JK罗琳在2008哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲

2015-03-13 14:52:24来源：网络

　　They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. Acompromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study ModernLanguages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than Iditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

　　他们希望我去拿个职业学位，而我想去攻读英国文学。最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协：我改学现代语言。可是等到父母一走开，我立刻放弃了德语而报名学习古典文学。

　　I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have foundout for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they wouldhave been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securingthe keys to an executive bathroom.

　　我不记得将这事告诉了父母，他们可能是在我毕业典礼那一天才发现的。我想，在全世界的所有专业中，他们也许认为，不会有比研究希腊神话更没用的专业了，根本无法换来一间独立宽敞的卫生间。

　　I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point ofview. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction;the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, Icannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had beenpoor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not anennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means athousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, thatis indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

　　我想澄清一下：我不会因为父母的观点，而责怪他们。埋怨父母给你指错方向是有一个时间段的。当你成长到可以控制自我方向的时候，你就要自己承担责任了。尤其是，我不会因为父母希望我不要过穷日子，而责怪他们。他们一直很贫穷，我后来也一度很穷，所以我很理解他们。贫穷并不是一种高贵的经历，它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有绝望，它意味着许许多多的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷，确实可以引以自豪，但贫穷本身只有对傻瓜而言才是浪漫的。

　　What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

　　我在你们这个年龄，最害怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。

　　At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far toolong in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passingexaminations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of mypeers.

　　我在您们这么大时，明显缺乏在大学学习的动力，我花了太久时间在咖啡吧写故事，而在课堂的时间却很少。我有一个通过考试的诀窍，并且数年间一直让我在大学生活和同龄人中不落人后。

　　I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, youhave never known hardship or heartache. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyoneagainst the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here hasenjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

　　我不想愚蠢地假设，因为你们年轻、有天份，并且受过良好的教育，就从来没有遇到困难或心碎的时刻。拥有才华和智慧，从来不会使人对命运的反复无常有所准备;我也不会假设大家坐在这里冷静地满足于自身的优越感。

　　However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire forsuccess. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person'sidea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

　　相反，你们是哈佛毕业生的这个事实，意味着你们并不很了解失败。你们也许极其渴望成功，所以非常害怕失败。说实话，你们眼中的失败，很可能就是普通人眼中的成功，毕竟你们在学业上已经达到很高的高度了。

　　Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quiteeager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventionalmeasure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. Anexceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as pooras it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had hadfor me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, Iwas the biggest failure I knew.

　　最终，我们所有人都必须自己决定什么算作失败，但如果你愿意，世界是相当渴望给你一套标准的。所以我想很公平的讲，从任何传统的标准看，在我毕业仅仅七年后的日子里，我的失败达到了史诗般空前的规模：短命的婚姻闪电般地破裂，我又失业成了一个艰难的单身母亲。除了流浪汉，我是当代英国最穷的人之一，真的一无所有。当年父母和我自己对未来的担忧，现在都变成了现实。按照惯常的标准来看，我也是我所知道的最失败的人。

　　Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was adark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented asa kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time,any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

　　现在，我不打算站在这里告诉你们，失败是有趣的。那段日子是我生命中的黑暗岁月，我不知道它是否代表童话故事里需要历经的磨难，更不知道自己还要在黑暗中走多久。很长一段时间里，前面留给我的只是希望，而不是现实。

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