2.2 作者人生
2.2 The Writer’s Life
首先，咱们来欣赏作者的人生。乔治·萧伯纳于1856年7月26日出生在爱尔兰的都柏林。
他的家庭信奉在爱尔兰居少数派的新教，而不是占多数派的罗马天主教。信新教的少数派一贯自视高贵与优越。萧伯纳的双亲自然也有同感。他们为有一个爱尔兰贵族远亲而自豪。其实他们家的生活过得既寒酸又无规律。父亲是个粮商，生意场上挫折不断；他天性温厚，但身无长技。只在醉酒之时，他才飘飘然觉得生活好过些。萧伯纳的母亲变得怨天尤人，她鄙视丈夫，对三个孩子也疏于照顾。她对音乐情有独钟，她为训练嗓子和整理乐谱用去了太多时间，没多少时间干家务。乔治·萧伯纳和两个姐妹小时候都无人顾及。长大成人后，萧伯纳对童年岁月记忆犹新：很多日子里，他在厨房，由一个报酬低得可怜的女仆照顾，一日三餐几乎总是糟糕的炖牛肉和变了味儿的浓茶。但在母亲的影响下，他还是小男孩儿时，就学会并背得很多歌剧的乐谱，能一板一眼地唱出很多着名歌剧的片断。他的嗓子相当不错，也受了相当好的训练，这使他在日后的岁月里成了出色的演说家。同时，他童年时学到的足够的音乐知识，使他写起音乐评论来心中有数；他30多岁时成了音乐评论家——有人认为他是有史以来最出色的音乐评论家。
First of all， let’s enjoy the writer’s life. George Bernard Shaw was born in Dublin， Ireland， on July 26，1856. Shaw’s family was part of the Protestant minority in Ireland， not the Roman Catholic majority. The IrishProtestant minority has always tended to regard itself as aristocratic and superior. Shaw’s parents certainlyfelt this way. They were proud of their distant relationship to an Irish nobleman. In reality， however， they led ashabby， disorganized family life. The father was a grain merchant， and his business was always in difficulties；he was good-natured but ineffectual. He found life easier when he kept himself in a state of alcoholicconfusion. Shaw’s mother became an embittered woman who despised her husband and neglected her threechildren. She was much interested in music； so occupied was she with training her voice and arrangingmusical scores that she could not spare much time for running her household. George Bernard Shaw andhis two sisters were neglected as children. When he was a grown man he recalled vividly how he had spentmany childhood days in the kitchen， being looked after by a miserably paid servant girl， and how his mealshad almost always consisted of badly stewed beef and stale strong tea. But under the influence of his mother，he knew many opera scores almost by heart while still a boy. He could sing a number of passages from greatoperas note for note. His voice was good enough and well trained enough to make him an excellent publicspeaker in later life. At the same time he learned enough about music in his boyhood to give him a foundationfor writing about it； he became a music critic when he was in his thirties — some feel the best one that everlived.
在童年里，萧伯纳从一位叔叔那儿学得一点儿拉丁语。那位叔叔是个好老师。但萧伯纳的主要教育来自他自己在画廊和博物馆的独立学习，来自他一有机会就去欣赏的音乐会、歌剧和莎士比亚的戏剧。他15岁时，就永远离开了学校，成为都柏林一家房地产公司办公室的办事员。在这里，除了其他杂事以外，他还要做去贫民窟收取房租这令人厌恶的工作——这是他难于忘怀的经历，后来他用作素材写进了剧本。
In his boyhood， Shaw received a little Latin instruction from an uncle who was a good teacher. ButShaw’s main education came from his own independent learning in picture galleries and museums， and fromattendance at concerts， operas and Shakespeare’s plays whenever he got the chance. When he was fifteen，he left school forever， and became an office boy in a Dublin real estate office. Here， among other things， hehad the ugly job of collecting rents in slum tenements — an experience he remembered and put to use in hisplays.
19岁时，萧伯纳移居伦敦。他在那里与母亲同住。母亲已与他的父亲分手，正以教唱歌为生。在伦敦的最初几年，萧伯纳决心通过自学成为一名作家。他脚踏实地地干起来：他通过写作学习写作。1879年至1883年，他每天写作五页，最终以这种方式完成了五部书。不幸的是，这些书是小说，而萧伯纳恰巧不擅长。其中只有一部略有名气，书名叫《卡雪尔·拜伦的职业》，是个讲职业拳手的非常滑稽的故事。其他故事都很糟糕。这些年中，萧伯纳从个人经历中尝到了经济拮据的滋味。他的衣袖磨得露了线，只好用剪刀修齐；他的帽子也破烂不堪，他碰都不敢碰，怕它就势碎成几片。
At nineteen， Shaw moved to London. There he lived with his mother， who had left his father and wasmaking her living by teaching singing. During his early years in London， Bernard Shaw determined to becomea writer by devoting much time to self-education. He went about it in a practical way： he learned to write bywriting. Between 1879 and 1883 he wrote five pages every day， eventually completing five books in this way.
