朝露可当酒
知名会员
再译一篇伊壁鸠鲁的信，很有意思，《学说要点》中体现的世俗民主政治的萌芽被另一种理性主义至上的等级概念替代，从根本而言，这和柏拉图的等级世界并没有区分，一样的禁欲，一样的金字塔结构，其中的不同很大程度上在于各自做哲学的目的：一者用哲学王的政治理想来拯救岌岌可危的希腊世界，一者用理性的快乐主义来保全自己，一则是统治者的叙事，一则是逍遥者的叙事，背景一样，叙事的目的不同而异。唯物主义先驱者一称呼让我啼笑皆非，诸神的信仰不管了？可笑！
Letter to Menoeceus
致美诺西斯的信
By Epicurus
伊壁鸠鲁
Translated by Robert Drew Hicks
希英翻译：罗伯特•D•希克斯，汉英翻译：张江南
Greeting.
致敬
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.
一个人年轻时，别让他怠于追寻智慧；一个人年老时，也别让他厌倦探求智慧。心灵的健康不分老幼，借口研究哲学还太早或已经太迟，就好比说现在还不需要幸福或者现在已经不需要幸福了一样荒谬。因此，无论老幼，都应该追寻智慧。对幼者而言，追寻智慧可以让他记住曾经的优雅，当岁月开始侵袭时，仍能够对美好的事物保持一颗年轻的心；对老者而言，追寻智慧可以使他在年轻时心灵就已成熟，因为他不再会害怕衰老的来临。所以我们必须专注在能带来幸福的事物，在其中锻炼自己，因为，如果幸福出现了，我们就一无所求了；如果幸福还没有踪影，那么我们所有的行为都应该指向获得幸福这个目标。
Those things which without ceasing I have declared to you, those do, and exercise yourself in those, holding them to be the elements of right life. First believe that God is a living being immortal and happy, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of humankind; and so of him anything that is at agrees not with about him whatever may uphold both his happyness and his immortality. For truly there are gods, and knowledge of them is evident; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that people do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the person who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious. For the utterances of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are always favorable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in people like to themselves, but reject as alien whatever is not of their kind.
我一刻不停向你灌输的那些东西确有价值，用他们磨练你自己，把他们看成构成正确人生的要素。首先，遵照人类常识所预示的神的概念，要相信神是一个不朽、幸福的活生生的存在；其次，我们为神所做的一切对提升神的幸福和不朽毫无意义，因为诸神是真实存在的，有关他们的知识即明证；但诸神并没有成为群氓的信仰，因为他们并没有坚持习俗观念，尊重神。不是否定群氓所信仰诸神的人，而是肯定群氓所信仰诸神的人才是真正不虔诚的。群氓有关诸神的言论并非真正的预言，而是虚假的猜测；因此，诸神总是把最大的灾难降给邪恶者，把最大的恩赐降给善良者，因为神对自己具有的品质珍爱无比，对和他们相像的人也关爱有加，而对异于他们的任何东西，都一概摒弃。
Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the person who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation.
让你自己习惯于相信，死亡对我们一无所是，因为善恶隐含对意识的要求，而死亡是对所有意识的剥夺；因此正确理解死亡对我们而言一无所是，可以让我们凡人的生活快乐逍遥，这靠的不是长生不老，而是靠打消人们对不朽的渴望，生命由此没有了恐惧；对那些能够完全理解这一点的人，在生命终结时不会有任何恐惧。然而，声称害怕死亡的人是愚蠢的，这不是因为在死亡来临之时他会感到痛苦，而是在预想死亡时他会感到痛苦。死亡来临时，无论如何，绝对不会带来烦恼，只有在预想中才会带来一种没有理由的痛苦。
Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer. But in the world, at one time people shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise person does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life.
因而，死亡这一所有罪恶中最可畏者，对我们而言，一无所是，因为，当我们在世时，死亡无影无踪，当死亡到来的时候，我们已驾鹤而去，因此，死亡无论对生者还是死者，都一无所是，因为它无法与生者相伴，也无法与死者共眠。但曾几何时，世间的人们就像躲避最大的恶一样躲避死亡，而另一些时候，又把死亡当成人生中缓解罪恶的手段。智者既不会藐视生命，也不会惧怕死亡。
The thought of life is no offense to him, nor is the cessation of life regarded as an evil. And even as people choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest. And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old to make a good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirability of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well. Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It were easy for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery, his words are foolishness, for those who hear believe him not.
对他而言，生不为过，死亦不为罪，当民众面对面包与快乐，抉择仅仅是更大块的面包时，智者追寻的是更多的快乐，他宁可一日行乐也不愿苦难一世。说那些教导青年人要幸福生活，老年人要得善终的人胡言乱语，不仅因为他们宣扬生命是可以人为欲求的，还因为他们的教导同时要求人们活要幸福，死要得善终。更糟糕的是那些宣称人最好不要出生的人，他们认为假如人已经出生，那么就应该尽可能快地走进冥府大门，如果他真的相信这些，那他自己为何不去死？如果他对此坚信不移，这应该是轻而易举的。如果他只是说笑话，那他愚蠢无比，因为听到他话的人将不再信任他。
We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.
