Hansonius

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Of Love by Francis Bacon The stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. You may observe, that amongst all the great and worthy persons (whereof the memory remaineth, either ancient or recent) there is not one, that hath been transported to the mad degree of love: which shows that great spirits, and great business, do keep out this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus Antonius, the half partner of the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius, the decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the former was indeed a voluptuous man, and inordinate; but the latter was an austere and wise man: and therefore it seems (though rarely) that love can find entrance, not only into an open heart, but also into a heart well fortified, if watch be not well kept. It is a poor saying of Epicurus, Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus; as if man, made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little idol, and make himself a subject, though not of the mouth (as beasts are), yet of the eye; which was given him for higher purposes. It is a strange thing, to note the excess of this passion, and how it braves the nature, and value of things, by this; that the speaking in a perpetual hyperbole, is comely in nothing but in love. Neither is it merely in the phrase; for whereas it hath been well said, that the arch-flatterer, with whom all the petty flatterers have intelligence, is a man's self; certainly the lover is more. For there was never proud man thought so absurdly well of himself, as the lover doth of the person loved; and therefore it was well said, That it is impossible to love, and to be wise. Neither doth this weakness appear to others only, and not to the party loved; but to the loved most of all, except the love be reciproque. For it is a true rule, that love is ever rewarded, either with the reciproque, or with an inward and secret contempt. By how much the more, men ought to beware of this passion, which loseth not only other things, but itself! As for the other losses, the poet's relation doth well figure them: that he that preferred Helena, quitted the gifts of Juno and Pallas. For whosoever esteemeth too much of amorous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom. This passion hath his floods, in very times of weakness; which are great prosperity, and great adversity; though this latter hath been less observed: both which times kindle love, and make it more fervent, and therefore show it to be the child of folly. They do best, who if they cannot but admit love, yet make it keep quarters; and sever it wholly from their serious affairs, and actions, of life; for if it check once with business, it troubleth men's fortunes, and maketh men, that they can no ways be true to their own ends. I know not how, but martial men are given to love: I think, it is but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures. There is in man's nature, a secret inclination and motion, towards love of others, which if it be not spent upon some one or a few, doth naturally spread itself towards many, and maketh men become humane and charitable; as it is seen sometime in friars. Nuptial love maketh mankind; friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love corrupteth, and embaseth it.