Unfortunately， the books were novels， for which Shaw had little talent. Only one of them has ever gained anypopularity. That is Cashel Byron’s Profession， a wildly comic story about a prize fighter. The others werepretty terrible. During these years Shaw knew about economic hardship from personal experience. His sleeveswere so threadbare that he had to trim them with scissors； his hat was so worn that he was afraid to touch it forfear that it would fall apart.
在英国，19世纪工业社会的种种不公平，如工厂与矿山中童工的劳作，低得不足以维持任何人生计的报酬，没有卫生设施寒酸的住房等给萧伯纳留下了深刻的印象。此外，19世纪80年代的大萧条使萧伯纳在伦敦目睹了许多饥寒交迫的人们。1882年9月，萧伯纳听了美国经济学家亨利·乔治的演讲，相信经济体制中的不平等可以通过土地改革来纠正。1884年，萧伯纳读了卡尔·马克思的着作，并受其影响。他在这一年加入了费边社。这个组织决定，对经济改革不做冠冕堂皇的宣言，而是做些实事。这一改革可以通过做演讲、写小册子来改变人们的观念进而促成新法律的实施来完成。萧伯纳与这一小群严肃认真的知识分子并肩工作了很多年。费边社在工党的建立中起了重要作用，工党如今是英国两大政党之一。
In Great Britain the injustices of industrial society in the nineteenth century， such as the labor of smallchildren in factories and mines， the payment of wages too low for anyone to live on， the absence of sanitationand decent housing， made a deep impression on Shaw. Also， there was a depression in the eighteen eighties，so that Shaw saw plenty of cold， hungry people in London. In September， 1882， Shaw attended a lecturegiven by the economist Henry George from the United States and was convinced that the inequalities of theeconomic system could be corrected by land reform. In 1884， Shaw read and was impressed by Karl Marx.
He joined the Fabian Society this year. The organization was determined not to make noble declarations abouteconomic reform but to do something about it. This could be accomplished by getting to work on speechesand pamphlets that would convince others and lead to new laws. Shaw worked for many years with this smallband of serious intellectuals. The Fabian Society played an important role in the founding of the Labor Party，one of today’s two major political parties in the United Kingdom.
1888年，萧伯纳开始了作为音乐评论家·的辉煌生涯。1895年，他成了伦敦《星期六评论》杂志的剧评家。他那充满机敏、智慧且表达有力的评论今天读来仍是一件乐事。同时，他的朋友、着名批评家威廉·阿切尔朗诵挪威的亨利·易卜生的戏剧给他听，萧伯纳开始对易卜生的戏剧感兴趣。易卜生正通过以戏剧讨论提倡新的社会观念而引起一场戏剧革命。这意味着，剧院正成为一个激发观众思想的地方，而在易卜生之前，吸引智识大众看普通剧的不外是像我们今天所见的讲述历史事实的影片中那样的东西。很快，萧伯纳便在易卜生的影响下写起了自己的剧本。第一部剧作《鳏夫的房产》于1892年上演了。这是萧伯纳有着切身体验的题材——贫民窟的房主们。从此，萧伯纳开始在喜剧中表现自己的思想。到1897年，他已写成《武器与人》《魔鬼的门徒》和《康蒂妲》。他成了名利双收的剧作家。1898年，他放弃了剧评家的工作，以便把全部时间都用在戏剧写作上。《恺撒和克莉奥佩屈拉》写于这一年。也是在1898年，他与夏洛蒂·佩恩-汤森结婚，两人成了情投意合的伴侣，直到她45年后去世。到1915年，萧伯纳已名满天下。萧伯纳于1923年67岁时写下了他唯一的悲剧《圣女贞德》。他1925年荣获诺贝尔文学奖。在一次环球旅行中，1932年萧伯纳访问过中国，在上海受到以鲁迅、蔡元培、宋庆龄等为代表的中国人民的热烈欢迎。
In 1888， Shaw began this brilliant career as a music critic. In 1895， he became drama critic on theLondon Saturday Review. His witty， intelligent， powerfully expressed reviews were of such excellence that itis still a pleasure to read them. And in the meantime Shaw became interested in the plays of the NorwegianHenrik Ibsen through his friend William Archer， a well-known critic， reading some Ibsen’s play aloud tohim. Ibsen was causing a revolution in the theater by using plays to discuss and advocate new social ideas.
