Shelley to Elizabeth Hitchhiker
雪莱致伊丽莎白-西琴勒
Your letter of the 1st hath this moment reached me. I answer it according to our agreement, which shall be inviolable. Truly did you say that, at our arising in the morning, Nature assumes a different aspect.
我刚才收到您1号的来信，按我们之间的约定给您复信，这一约定是不可违背的。你确实说过，在我们早起的时候，大自然总是有不同的面貌。
Who could have conjectured the circumstances of my last letter? Friend of my soul, this is terrible, dismaying: it makes one's heart sink, it withers vital energy...
谁能猜想到我上次写信的境况呢？我心灵的知己，这太可怕，太令人沮丧了。我的心为之一沉，浑身的锐气消磨殆尽……
Dear being, I am thine again; the happiness shall again predominate over this fleeting tribute to self-interest. Yet who would not feel now? Oh'twere as reckless a task to endeavor to annihilate perception while sense existed, as to blunt the sixth sense to such impressions as these! ...
亲爱的心，我又是您的了，这幸福又将压倒我这短暂的孤芳自赏。然而在这种时候，谁又不会有相同的感受呢? 啊，如果一息尚存而欲对其不闻不问岂非与使第六感觉对这样一些印象变得迟钝同样的不顾后果了吗?
Forgive me, dearest friend? I pour out my whole soul to you. I write by fleeting intervals: my pen runs away with my senses. The impassionateness of my sensations grows upon me. Your letter, too, has much affected me.
最亲爱的朋友，能宽恕我吗? 我把整个心都掏给您了。几度举笔，笔不从心。但我理智的情感终于又涌现上我的心头，您的信也深深地影响着我。
Never, with my consent, shall that intercourse cease which has been the day-dawn of my existence, the sun which has shed warmth on the cold drear length of the anticipated prospect of life. Prejudice might demand the sacrifice, but she is an idol to whom we bow not.
我从不认为我们之间的交往会永远终止，您与我的交往给我带来了生命的曙光，是洒在我冰凉而漫长的人生旅途上的期待的温暖阳光。偏见可能要求人们以牺牲为代价，那只不过是幽灵，您我都不会向这个幽灵屈服。
The world might demand it; its opinion might require; but the cloud which flees over yon mountain were as important to our happiness, to our usefulness. This must never be, never whilst this existence continues; and when time has enrolled us in the list of the departed, surely this friendship will survive to bear our identity to heaven.
世俗可能要我们做出牺牲，舆论也会提出要求；但遥望飘过远方山岭的云彩，不是也乐在其中，有益于我们的身心吗?这决不可能，只要一息尚存，决不屈服，决不低头；即使时光把我们列入告别的名单中，毫无疑问，我们这般友情在天国中也一同相聚。
What is love, or friendship? Is it something material ... a ball, an apple, a plaything ... which must be taken from one to be given to another? Is it capable of no extension, no communication? Lord Kaimes defines love to be a particularization of the general passion.
何谓爱情?何谓友情?是一些实在的东西吗?是球、苹果、玩偶……可以信手拈来、随意给人的实物吗?是不能深化、不能交流的吗?Kaimes勋爵给爱情下的定义是，爱情是一般激情的特殊体现。liuxuepaper.com