每天分享一篇中英雙語閱讀，對英語口語的練習很有幫助，也是積累英語考試中寫作，翻譯素材的好資料，加油吧!

What I Have Lived for

我為何而生

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.

對愛情的渴望，對知識的追求，對人類苦難不可遏制的同情心，這三種純潔而無比強烈的激情支配著我的一生。

These passions, like great winds,

這三種感情，就像陣陣狂風，

have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course,over a great ocean of anguish,reaching to the very verge of despair.

卷著我四處飄蕩，走上艱難的旅程，越過痛苦的海洋，直抵絕望的邊緣。

I have sought love, first,because it brings enthusiasm-enthusiasm so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy.

我尋求愛情，首先因為愛情給我帶來激情，它如此強烈以致我經常愿意為了幾小時的歡愉而犧牲生命中的其他一切。

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.

我尋求愛情，其次是因為愛情可以排解孤獨一那是一顆震顫的心，就好比在世界的邊緣，俯瞰那冰冷死寂、毫無生氣的深淵。

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.

我尋求愛情，最后是因為在愛情的結合中，我看到圣徒和詩人們所夢想的天堂景象的縮影，

This is what I sought,and though it might seem too good for human life,this is what-at last-I have found.

這正是我所追尋的人生境界。雖然它對一般的人類生活也許過于美好，但這正是我通過愛情所得到的最終發現。

With equal passion I have sought knowledge.

我以同樣的熱情尋求知識，

I have wished to understand the hearts of men.

我渴望了解人的心靈。

I have wished to know why the stars shine.

也渴望知道星光為何如此璀璨，

And I have tried to comprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux.

同時我還力圖領悟畢達哥拉斯的力量，即數字駕馭一切不穩定的強大力量。

A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

我在這方面略有成就，但不多。

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible,led upward toward the heavens.

愛情和知識，盡其可能地把我引上天堂，

But always pity brought me back to earth.

可對人類苦難的同情經常把我帶回現實世界。

Echoes of cries of pain echoed in my heart.

那些痛苦的呼喊經常在我內心深處回響，

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.

饑餓中的孩子，受暴君壓迫的人們，變成子女負擔的孤苦無依的老人，以及全球性的孤獨，貧窮和痛苦，變成了對人類生活理想的莫大諷刺。

I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

我常常希望能減輕這些痛苦，但卻無法做到，因此我自己也十分痛苦。

This has been my life.

這就是我的一生。

I have found it worth living,and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

值得活著的一生，如果有機會能夠再活一遍，我將欣然地接受