爱情并非商品

By  Sydney J • Harris

    挚友到美国作访问学者一年，最近归来，我到机场去接他，未见其妻到机场去迎候他的归来。友人表情黯淡，双目无光。他轻声告诉我：因“第三者”的插足，妻子已经离他而去。

    过了几日，友人给我发来一个email，在附件中，我读到了Sydney J • Harris写的一篇短文，题目是：Love Is Not like Merchandise。

    我把短文打印出来，在灯下细览。觉得文章确实精彩。我为友人感到几分释然。看来，他已经想通。

    文章似乎出于“第三者”的辩护律师之手，振聋发聩，发人深省。我想在报端，在日常生活中，我们常得到“情杀”的消息，如果能够从本文的角度去看待心爱之人的离去，也许心中就会多一份平静和理性。

    Love Is Not like Merchandise全文如下：

    A reader in Florida, apparently bruised by some personal experience, writes in to complain “if I steal a nickel’s worth of merchandise, I am a thief and punished; but if I steal the love of another’s wife, I am free.”

    佛罗里达州的一位读者显然是在个人生活中受过创伤，他写信来悲叹道：“如果我偷走了五分钱的商品，我是个贼，就要受到惩罚，但要是我偷走了别人妻子的爱情，我却没事。”

    小析：文中的bruised一词可资欣赏。bruise的本义是“打伤，撞伤”，用于转义，行文顿时生色。现代英语的特征之一是少用虚拟语气的表达。if I steal a nickel’s worth of merchandise一句，就严格意义言，应写成：if I had stolen a nickel’s worth of merchandise。此外，作者用了比喻，文章即起波澜，可读性得以强化。complain若译成“抱怨”，则有underdone之嫌。

    This is a prevalent misconception in many people’s minds that love, like merchandise, can be “stolen.” Numerous states, in fact, have enacted laws allowing damages for “alienation of affections.”

    这是许多人心目中普遍存在的一种错觉爱情，像商品一样，可以“偷走”。实际上，许多州都颁布法令，允许索取“情感转让”赔偿金。

    小析：译文似乎可以作如下修改：

    这是一个普遍的误解：爱情，犹如商品，可以“偷走”。实际上，许多州都颁布了法令，允许索取“情感转让”赔偿金。

    But love is not a commodity; the real thing cannot be bought, sold, traded or stolen. It is an act of the will, a turning of the emotions, a change in the climate of the personality.

但是爱情并非商品；真情实意不可能购买，出售，交易，或者偷走。爱情是意愿之果，感情之向，是个性潮流之变。

    小析：行文层层推进，有条不紊，应归功于若干词汇的重复，如：merchandise  /  commodity / stolen。

    When a husband or wife is “stolen” by another person, that husband or wife was already ripe for the stealing, was already predisposed toward a new partner. The “lovebandit” was only taking what was waiting to be taken, what wanted to be taken.

    当丈夫或妻子被他人“偷走”，那个丈夫或妻子被“偷”的条件成熟，已经做好了接纳新伴侣的准备。这位“爱匪”不过是取走等候取走、盼望取走之物。

    小析：lovebandit显然是一个nonce word (临时造词)，无须查阅词典，词典也查阅不到。英语构词之便捷，由此可见一斑。可以庆幸的是，汉语也可以“爱匪”译之。

    人们往往同情“被盗者”，而不去对“被盗者”去细作分析。此段文笔不可谓不犀利。

    We tend to treat persons like goods. We ever speak of children “belonging” to their parents. But nobody “belongs” to anyone else; each person belongs to himself, and to God. Children are entrusted to their parents, and if their parents do not treat them properly, the state has a right to remove from their parents’ trusteeship.