This meant that the theater was becoming a place where the audience could find stimulation for their minds，whereas before Ibsen there was nothing more to attract intelligent people to the average play than there is in ahistorical movie epic of our own day. Soon Shaw was writing his own plays under Ibsen’s influence. The firstone Widower’s Houses was performed in 1892. This was about a subject Shaw was acquainted with at firsthand—slum landlords. From then on Shaw began to embody his ideas in comedy. By 1897 he had writtenArms and the Man， the Devil’s Disciple， and Candida. He was a rich and famous playwright. In 1898 hegave up his job as drama critic so that he could devote all his time to writing plays. Caesar and Cleopatrawas written in that year. Also in 1898 he married Charlotte Payne-Townshend， with whom he enjoyed acongenial companionship until her death forty-five years later. By 1915， Shaw was famous the world over.
His only tragedy Saint Joan was written in 1923 when Shaw was sixty-seven. He won the Nobel Prize forliterature in 1925. On a world tour， Shaw visited China in 1932 and was warmly welcomed by Chinese peoplerepresented by Lu Xun， Cai Yuanpei and Song Qingling， etc. in Shanghai.
萧伯纳是个素食主义者。四十多岁时，他身体一度很糟糕，医生们忠告他绝对有必要开始吃肉。萧伯纳拒绝了。他无法使自己吃那些被屠杀的生物的肉。那个时候，他写道，如果他死了，为他送葬的将包括牛、羊、家禽甚至鱼，它们一起来哀悼这个宁死也不吃它们的人。但萧伯纳是个勤奋而多产的作家。在他耄耋之年，他还在创作有趣的剧本。
Shaw was a vegetarian. When he was in his forties， his health became poor for a while， and doctors toldhim it was absolutely necessary to begin eating meat. Shaw refused. He could not bring himself to eat the fleshof slaughtered fellow creatures. He wrote at the time that， if he did die， his funeral procession would consist ofoxen， sheep， poultry， and even fish， all mourning the man who would rather die than eat them. But Shaw wasa diligent and productive writer. In his eighties and nineties he was still producing interesting plays.
乔治·萧伯纳于1950年11月2日在英国逝世，享年94岁，一生着作戏剧50多部。一般认为，他是自莎士比亚之后最伟大的英语戏剧作家。他还写了很多卷文学评论、艺术评论、音乐评论以及为数极多的有关社会政治问题的文章，例如《囚禁之罪恶》便是这类文章中的一篇。
George Bernard Shaw died in England on November 2， 1950. He lived for ninety four years and wrotemore than fifty plays. He is usually considered to be the greatest writer of plays in the English language sinceShakespeare. He also wrote many volumes of literary criticism， art criticism and music criticism as well asnumerous essays on social and political problems. An example of such an essay is the one called the Crimeof Imprisonment.
2.3 作品欣赏
2.3 Appreciations of the play
萧伯纳的《匹克梅梁》剧名取自一个着名的希腊神话。这神话有两种版本。其一说匹克梅梁是个国王，他爱上了一个美丽的雕像。他祈求爱情女神阿芙罗狄忒给他一个如雕像那样美丽的妻子。阿芙罗狄忒赋予雕像生命。匹克梅梁便娶了她。在另一个版本中，匹克梅梁是个雕刻家。他自己雕了那个美丽的雕像并爱上了自己的作品。他祈求上帝给它生命，众神满足了他的愿望。雕像变成了一个活生生的女孩子，名叫嘉拉蒂娅。匹克梅梁娶了她。萧伯纳用的是后一个版本。在剧中，希金斯教授便是匹克梅梁。伊莉莎便是他再创造的美丽少女：
正是希金斯把伊莉莎从一个卑贱、肮脏的卖花女转变成了一个衣裙华丽、珠光宝气的高贵美女。但他却没娶她。正是因为萧伯纳写了一个传统的、人们熟悉的那种类型的戏剧，他那非传统的处理故事的方法，才如此让人鼓舞。利用如此为人熟知而又喜欢的故事是萧伯纳戏剧方法的一个特点。通过给我们讲述一个我们爱听的故事，他使我们聚精会神，倾注同情，但接着，他就利用对故事的接受，通过添加使我们舒适思想受到挑战的材料，来达到他更深层次的目的。
Shaw takes the title of his play from a well-known Greek myth. There are two versions of it. In onePygmalion is a king who falls in love with a beautiful statue. He prays to Aphrodite， the goddess of love， for awife as beautiful as the statue. Aphrodite brings the statue to life. Pygmalion marries her. In the other versionof the story， Pygmalion is a sculptor. He makes the beautiful statue himself. He falls in love with his owncreation and prays that life may be granted to it. The gods give him his wish. The statue becomes a living girlnamed Galatea， and Pygmalion marries her. Shaw uses the latter version. In the play， Professor Higgins isPygmalion. Eliza Doolittle is the beautiful girl he recreates. It is Higgins who transforms Eliza from a lowly，dirty flower seller into a noble， pretty lady in fine clothes and jewels. But he does not marry her at all. It is justbecause Shaw writes a conventional， familiar type of play that his unconventional treatment of the story is sostimulating. To make use of a familiar appealing story like this is characteristic of Shaw’s dramatic method.
