西敏寺内的遐想

以前在一本书里读到过，印象深刻，找了好久，最后部分写的尤为直白而精彩： “看着这些伟人的坟墓，我的一切嫉妒之情便烟消云散；读着那些美人的铭文，我所有的非分之想便荡然无存；在墓碑上读出父母的悲痛，我的心也会被同情所融化；当我再看到那些父母本人的坟墓时，又觉得这种哀伤毫无意义可言，因为人人都会步其后尘，不久人世。当我看到国王们同他们的废黜者同穴而眠，当我想到互相竞争的才子们并肩而卧，当我想到那些试图通过你争我夺而瓜分世界的圣贤们共赴黄泉，我不禁反思人类那些微不足道的竞争、内讧和争论，它们让我难过，让我震惊。看着墓碑上的日期，有人故于昨日，有人则亡于六百年前。我想，总有一天，我们大家会同聚上帝的面前，那将会是一个多么伟大的日子啊！” 西敏寺内的遐想（节选） （英）约瑟夫•艾迪生 　　心情沉重的时候，我常喜欢独自漫步于西敏寺内。那里特有的肃穆气氛和庄严的建筑以及长眠于此的人们的丰功伟绩、身份地位，无不让我充满感伤之情，又或说让我陷入了无尽的遐想之中。昨天，一个下午，我都在教堂、回廊和墓地里，反复地观赏着那几个墓区里的墓碑以及上面的碑文，聊以自娱。多数墓碑上只刻着死者的姓名和生卒年月：这样人们对其一生的了解也不过是他们同常人一样有生有死。这些生死记录无论是雕刻在黄铜牌上还是雕刻在大理石上，我都将其视做是对故去之人的一种嘲讽：除了生与死，他们没有留下任何供人瞻仰的东西。这不禁使我想起了战争史诗中所描写的几个英雄人物，他们声名赫赫，不为别的，只是因为战死沙场；他们为人歌颂，不为别的，也只是因为已不在人间。《圣经》所描写的“如箭般飞过”，是他们一生的真实写照：转瞬即逝。 　　一进教堂，我就饶有兴致地看着人们在挖着一座坟墓。每挖出一铲新的腐土，都可见骨头或头颅的碎块混杂其中。曾几何时，这些碎块还附于人身呢。此情此景使我不禁浮想联翩：在这座古老的大教堂的地下该混埋着多少人啊！男人和女人，朋友和敌人，教士和士兵，修道士和受俸牧师……他们全都已然粉身碎骨，混杂于一起。无论是怎样美丽优雅，力大无穷或充满青春活力，还是老态龙钟；无论是孱弱多病还是身有残疾的人，都毫无区别地葬在一块，埋成一堆。 　　在这片混乱拥挤的墓地之中，处处都竖立着纪念碑，大致环视了一下这座古老建筑后，我便开始细细端详起几座墓碑上仅存的铭文。其中一些写得十分夸张。若死者地下有知，听到朋友们对他的溢美之词，想必也会羞红脸的。另有一些碑文则又过于朴实无华，而且还是用希腊文或希伯 　　来语描述死者的人品，如此一来，恐怕一年之中也难得被人看懂一次就不错了。在“诗人角”，我发现一些没有墓碑的坟墓和没有坟墓的墓碑。毫无疑问，当下的这场战争给教堂平添了许多无主墓碑，它们都是为纪念阵亡将士而竖立的，而他们的尸体也许埋在布兰海姆平原，也许葬于大海之中。 　　看到几篇标新立异的墓志铭，我不由得高兴起来。这些墓志铭文字措辞优美典雅，内容恰当公允，既为死者增光又给生者添彩。外国人常常喜欢根据公开展出的纪念碑和墓志铭，判断一个国家文明与否，因此在立碑之前，这些铭文理应经过有识之士的仔细推敲。克劳德斯利•肖维尔爵士的墓碑总是让我反感：这位剽悍的英国海军：将军曾因勇猛无敌而闻名于世，享有盛誉。可在他墓碑上，他的形象却像个花花公子，戴着长长的假发，头顶华盖，稳坐于天鹅绒垫子之上。铭文与墓碑的风格一样：它只是告诉我们他是怎样去世的，而并未颂扬他为国家立下的赫赫战功，仅这一点，根本无法使我们升华对他的崇敬。我们一向瞧不起荷兰人，认为他们缺乏天赋，但他们在此类建筑中却显示出优于我们的品味以及深于我们的修养。他们那些将军的纪念碑由公众捐建，雕像生动形象地再现了他们生前的英姿：头顶军帽，身披战甲，并佩挂着用水草、贝壳和珊瑚扎成的美丽垂饰。 　　言归正传，我本想改天再仔细参观英国历代国王的墓地，因为毕竟这不是一种令人心情轻松的消遣。而且我知道，这样的消遣通常会使那些神经脆弱、多愁善感的人悲观绝望。但就我而言．．虽说总是表面心事重重，忧心忡忡，却从不知忧郁为何物。所以，在生活中无论是遇到欢快高兴的事情还是到达深沉肃穆的场合，我都能一样地欣然应对。这样，我便能泰然面对任何令他人感到恐瞑的东西。看着这些伟人的坟墓，我的一切嫉妒之情便烟消云散；读着那些美人的铭文，我所有的非分之想便荡然无存；在墓碑上读出父母的悲痛，我的心也会被同情所融化；当我再看到那些父母本人的坟墓时，又觉得这种哀伤毫无意义可言，因为人人都会步其后尘，不久人世。当我看到国王们同他们的废黜者同穴而眠，当我想到互相竞争的才子们并肩而卧，当我想到那些试图通过你争我夺而瓜分世界的圣贤们共赴黄泉，我不禁反思人类那些微不足道的竞争、内讧和争论，它们让我难过，让我震惊。看着墓碑上的日期，有人故于昨日，有人则亡于六百年前。我想，总有一天，我们大家会同聚上帝的面前，那将会是一个多么伟大的日子啊！