EMPEROR MALGRE LUI 不自在的皇帝 --选自《Imperfect Understanding 不够知己》温源宁 著 In the long history of mankind there have been many commoners made emperors; there have been many emperors forced to abdicate the throne;there have also been some exiled emperors who made a successful struggle back to the throne, as, in the case of Napoleon I. But there have been few, if any, instances where a man was made emperor three times without knowing why and apparently without relishing it. Believe it or not, Mr. Henry Puyi holds the world's record in the number of times that any mortal may ascend and abdicate the throne-that is, after March 1 when he will be crowned for the third time. Yes, Henry was born lucky- if being an emperor as he was can be considered as such. At the age of four, his late uncle Emperor Kwang Hsu died and as he left no offspring, Empress Dowager Tsu Hsi picked Henry as the nearest of kin to be the successor. So, in 1909 when he was a mere infant, Henry was ceremoniously enthroned and was supposed to reign under the title of Hsuan Tung. History does not record how he liked his coronation, but we can easily imagine how a kid of four years old would react when he is forced to leave his bed at four or five o'clock in the morning, to keep quiet on the throne and to watch kowtowing all round. Henry must have forgotten his experience at coronation, otherwise he could have told us how out of curiosity and devilry he tried to snatch the crown jewels from his own head only to be put back again by the Empress who was sitting with him. He must have wished to give up everything- crown, throne, and all- to be able to come down to have a grand tussle with some of his subjects that kept on kowtowing to him. Whatever it was, it proved to be an unholy thought for a baby emperor and inauspicious for such an occasion, for after only three years of this grand ceremony, the revolution broke out and Yuan Shih-kai whom the Manchus trusted with the task of suppression of the revolution double-crossed his erstwhile masters and suggested abdication. What could the Manchus do against a man who was backed up to the limit by his henchmen who held important positions in the army? Accordingly, in 1912, the boy emperor was made to resign for the benefit of the country. But here again, the luck of the boy carried him through, for instead of having to submit to an ignominious fate and live in retirement as most emperors under similar circumstance would have to do, Henry was allowed to keep the palace and an enormous annuity of 4,000,000. He had lost his empire and all that it would bring, that is true; but for practical purpose, he was just as comfortably off and could command just as much respect inside the premises of the palace as he ever could. Then, on grand occasions, like new year, birthday, etc., some of his farmer subjects would come to kowtow to him just as they did formerly. However, his retirement did not last long. And if he did not appreciate the first coronation, at least he should the second occasion in 1917 when, after the successful coup d'etat by his faithful subject, the late notorious General Chang Hsun, he was again put on the throne. Henry was by this time eleven years old and certainly would have enjoyed seeing so many people fussing over him and paying respect to him. But the sin of his ancestors was evidently too much for him, for in about a week's time, Marshal Tuan Chi -jui's army surrounded Peking and Henry was again forced to abdicate and retire to the palace. Because of this experience and other reasons, he was chased out of the palace in 1924, when Marshal Feng Yu-hsiang came into power, and he had to seek refuge in the Japanese Concession in Tientsin. It was during this period that Henry enjoyed a little of the life of a normal man. He was now married- to two wives too. He studied English under Dr. Johnston from whom he got his foreign name, Henry, and it was undoubtedly due to this English man that he obtained his occasional favorable press comments in English a nd American journals. He was learning some manly sports, tennis, golf and what not. It was also during this time that his second wife sought to leave him and Henry had to pay her ¥ 50,000 for alimony in order to keep the matter out of court. Henry is probably the first emperor that has to do that. Usually when an emperor was dissatisfied with his wife, he just cut her head off or had her strangled. However, in spite of desertion and scandal, this was undoubtedly the happiest period in his life. The payment of his annuity had long since stopped, it is true; but he was never in want. Many of his former subjects were still rich and ready to help. Besides he had at his disposal a great amount of palace treasures that he had secreted out with him when fleeing from Peking. Under the circumstances, Henry would have been quite satisfied if he were to be left alone to pass his life in quietude. But evidently the sin of his ancestor was again working against him, when lo, all of a sudden there came the Japanese coup at Mukden on September 18, 1931, and he was spirited away from Tientsin and the next thing we heard of him was that he was chosen to be the head of the puppet state established by the Japanese in Manchuria. Report has it that Henry is not comfortable in his new surroundings and wishes that he could be restored the liberty and freedom that he enjoyed before. But regardless of his intentions, the Japanese are not yet through with him. They are going to make him 'emperor" once again. The future of the young man is very hard to tell. But those who realize that he is merely a victim of circumstance, in spite of the injustices that his ancestors did to the country, wish him well. May he outlive his usefulness. [No. 6; Feb. 8, 1934]