He assures our sympathetic attention by telling us a story that we like to hear， but he then uses our acceptanceto further his own ends by adding material that challenges our comfortable ideas.
这样，我们开始时看的是一个给人快乐的传统故事，后来却发现，故事中隐藏着对上流社会的猛烈抨击；伊莉莎通过改变元音和辅音改变了她的社会地位。然而，萧伯纳却说，成为一个人远比成为一个公爵夫人要难。伊莉莎只有到了剧末才完成了这一转变。同时，萧伯纳向我们展示了对人类关系所作的探索与分析，它远不如“从那以后，他们幸福地生活着。”这一简单的结束语甜蜜。最后，在阿尔弗雷德·杜利特尔身上，我们碰到了有关财产与道德的难题。作为总结，我们可以说，萧伯纳把灰姑娘的童话故事融入自己的剧作中。当我们来回应它那永恒的魅力时，我们发现萧伯纳同时用它作为一种表现挑战性思想的手段。
Thus we begin with an enjoyable， conventional story. We find that in it is concealed a devastating attackon polite society； Eliza changes her social status by changing her vowels and consonants. However， to becomea human being， Shaw says， is far harder than to become a duchess. Eliza does not accomplish this until theend of the play. Shaw also， presents us with a searching analysis of human relations far less soothing thanthe simple conclusion：“They lived happily ever after.”Finally， in the person of Alfred Doolittle， we areconfronted with difficult questions about poverty and morals. In summary， we may say that Shaw incorporatesthe fairy tale of Cinderella into his play. As we respond to its timeless appeal， we find that Shaw uses it as amethod of presenting challenging ideas as well.
萧伯纳的着作几乎全都是喜剧。他的喜剧方式是拿人们熟悉的观念和情景，用新鲜惊奇的观点来表现，并通过这种写作，以新的洞察力认识人性。例如，《匹克梅梁》给我们讲的是灰姑娘那类俗套的故事。我们希望希金斯娶脱胎换骨后的伊莉莎为妻，故事有个“皆大欢喜”的结尾，但萧伯纳能做惊人之笔，以知识分子的清醒，不让他们结合。萧伯纳要告诉我们的是：灰姑娘的改变不只在外表。她有一个比希金斯更敏感、更有同情心的灵魂。
Shaw wrote comedies almost exclusively. His method of comedy is to take familiar ideas and situations，to present them with a fresh and startling viewpoint， and to give new insight into humanity by doing this. Forinstance， Pygmalion tells a familiar story of the Cinderella type. We should expect a“happy ending”withHiggins marrying the transformed Eliza. But Shaw with startling intellectual clarity， does not have themmarry. What Shaw wants to tell us is that Cinderella is changed in more than externals. She has a soul moreresponsive and sympathetic than Higgins.
萧伯纳用连绵不断的嬉乐表达出人类的愚蠢与矛盾，这是他最引人注目的本领之一。他从没停止被人类的行为激起兴趣，更引起他兴趣的是人类的思想。我们可以确定地归纳，不计其数的人类的种种荒唐让萧伯纳愉悦。他热爱生活，以生活为乐。如果不是这样的话，他的作品不会如此轻松愉快，生气勃勃。
Shaw brings out human foolishness and inconsistency with a bubbling gaiety which is one of his mostnoticeable qualities. He never ceases to be amused at human behavior， still more at human thought. We maysurely conclude that Shaw delights in the innumerable absurd human types， that he loves life and enjoysliving it. His writing could not have such vivacity and gusto if this were not so.