WHEN I am in a serious humour, I very often walk by myself in Westminster Abbey; where the gloominess of the place, and the use to which it is applied, with the solemnity of the building, and the condition of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the church, amusing myself with the tombstones and inscriptions that I met with in those several regions of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of the buried person, but that he was born upon one day, and died upon another: the whole history of his life being comprehended in those two circumstances, that are common to all mankind. I could not but look upon these registers of existence, whether of brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed persons; who bad left no other memorial of them, but that they were born and that they died. They put me in mind of several persons mentioned in the battles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on the head.

The life of these men is finely described in holy writ by "the path of an arrow," which is immediately closed up and lost.

Upon my going into the church, I entertained myself with the digging of a grave; and saw in every shovelful of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a bone or skull intermixt with a kind of fresh mouldering earth, that some time or other had a place in the composition of a human body. Upon this I began to consider with myself what innumerable multitudes of people lay confused together under the pavement of that ancient cathedral; how men and women, friends and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common mass; how beauty, strength, and youth, with old age, weakness, and deformity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous heap of matter.

After having thus surveyed this great magazine of mortality, as it were, in the lump; I examined it more particularly by the accounts which I found on several of the monuments which are raised in every quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the praises which his friends have bestowed upon him. There are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the character of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that means are not understood once in a twelvemonth. In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who had no monuments, and monuments which had no poets. I observed, indeed, that the present war had filled the church with many of these uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean.

I could not but be very much delighted with several modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance of expression and justness of thought, and therefore do honour to the living as well as to the dead. As a foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the ignorance or politeness of a nation, from the turn of their public monuments and inscriptions, they should be submitted to the perusal of men of learning and genius, before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesly Shovel's monument has very often given me great offence: instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing character of that plain gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy of state. The inscription is answerable to the monument; for instead of celebrating the many remarkable actions he had performed in the service of his country, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any honour. The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for want of genius, show an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and politeness in their buildings and works of this nature, than what we meet with in those of our own country. The monuments of their admirals, which have been erected at the public expense, represent them like themselves; and are adorned with rostral crowns and naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of seaweed, shells, and coral.

But to return to our subject. I have left the repository of our English kings for the contemplation of another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for so serious an amusement. I know that entertainments of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts in timorous minds and gloomy imaginations; but for my own part, though I am always serious, I do not know what it is to be melancholy; and can therefore take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, with the same pleasure as in her most gay and delightful ones. By this means I can improve myself with those objects which others consider with terror. When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb-stone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions. factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.