Act 3, Scene 1 DUKE VINCENTIO Be absolute for death; either death or life Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life: If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing That none but fools would keep: a breath thou art, Servile to all the skyey influences, That dost this habitation, where thou keep'st, Hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool; For him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun And yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble; For all the accommodations that thou bear'st Are nursed by baseness. Thou'rt by no means valiant; For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork Of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provokest; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself; For thou exist'st on many a thousand grains That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not; For what thou hast not, still thou strivest to get, And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain; For thy complexion shifts to strange effects, After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor; For, like an ass whose back with ingots bows, Thou bear's thy heavy riches but a journey, And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none; For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire, The mere effusion of thy proper loins, Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum, For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor youth nor age, But, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep, Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich, Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty, To make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this That bears the name of life? Yet in this life Lie hid moe thousand deaths: yet death we fear, That makes these odds all even. 一报还一报 第三幕 第一场 文森修公爵： 能够抱着必死之念，那么活果然好，死也无所惶虑。对于生命应当作这样的譬解：要是我失去了你，我所失去的，只是一件愚人才会加以爱惜的东西，你不过是一口气，寄托在一个多灾多难的躯壳里，受着一切天时变化的支配。你不过是被死神戏弄的愚人，逃避着死，结果却奔进他的怀里，你并不高贵，因为你所有的一切配备，都沾濡着污浊下贱。你并不勇敢，因为你畏惧着微弱的蛆虫的柔软的触角。睡眠是你所渴慕的最好的休息，可是死是永恒的宁静，你却对它心惊胆裂。你不是你自己，因为你的生存全赖着泥土中所生的谷粒。你并不快乐，因为你永远追求着你所没有的事物，而遗忘了你所已有的事物。你并不固定，因为你的脾气像月亮一样随时变化。你即使富有，也和穷苦无异，因为你正像一头不胜重负的驴子，背上驮载着金块在旅途上跋涉，直等死来替你卸下负荷。你没有朋友，因为即使是你自己的骨血，嘴里称你为父亲尊长，心里也在咒诅着你不早早伤风发疹而死。你没有青春也没有年老，二者都只不过是你在餐后的睡眠中的一场梦景；因为你在年轻的时候，必须像一个衰老无用的人一样，向你的长者乞讨赒济；到你年老有钱的时候，你的感情已经冰冷，你的四肢已经麻痹，你的容貌已经丑陋，纵有财富，也享不到丝毫乐趣。那么所谓生命这东西，究竟有什么值得宝爱呢？在我们的生命中隐藏着千万次的死亡，可是我们对于结束一切痛苦的死亡却那样害怕。

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe 1599 Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove That valleys, groves, hills, and fields Woods or steepy mountain yields And we will sit upon the rocks, Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flower, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle; A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold With buckles of the purest gold; A belt of straw and ivy buds, With coral clasps and amber studs; And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me and be my love. The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love. 激情的牧人致心爱的姑娘 来与我同住吧，做我的爱人， 我们将共享一切欢乐； 来自河谷、树丛、山岳、田野， 来自森林或陡峭的峻岭。 我们将坐在岩石上， 看牧人们放羊。 浅浅的小河流向瀑布， 小鸟唱着甜美的情歌。 我将为你用玫瑰作床， 还有上千支花束， 一顶鲜花编的花冠，一条长裙 绣满桃金娘的绿叶。 用最细的羊毛织一条长袍， 羊毛剪自我们最可爱的羊羔， 一双漂亮的衬绒软鞋为你御寒， 上面有纯金的带扣。 麦草和长春藤花蕾编的腰带， 珊瑚作钩，琥珀作扣， 如果这些乐趣能使你动心， 来与我同住吧，做我的爱人。 牧童情郎们将又跳又唱， 在每个五月的早晨使你欢畅， 如果这些趣事使你动心， 来与我同住吧，做我的爱人。 The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Raleigh 1600 If all the world and love were young, And truth in every shepherd's tongue, These pretty pleasures might me move To live with thee and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold, When rivers rage and rocks grow cold; And Philomel becometh dumb; The rest complain of cares to come. The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy bed of roses, Thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy posies, Soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, In folly ripe, in reason rotten. Thy belt of straw and ivy buds, Thy coral clasps and amber studs, All these in me no means can move To come to thee and be thy love. But could youth last and love still breed, Had joys no date nor age no need, Then these delights my mind might move To live with thee and be thy love. 仙女对牧羊人的回答 假如整个世界和爱情永驻青春 每一个牧羊人的誓言句句真诚 这些美妙的欢乐便会打动我的心房 来和你你起生活，做你的新娘 黄昏逐着羊群从田野进了羊栏 河水开始咆哮，岩石变的冰冷 夜莺停止歌唱沉默不语 安宁抱怨起悄然袭来的忧虑 花儿回凋落，诱人的田野也一样 屈从于冬天，它的变幻无常 甜蜜的舌头，一颗冷酷的心 是幻想的喷泉，却把痛苦降临 你的新袍，新鞋，和玫瑰花床 你的花冠，裙裾，和鲜花芬芳 瞬间便消失，褪萎，被忘怀 愚蠢的成熟，注定得早衰 你的草杆腰带，青藤编的束 珊瑚的别针，琥珀做的扣环 这一切都不能打动我的心房 走到你的身边去，做你的新娘 可只要青春常在，爱能得到滋润 只要愉悦无穷，岁月永恒 这样的欢乐就会打动我的心房 来和你一起生活做你的新娘。

