葛底斯堡演说 新译

The Gettysburg Address 葛底斯堡演说

Abraham Lincoln 亚伯拉罕·林肯

寒君 译

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

八十七年之前，我们的先辈在这块大陆上建立了一个崭新的国家。它脱胎于自由，它把自己奉献给一个理想——“人人生来平等”。

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war.

但我们却深陷一场大规模内战的泥淖之中。它考验着我们，也考验着一切对这理想深信不疑，慷慨献身的国族。而我们正是在那片广袤战场集会。

We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

我们，以那些捐躯赴国难的勇士之名，奉上这片热土，以作为他们最后休憩之所。吾人当有此举，因其天理昭彰。

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground.

但进而言之，我们却无力去奉上、也无能去神圣化这片土地。

The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

因为无论生还抑或阵亡，那些曾奋战于此的勇士，已使我们脚下的土地神圣，而这远非我们的微薄之力所能左右。我们今天在这儿说的话或许不会载于史册，但他们曾经的所作所为将流芳千古。他们曾经为之奋斗的未竟事业，就是我们这些活着的人理应倾注生命之事。

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

我们更应当为这横亘眼前的伟业而鞠躬尽瘁，因为正是那些光荣的罹难者，使我们以最坚定的决心去采取行动，让他们不至于徒然死于非命。而这一伟大理想就是，上帝福佑之下的祖国，将迎来自由的新生——一个民有、民治、民享的政府必定永存于世！