少年维特的烦恼 英文版 The Sorrows of Young Werther
歌德 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
AUGUST 18.
Must it ever be thus, -- that the source of our happiness mustalso be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentimentwhich animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming mewith a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise beforeme, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetuallypursues and harasses me. When in bygone days I gazed from theserocks upon yonder mountains across the river, and upon the green,flowery valley before me, and saw all nature budding and burstingaround; the hills clothed from foot to peak with tall, thick foresttrees; the valleys in all their varied windings, shaded with theloveliest woods; and the soft river gliding along amongst thelisping reeds, mirroring the beautiful clouds which the soft eveningbreeze wafted across the sky, -- when I heard the groves about memelodious with the music of birds, and saw the million swarms ofinsects dancing in the last golden beams of the sun, whose settingrays awoke the humming beetles from their grassy beds, whilst thesubdued tumult around directed my attention to the ground, and Ithere observed the arid rock compelled to yield nutriment to thedry moss, whilst the heath flourished upon the barren sands belowme, all this displayed to me the inner warmth which animates allnature, and filled and glowed within my heart. I felt myselfexalted by this overflowing fulness to the perception of theGodhead, and the glorious forms of an infinite universe becamevisible to my soul! Stupendous mountains encompassed me, abyssesyawned at my feet, and cataracts fell headlong down before me;impetuous rivers rolled through the plain, and rocks and mountainsresounded from afar. In the depths of the earth I saw innumerablepowers in motion, and multiplying to infinity; whilst upon itssurface, and beneath the heavens, there teemed ten thousand varietiesof living creatures. Everything around is alive with an infinitenumber of forms; while mankind fly for security to their pettyhouses, from the shelter of which they rule in their imaginationsover the wide-extended universe. Poor fool! in whose pettyestimation all things are little. From the inaccessible mountains,across the desert which no mortal foot has trod, far as the confinesof the unknown ocean, breathes the spirit of the eternal Creator;and every atom to which he has given existence finds favour in hissight. Ah, how often at that time has the flight of a bird, soaringabove my head, inspired me with the desire of being transportedto the shores of the immeasurable waters, there to quaff thepleasures of life from the foaming goblet of the Infinite, and topartake, if but for a moment even, with the confined powers of mysoul, the beatitude of that Creator who accomplishes all thingsin himself, and through himself!
My dear friend, the bare recollection of those hours still consolesme. Even this effort to recall those ineffable sensations, andgive them utterance, exalts my soul above itself, and makes medoubly feel the intensity of my present anguish.
It is as if a curtain had been drawn from before my eyes, and,instead of prospects of eternal life, the abyss of an ever opengrave yawned before me. Can we say of anything that it existswhen all passes away, when time, with the speed of a storm, carriesall things onward, -- and our transitory existence, hurried alongby the torrent, is either swallowed up by the waves or dashedagainst the rocks? There is not a moment but preys upon you, --and upon all around you, not a moment in which you do not yourselfbecome a destroyer. The most innocent walk deprives of lifethousands of poor insects: one step destroys the fabric of theindustrious ant, and converts a little world into chaos. No: itis not the great and rare calamities of the world, the floods whichsweep away whole villages, the earthquakes which swallow up ourtowns, that affect me. My heart is wasted by the thought of thatdestructive power which lies concealed in every part of universalnature. Nature has formed nothing that does not consume itself,and every object near it: so that, surrounded by earth and air,and all the active powers, I wander on my way with aching heart;and the universe is to me a fearful monster, for ever devouringits own offspring.