萧伯纳的剧本读来让人快乐，因为作者写给读者的不仅是对话，而且有许多相关的材料。剧中有完美的人物描写，生动的场景描写，以及萧伯纳作的数不胜数的评论，这些评论总是那么风趣。萧伯纳是首创这种写作方式的剧作家。他认为自己剧中的思想要尽可能广泛地表现出来。因此，他不仅要培养看戏的观众群，也要培养剧本的读者群。心里装着这样的念头，他竭尽全力使他的剧本读来引人入胜。
Shaw’s plays make enjoyable reading because the author supplies not only the dialogue but muchconnecting material. There are full deions of the characters， vivid deions of the scenes， andnumerous comments by Shaw which are often very entertaining. Shaw was the first playwright to do this.
He felt that the ideas in his plays should be spread as widely as possible. Therefore he wanted to cultivate areading public as well as a theater going public. With this in mind， he made his plays as attractive to read ashe could.
萧伯纳完全清楚戏剧表演时什么会“行得通”——什么样的对话与剧情可以使戏剧迅速发展并抓住观众的注意力。萧伯纳能做到这一点的原因之一是他的很多剧本都是为特殊的演员写的。他写剧本时，边写头脑中边想着某个演员。这使萧伯纳的思想与该剧在舞台上的表演紧密相连。拿《恺撒与克莉奥佩特拉》来说，它就是为19世纪着名演员约翰斯顿·福布斯-罗宾逊爵士写的。男演员是这样，女演员也是如此——更是如此，因为萧伯纳习惯于与女演员坠入爱河，给她们写剧本作为爱的信物。（女演员也习惯于与他坠入爱河。）《匹克梅梁》是萧伯纳给帕特里克·甘贝尔夫人的礼物。萧伯纳与这个女人的通信构成了世界上最着名的情书集之一。信中的智慧使它远非普通的情书可比。
Shaw knows just what will“go”when a play is performed — what dialogue and action will help it tomove swiftly and keep the attention of the audience. One of the reasons why Shaw is able to do this is that hewrote many of his plays for special actors. When he wrote a play， he had the actor in mind as he worked. Thiskept Shaw’s thoughts closely attached to the staging of the play. Caesar and Cleopatra， for example， waswritten for Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson， a famous nineteenth-century actor. What was true of actors wasalso true of actresses — truer， since Shaw had a habit of falling in love with actresses and writing plays forthem as a sign of his affection. (Actresses also had a habit of falling in love with him.) Pygmalion was Shaw’sgift to Mrs. Patrick Campbell. The correspondence Shaw exchanged with the woman constitutes one of themost famous sets of love letters in the world. Their wit makes it far more than conventional love letters.
萧伯纳的文学风格不以诸如精心地遣词用字和富有节奏的句子等手段引人注意。他写作上的唯一特别之处是，作品反映了萧伯纳思想中的特别之处，即异乎寻常的清晰、生动且极富智慧。它显然是萧伯纳集中精力于言所欲言的结果。萧伯纳对为了自身的缘故而花哨繁杂的语言没有兴趣。学萧伯纳剧本的学生经常在同一英文课上研究写作，他们就是在把萧伯纳晓畅而又刚健的散文当做范文来学。现代诗人W.H.奥登把萧伯纳的作品比作罗西尼（意大利伟大的喜歌剧作曲家）的音乐。他说，萧伯纳的戏剧语言中有作曲大师音乐中同样的和谐、幽默、活泼与明晰。
Shaw’s literary style does not call attention to itself by such devices as elaborate vocabulary or highlyrhythmical sentences. The only special quality of the writing is that it mirrors the special quality of Shaw’smind， that is， it is exceptionally clear， lively， and intellectually powerful. It is obviously the result of Shaw’sconcentration on what he has to say. Language that is fancy or tricky for its own sake is of no interest to him.
Students who are reading Shaw’s plays are very often studying writing in the same English class. They couldnot do better than to take his straight forward， vigorous prose as a model. The modern poet W.H. Audencompares Shaw’s writing to the music of Rossini (the great Italian composer of comic opera). Shaw has， hesays， the same tunefulness， humor， vivacity and clarity in his words as the master composer has in his music.
总而言之，《匹克梅梁》是一部结构良好、令人愉快的有趣的喜剧。它讲的是个创造独立的人的故事。阅读这部戏剧时，我们不禁要赞美剧中人物刻画极为生动逼真，对话生动而充满机智。
To summarize， Pygmalion is a delightfully amusing， well-constructed comedy. It tells the story of thecreation of an independent human being. While reading the play， we can not help expressing admiration forthe immense vividness of Shaw’s portraits and the liveliness and wit of the conversation.