The Merchant of Venice Act 3, Scene 2 BASSANIO So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceived with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt, But, being seasoned with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, What damned error, but some sober brow Will bless it and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament? There is no vice so simple but assumes Some mark of virtue on his outward parts: How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars; Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk; And these assume but valour's excrement To render them redoubted! Look on beauty, And you shall see 'tis purchased by the weight; Which therein works a miracle in nature, Making them lightest that wear most of it: So are those crisped snaky golden locks Which make such wanton gambols with the wind, Upon supposed fairness, often known To be the dowry of a second head, The skull that bred them in the sepulchre. Thus ornament is but the guiled shore To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word, The seeming truth which cunning times put on To entrap the wisest. Therefore, thou gaudy gold, Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee; Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge 'Tween man and man: but thou, thou meagre lead, Which rather threatenest than dost promise aught, Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence; And here choose I; joy be the consequence! 威尼斯商人 第三幕第二场 巴萨尼奥 外观往往和事物的本身完全不符，世人却容易为表面的装饰所欺骗。在法律上，哪一件卑鄙邪恶的陈诉不可以用娓娓动听的言词掩饰它的罪状？在宗教上，哪一桩罪大罪极的过失不可以引经据典，文过饰非，证明它的确上合天心？任何彰明昭著的罪恶，都可以在外表上装出一副道貌岸然的样子。多少没有胆量的懦夫，他们的心其实软弱得就像下不去脚的流沙，他们的肝如果剖出来看一看，大概比乳汁还要白，可是他们的颊上却长着天神一样威武的鬚髯，人家只看着他们的外表，也就居然把他们当作英雄一样看待！再看那些世间所谓美貌吧，那是完全靠着脂粉装点出来的，愈是轻浮的女人，所涂的脂粉也愈重；至于那些随风飘扬像蛇一样的金丝鬈发，看上去果然漂亮，不知道却是从坟墓中死人的骷髅上借来的。所以装饰不过是一道把船只诱进凶涛险浪的怒海中去的陷人的海岸，又像是遮掩着一个黑丑蛮女的一道美丽的面幕；总而言之，它是狡诈的世人用来欺诱智士的似是而非的真理。所以，你炫目的黄金，米达斯王的坚硬的食物，我不要你；你惨白的银子，在人们手里来来去去的下贱的奴才，我也不要你；可是你，寒伧的铅，你的形状只能使人退走，一点没有吸引人的力量，然而你的质朴却比巧妙的言辞更能打动我的心，我就选了你吧，但愿结果美满！ （翻译：朱生豪）

The Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography What I Have Lived For Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found. With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me. (Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) won the Nobel prize for literature for his History of Western Philosophy and was the co-author of Principia Mathematica.)

A Transcription: http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/

Translation of Boethius by Samuel Johnson O Thou whose pow'r o'er moving worlds presides, whose voice created and whose wisdom guides: on our dark world in purest brightness shine and cheer the clouded mind with light Divine. 'Tis Thine alone to calm the troubled breast with silent confidence and holy rest. From Thee, O Lord, we spring, to Thee we tend, Thou First and Last! Beginning Thou, and End!

YOUTH By Samuel Ullman Youth is not a time of life – it is a state of mind, it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease. Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair – these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust. Whether they are sixteen or seventy, there is in every being’s heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement at the stars and starlike things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what is to come next, and the joy and the game of life. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. When the wires are all down and all the innermost core of your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then you are grown old indeed. But so long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man and from the Infinite, so long you are young.

To be, or not to be (from Hamlet 3/1) by William Shakespeare To be, or not to be: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause: there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, The insolence of office and the spurns That patient merit of the unworthy takes, When he himself might his quietus make With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, But that the dread of something after death, The undiscover'd country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action.

"Ode To A Nightingale" John Keats My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,-- That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs, Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain-- To thy high requiem become a sod. Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?