我们必须记住，未来既不完全属于我们，也不完全不属于我们，所以，我们既不能仰赖于它的必然到来，也不能绝望于它的必然不到来。
We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a happy life.
我们也必须思考这样的事实：有些欲望是自然的，有些是毫无理由的；自然的欲望中有些是自然而且必要的，有些仅仅只是自然的，必要的欲望中，有些对我们快乐生活是必要的，有些对我们的身体除弃病痛是必要的，有些对我们的生存是必要的，对此有明确理解的人将以此指导自己的每一个行为和偏好，以确保身体的健康和精神的平和，因为幸福人生的含义和目的不外乎如此。
For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid; seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the need of pleasure. For this reason we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a happy life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing. And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatever, but often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure.
因为我们所有行为的目的就是摆脱痛苦和恐惧，一旦我们达到了目的，心灵的风暴就平息了；因为活着的人没有必要奢望自己没有的东西，没有必要向外追求那些我们灵魂和身体的善能够实现的东西。当我们让快乐遭受痛苦时，这时，只有这时，我们才感觉到快乐的必要。由此，我们把快乐称为幸福人生的全部，快乐是我们首要而亲密的善，它是一切好恶的起点，我们回归快乐，因为是快乐让我们对判断好坏的标准有了切身体验。由于快乐是我们首要的和自然的爱好，因此我们不追逐一切快乐，很多快乐可能产生更大的烦恼，我们放弃这些快乐。长期痛苦折磨之后，我们会体验到更大的快乐，这让我们以为痛苦比快乐更根本。
While therefore all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is worthy of choice, just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, teat all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good. Again, we regard. independence of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win.
因为快乐与我们有着自然的联系，因此快乐都是善的，然而并非所有快乐都值得追求，正如所有痛苦都是恶的，但并非所有痛苦都要逃避一样，对必须作出判断的事情，我们判断的标准因时因地因情况而异，有时我们把善当成恶对待，有时相反，把恶当成善对待。尽管与我们无关的外在之物对我们几乎完全没有用处，但我们还是把它当成至宝，真的听从别人的话，认为那些无用的东西可以给我们带来最甜蜜的快乐，凡自然的东西都能轻而易举获得，而虚妄而无价值之物则很难赢得，以致当我们没有这些东西时就会觉得很不满足。
Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when one the pain of want has been removed, while bread an water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate one's se therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet supplies al that is needful for health, and enables a person to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking and it places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune.
就填饱肚子而言，家常便餐和豪华大宴给人的快乐是一样的，对饥饿的嘴唇而言，面包和水即最大的快乐。因此，让我们习惯简单廉价的饮食，这种饮食既能维持健康，满足人们生存的必需不致匮乏，还让我们在有规律的间隔后享受佳肴胃口大开，还不必为钱袋担心。
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession of the soul. Of all this the d is prudence. For this reason prudence is a more precious thing even than the other virtues, for ad a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honor, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honor, and justice, which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.
当我们说快乐是目标和目的时，并不意味着追逐放荡不拘和感官享受，有些人出于无知、偏见和有意的误传，就是这么做的，对此我们很清楚。我们所谓的快乐是指身体无病痛，灵魂无搅扰，而不是通宵达旦的狂饮和寻欢作乐，也不是性爱、更不是在豪华的餐桌上享用山珍海味，满足口腹之欲的所谓快乐生活；快乐是一种清醒的理性，它探究我们所作一切选择的背后的根据，把可能给灵魂带来最大困扰的那些信仰抛弃，这就是审慎，因此，审慎比其他美德更加宝贵，因为快乐的人生必定是审慎、荣誉、正义的人生，缺乏审慎、荣誉、正义的人生不可能是快乐的人生，这些美德和快乐的人生已经融为一体，它们水乳交融，不可分割。
Who, then, is superior in your judgment to such a person? He holds a holy belief concerning the gods, and is altogether free from the fear of death. He has diligently considered the end fixed by nature, and understands how easily the limit of good things can be reached and attained, and how either the duration or the intensity of evils is but slight. Destiny which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance or fortune is inconstant; whereas our own actions are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath destiny which the natural philosophers have imposed. The one holds out some faint hope that we may escape if we honor the gods, while the necessity of the naturalists is deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold chance to be a god, as the world in general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause, though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is dispensed by chance to people so as to make life happy, though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil. He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance.
