（注：我让学生翻译了Laurie Lee写的散文Appetite。以下是辛颖的翻译，以及我的简评。欢迎评论。——侯国金，2007年12月22日。）

 

辛颖翻译：

欲望[h1] 

One of the major pleasures in life is appetite, and one of our major duties should be to preserve it.

1.人生一大乐事是有一个好胃口[h2] ，我们的主要任务之一就是保持这样的好胃口。

Appetite is the keenness of living; it is one of the senses that tells you that you are still curious to exist, that you still have an edge on your longings and want to bite into the world and taste its multitudinous flavors and juices.

2.食欲是对生活的强烈愿望；这是一种感觉，它告诉你生活中仍有很多渴望尚待实现，还想继续融入生活去品尝其千滋百味[h3] 。

  By appetite, of course, I don’t mean just the lust for food, but any condition of unsatisfied desire, any burning in the blood that proves you want more than you’ve got, and that you haven’t yet used up your life.

3.当然，所谓食欲并不仅仅指对食物的热望，而是泛指任何未满足的心愿，任何可以让血液为之沸腾的物事，证明自己对其求之而不足，人生之乐还未享受殆尽。

 Wilde said he felt sorry for those who never got their heart’s desire, but sorrier still for those who did.

4.王尔德说他对那些从未了却心愿的人感到遗憾，但为那些已心满意足之人更感到可悲。

I got mine once only, and it nearly killed me, and I’ve always preferred wanting to having since.，

5.我有一次满足了自己的愿望，但几乎为之倾尽心血。所以我宁愿永远一直追求。

  For appetite, to me, is this state of wanting, which keeps one’s expectations alive.

6.欲望对我来说是一种渴求的状态，它使希望永存。

I remember learning the lesson long ago as a child, when treats and orgies were few, and when I discovered that the greatest pitch of happiness was not in actually eating a toffee but in gazing at it beforehand.

 7.我记得懂得这个道理是在很久以前，我还是个孩子。那时我很少有机会受人款待或纵情饕餮[h4] ，我发现最大的幸福并非在享用太妃糖的时候，而是吃之前凝视它的那一瞬间。

True, the first bite was delicious, but once the toffee was gone one was left with nothing, neither toffee nor lust.

8.诚然，咬第一口会觉得美味绝伦，但太妃糖一旦吃完，一切即化为乌有，糖和欲望都会荡然无存。

Besides, the whole toffeeness of toffees was imperceptibly diminished by the gross act of having eaten it.

 9.除此之外，在大口吞咽的同时，太妃糖的美味也会在毫无察觉中消失殆尽。

No, the best was in wanting it, in sitting and looking at it, when one tasted an inexhaustible treasure-house of flavors.

10.这样做是不对的。在人们踏入美食宝库遍尝天下美味的时候，最重要的是要保持一颗渴望的心，坐下来凝视它们时的感觉。

  So, for me, one of the keenest pleasures of appetite remains in the wanting, not the satisfaction.

11.因此，对于我而言，食欲的最大乐趣之一仍在于对它的渴求，而并非得到满足。

In wanting a peach, or a whisky, or a particular texture or sound, or to be with a particular friend.

12.这种渴求可以是想吃一个桃子，喝一杯威士忌，或者是想感受某种质地的布料[h5] ，听某种声音[h6] 。

For in this condition, of course, I know that the object of desire is always at its most flawlessly perfect.

13.当然，我知道在这种情况下，心中所想之物总是毫无瑕疵，美妙绝伦[h7] 。

Which is why I would carry the preservation of appetite to the extent of deliberate fasting, simply because I think that appetite is too good to lose, too precious to be bludgeoned into insensibility by satiation and over-doing it.

14.因此，我会故意禁食以保持食欲，因为我相信食欲太重要而不可丧失，太珍贵而不可饱食过度至其麻木。

  For that matter, I don’t really want three square meals a day—I want one huge, delicious, orgiastic, table-groaning blow-out, say every four days, and then not be too sure where the next one is coming from.

 15.基于以上原因，我不想过一日三餐似的生活，而想每四天才能吃一顿丰富可口的美味佳肴，而盛宴过后不知下一次何时才来。

A day of fasting is not for me just a puritanical device for denying oneself a pleasure, but rather a way of anticipating a rare moment of supreme indulgence.

