Three Passions 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 deep 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 relives 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 on the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring version 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 hated 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 the 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.
【清理词汇】
Ø miniature ['miniətʃə] n. 缩图，小画像；adj. 小型的
Ø famine ['fæmin] n. 饥荒，极度缺乏
Ø despair [di'spɛə] n. 绝望，失望；vi. 失望
Ø alleviate [ə'li:vieit] vt. 减轻，使……缓和
Ø overwhelmingly [.əvə'welmiŋli] adv. 压倒性地，不可抵抗地
Ø anguish ['æŋgwiʃ] n. 苦闷，痛苦；v. 使……极苦闷
【参考译文】
One Possible Version
人生三愿
伯特兰·罗素
我一生无奢求，惟有三种愿望萦怀心际，至今挥之不去。一曰博爱，二曰求知，三曰同情普天下贫弱之人。这三种愿望居然像狂风一样，将我驱来赶去，时而令我几近淹于苦海，时而逼我悬于绝壁危崖。
我之所以追求博爱，理由有三。首先，它能携我进入一种令人心旷神怡的境界。每逢此刻，我总是想以几小时的欢愉来换取自己的后半生。其次，它能免除我的孤独和寂寞。孤独和寂寞委实可怕，往往令人胆寒身颤，仿佛整个世界一刹那便成了一座死气沉沉的万丈深渊。第三，它能使我窥见一种若隐若现的蓬莱仙境，这仙境和圣人、诗人描绘或想象的那种仙境一模一样。如此美妙神奇的博爱对人生而言，实在是可望而不可及，然而我终究找到了它，遂了自己的心愿
