斯·布朗爵士⑧曾说：“ 我们的祖先发现他们的坟墓只在我们心
里留得片刻的记忆，他们同时也悲伤地告诉我们：我们的后代也要 把我们很快的遗忘。”历
史化为传说；怀疑和争论只是使真相更为模糊，匾额上的碑文渐渐朽腐；偶像也 会从底座上
倒塌。圆柱、拱门、金字塔，不都只是几堆沙土吗?上面所刻的墓志铭不都只是写在泥土里< br>的几个字吗?坟基给人什么保障?香油能够使尸体永不腐坏吗?亚力山大大帝的遗骸早已随风
四散 ，他的空石棺现在只成了博物馆里的一件古董。“那些未遭冈比西斯⑧或时间所摧毁的
埃及木乃伊，现在 已葬送于贪婪之手；木乃伊成为商品，米兹腊伊姆被用作伤药，法老被售
作香膏⑨。”

What then is to ensure this pile which now towers above me from sharing the fate of mightier
mausoleums? The time must come when its gilded vaults which now spring so loftily, shall lie in
rubbish beneath the feet; when instead of the sound of melody and praise the wind shall whistle
through the broken arches and the owl hoot from the shattered tower; when the garish sunbeam
shall break into these gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine round the fallen column; and
the fox-glove hang its blossoms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the dead. Thus man
passes away; his name passes from record and recollection; his history is as a tale that is told, and
his very monument becomes a ruin.

那么，有什么东西能担保这所巍巍大寺不和那些更宏伟的神庙遭受同样的命运呢?总有一天，
这些高耸的镀金拱顶会变成踩在脚下的碎屑；其时，这儿决不会听到有什么音乐和赞美歌，
只有 破拱门里的飒飒风声，伴和着破塔上的枭啼——其时，眩目的阳光将穿进这些幽暗的墓
堂，常春藤将攀绕 在倾倒的圆柱上；毛地黄把花冠垂在无名者的骨灰瓮上，仿佛嘲笑里面的
死人。人就这样消逝了；他的名 字将从世人的记录和记忆中泯灭；他的一生就像一个说完了
的故事，而他的纪念碑终将沦为一座废墟。

① 艾迪生(Joseph Addison 1672-1719)，英国诗人、散文家、政治家。
② 亨利七世(Henry Ⅶ，1457－1509)，英国国王(1485—1509)。
③ 巴斯骑士——英国国王乔治一世于1725年设立的一种勋位。
④ 玛丽（Mary Stuar t，1542-1587），苏格兰女王（1542－1567），扶旧教而抑新教。因
苏格兰革命，逃 亡英国，投奔伊丽莎白，被囚二十余年，终为伊丽莎白处死。
⑤ 原文诗句引自英国剧作家博蒙特(Francis Beaumont,1584—1616)和弗莱彻(John
Fletcher,1579—1625)两人合著的戏剧Thierry and Theodoret 第四幕第一场。
⑥ 忏悔者爱德华(Edward the Confessor ,1003-1066),英格兰国王，与诺曼第公爵威廉作
战，兵败身死。他于 1045年拆除原来的旧寺，重建规模宏伟的西敏大寺。
⑦ 亨利五世(Henry ⅴ 1387—1422)，英国国王，以文武兼资著称。
⑧ 冈比西斯(Cambyses，公元前 522年卒)，波斯帝国国王，曾征服埃及。米兹腊伊姆，
乃古代希伯莱人对埃及之称谓，此处似借用来 指古埃及贵族之遗骸或木乃伊。
⑨ 原注：这段引语出自英国作家、医师布朗(Thomas Browne,1605—1682)。指当时埃
及的木乃伊曾被冒充药材售卖。