16.一天的禁食对于我来说并非[h8] 是要像清教徒那样使自己无欲无求，而是为未来鲜有的一次纵情做准备。

  Fasting is an act of homage to the majesty of appetite.

17.禁食是向伟大食欲表达敬意的行为。

So I think we should arrange to give up our pleasures regularly—our food, our friends, our lovers—in order to preserve their intensity, and the moment of coming back to them.

18.因此，我认为我们应时常放弃某种乐趣，比如美食，友情，爱情，以便能保存其醇浓，以后能有机会继续享受。

For this is the moment that renews and refreshes both oneself and the thing one loves.

19.这样的机会能让人们对所爱之物感情如初，也让自己能永存热爱之情。

Sailors and travelers enjoyed this once, and so did hunters, I suppose.

20.水手和游者曾喜爱这样做，我猜猎人也是如此。

Part of the weariness of modern life may be that we live too much on top of each other, and are entertained and fed too regularly.

21.现代生活的疲倦感可能一部分是由于我们忙于周旋应对，娱乐和饱餐太过频繁。

Once we were separated by hunger both from our food and families, and then we learned to value both.

22.一旦饥肠辘辘，无以果腹，远离家庭，我们才会懂得珍惜。

The men went off hunting, and the dogs went with them; the women and children waved goodbye.

 23.远古时男人外出打猎，猎狗相随；女人和孩子向他们挥手再见。The cave was empty of men for days on end; nobody ate, or knew what to do.

24.之后连续几天，洞穴里就再没有男人的身影；没东西吃也没人知道该怎么办。

The women crouched by the fire, the wet smoke in their eyes; the children wailed; everybody was hungry.

25.女人蜷曲在火堆旁，泪水迷蒙了双眼[h9] ；孩子们在嚎啕，哭喊不止；每个人都饥饿难耐。

Then one night there were shouts and the barking of dogs from the hills, and the men came back loaded with meat.

26.之后的某天晚上，从山边传来男人的喊声和狗的吠叫，他们满载猎物踏上[h10] 了归程。

This was the great reunion, and everybody gorged themselves silly, and appetite came into its own; the long-awaited meal became a feast to remember and an almost sacred celebration of life.

27.于是最盛大的团聚到来了，每个人都狼吞虎咽，尽兴方止。

Now we go off to the office and come home in the evenings to cheap chicken and frozen peas.

28.而如今，我们白天上班晚上回家，以快餐或冷冻食品[h11] 充饥。

Very nice, but too much of it, too easy and regular, served up without effort or wanting.

29.虽然有时也不错，但天长日久，轻而易举的得到食物会使人失掉对其的渴望。

We eat, we are lucky, our faces are shining with fat, but we don’t know the pleasure of being hungry any more.

30.我们有东西可吃，诚然幸哉乐哉，脸上油光可鉴，但却忘了饥饿的意义[h12] 。

  Too much of anything—too much music, entertainment, happy snacks, or time spent with one’s friends—creates a kind of impotence of living by which one can no longer hear, or taste, or see, or love, or remember.

31.任何事物过犹不及。太多[h13] 的音乐，娱乐，愉快的用餐时光，或与朋友在一起的时间，等等，都会让人丧失一种生活的能力，使他耳不能听，眼不能见，食不甘味，不能再爱，不复记忆。

Life is short and precious, and appetite is one of its guardians, and loss of appetite is a sort of death.

32.生命短暂珍贵，欲望是它的守护者之一。失去欲望是另一种死亡的表现。

So if we are to enjoy this short life we should respect the divinity of appetite, and keep it eager and not to [h14] much blunted.

33.所以，如果我们想享受这短暂的生命，那么我们就该尊重这神圣的欲望，时刻渴望，远离麻木。

  It is a long time now since I knew that acute moment of bliss that comes from putting parched lips to a cup of cold water.

34.长久以来，我就明白了快乐来自于干渴炙热的嘴唇触碰到清凉冰[h15] 水那一刹那。

The springs are still there to be enjoyed—all one needs is the original thirst.

35.就像春泉依旧可解渴—只需渴求如昨。[h16]