    我们往往待人如物。我们甚至说孩子“属于”父母。但是谁也不“属于”谁。每个个人只属于自己，属于上帝。孩子是托付给父母的，如果父母不善待他们，州政府有权取消父母的托管。

    小析：字里行间流露出几分清醒，几分哲理。不是吗？父母辛苦一场，把子女拉扯大，因此，就觉得孩子“属于”父母。许多家庭纷争就是源于此观念。“托管”二字尽管难以被为人父母者所接受，但是这是一个不争的事实，一个大彻大悟的理念！

    Most of us, when young, had the experience of a sweetheart being taken from us by somebody more attractive and more appealing. At the time, we may have resented this intruder— but as we grew older, we recognized that the sweetheart had never been ours to begin with. It was not the intruder that “caused” the break, but the lack of a real relationship.

我们中的多数人年轻时也许都有过情人被某个更漂亮、更具魅力的人夺走的经历。当时，我们也许怨恨这位“窃贼”，但是，随年岁的组长，我们认识到：所谓情人，原本就不属于我们。不是“窃贼”“导致”决裂，而是本来就缺乏真实的关系。

    小析：文中短语to begin with值得我们记学。它传达了一种口吻：原来，本来。原本。另如：He had been rich to begin with and had now grown even richer. 他本来就富有，现在变得更有钱了。The business went well to begin with, and he prospered. 生意一开头就顺利，于是他发迹了。此外，上段的一个名词用得很好，国人写英语很少会想到用这个词：intruder。

    On the surface, many marriages seem to break up because of a “third party.” This is, however, a psychological illusion. The other woman or the other man merely serves as a pretext for dissolving a marriage that had already lost its essential integrity.

    从表面上看，许多婚姻似乎是因为有了“第三者”才破裂的。然而这只是一种心理幻觉。那个女人，或者那个男人，无非是作为借口，用来解除早就不是完好无损的婚姻罢了。

    小析：文中最难译的单词是pretext，译成“借口”，似乎欠当。Webster’s New World Dictionary对pretext的释义之一是：a cover-up, front。意思是：掩盖；幌子。

    上句是否可以改译：

    从表面上看，许多婚姻似乎是因为有了“第三者”才破裂的。然而这只是一种心理幻觉。那个女人，或者那个男人，实际上掩盖了一个已经失却真正意义的婚姻的解体。

    Nothing is more futile and more self-defeating than the bitterness of spurned love, the vengeful feeling that someone else has “come between” oneself and a beloved. This is always a distortion of reality, for people are not the captives or victims of others — they are free agents, wording out their own destinies for good or for ill.

    因爱情破裂而痛苦，因别人“插足”于自己与心上人之间而生复仇之心，是最没有出息、最自欺欺人的了。这是对事实的歪曲，因为谁都没有给别人当俘虏或牺牲品，他们都是自由的，不论命运是好是坏，都自己来做主。

    小析：文章如层层剥笋，观点渐渐深入。此段最值得记学的是开头一句的句型：Nothing is more futile and more self-defeating than the bitterness…读者不妨设想，假如不用此倒装句型，句子将变得头轻尾重，而不符合英语的句法习惯。如：The bitterness of spurned love, the vengeful feeling that someone else has “come between” oneself and a beloved is most futile and self-defeating. 

    But the rejected lover of mate cannot afford to believe that his beloved has freely turned away from him — and so he ascribes sinister or magical properties to the interloper. He calls him a hypnotist or a thief or a home-breaker. In the vast majority of cases, however, when a home is broken, the breaking has begun long before any “third party “ has appeared on the scene.

    但是，遭离弃的情人或配偶无法相信他的心上人是自由地背离他的，因而他归咎于插足者心术不正或迷人有招。他把他叫做催眠师、窃贼或家庭破坏者。然而，从大多数事例看，一个家的破裂，是早在什么“第三者”出现之前就开始了的。

    小析：译者将lover of mate译成了“情人或配偶”显然不当。of ≠ or！lover of mate指一对“情人或配偶”中的一方，上句指男方。原句中的appeared on the scene写得非常生动，译文是否可以适当加以保留呢？如译：一个家庭的破裂，是早在“第三者”登台亮相之前。