那在你心目中，谁是这一类人的楷模？这种人对诸神怀着神圣的信仰，完全消除了对死的恐惧；他勤勉地思考着自然所规定的目的，明白向善是如何轻而易举，明白恶的猖獗和持续是多么微不足道；他对某些人宣扬的主宰一切的命运报以冷笑，确信世间有些事物的发生是必然，有些是偶然，还有些是人为，他看到必然摧毁了责任，机会和好运反复无常，既然我们的行为是自由的，因而自然会受到赞扬或指责。认为接受诸神的传说比在自然哲学家强加的命运下低头要好，有人抱有一线希望，以为只要对神高唱赞歌，就有可能逃避命运的定数，但自然主义者的必然性概念对任何哀求麻木不仁。正如世间的常理所示，人不可能成为神，因为神的行为不可能混乱无序，也不可能出现这样的情况，尽管这只是一种不确定的假设，即：人们相信，尽管上天提供了大是大非的基点，但他并没有偶然地把善与恶分配给人间，以使人们幸福生活。这种人相信，智慧产生的不幸比愚蠢带来的繁荣强，也就是说，具有良好判断的行为，尽管没有成功，但它比依靠机遇获得的成功要好。
Exercise yourself in these and kindred precepts day and night, both by yourself and with him who is like to you; then never, either in waking or in dream, will you be disturbed, but will live as a god among people. For people lose all appearance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings.
你和你的同道要用上述这些以及其他相关规则日月磨练你自己。无论是清醒还是在睡梦中，永远不要让你受到干扰，而要象生活在群氓中的神一样生活，因为活在不朽祝福中的人失去了凡人的外表。
THE END
全文完
Letter to Menoeceus
致美诺西斯的信
By Epicurus
伊壁鸠鲁
Translated by Robert Drew Hicks
希英翻译：罗伯特•D•希克斯，汉英翻译：张江南
Greeting.
致敬
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.
一个人年轻时，别让他怠于追寻智慧；一个人年老时，也别让他厌倦探求智慧。心灵的健康不分老幼，借口研究哲学还太早或已经太迟，就好比说现在还不需要幸福或者现在已经不需要幸福了一样荒谬。因此，无论老幼，都应该追寻智慧。对幼者而言，追寻智慧可以让他记住曾经的优雅，当岁月开始侵袭时，仍能够对美好的事物保持一颗年轻的心；对老者而言，追寻智慧可以使他在年轻时心灵就已成熟，因为他不再会害怕衰老的来临。所以我们必须专注在能带来幸福的事物，在其中锻炼自己，因为，如果幸福出现了，我们就一无所求了；如果幸福还没有踪影，那么我们所有的行为都应该指向获得幸福这个目标。
Those things which without ceasing I have declared to you, those do, and exercise yourself in those, holding them to be the elements of right life. First believe that God is a living being immortal and happy, according to the notion of a god indicated by the common sense of humankind; and so of him anything that is at agrees not with about him whatever may uphold both his happyness and his immortality. For truly there are gods, and knowledge of them is evident; but they are not such as the multitude believe, seeing that people do not steadfastly maintain the notions they form respecting them. Not the person who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them is truly impious. For the utterances of the multitude about the gods are not true preconceptions but false assumptions; hence it is that the greatest evils happen to the wicked and the greatest blessings happen to the good from the hand of the gods, seeing that they are always favorable to their own good qualities and take pleasure in people like to themselves, but reject as alien whatever is not of their kind.
我一刻不停向你灌输的那些东西确有价值，用他们磨练你自己，把他们看成构成正确人生的要素。首先，遵照人类常识所预示的神的概念，要相信神是一个不朽、幸福的活生生的存在；其次，我们为神所做的一切对提升神的幸福和不朽毫无意义，因为诸神是真实存在的，有关他们的知识即明证；但诸神并没有成为群氓的信仰，因为他们并没有坚持习俗观念，尊重神。不是否定群氓所信仰诸神的人，而是肯定群氓所信仰诸神的人才是真正不虔诚的。群氓有关诸神的言论并非真正的预言，而是虚假的猜测；因此，诸神总是把最大的灾难降给邪恶者，把最大的恩赐降给善良者，因为神对自己具有的品质珍爱无比，对和他们相像的人也关爱有加，而对异于他们的任何东西，都一概摒弃。
Accustom yourself to believe that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply awareness, and death is the privation of all awareness; therefore a right understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life an unlimited time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terror; for those who thoroughly apprehend that there are no terrors for them in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the person who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation.
让你自己习惯于相信，死亡对我们一无所是，因为善恶隐含对意识的要求，而死亡是对所有意识的剥夺；因此正确理解死亡对我们而言一无所是，可以让我们凡人的生活快乐逍遥，这靠的不是长生不老，而是靠打消人们对不朽的渴望，生命由此没有了恐惧；对那些能够完全理解这一点的人，在生命终结时不会有任何恐惧。然而，声称害怕死亡的人是愚蠢的，这不是因为在死亡来临之时他会感到痛苦，而是在预想死亡时他会感到痛苦。死亡来临时，无论如何，绝对不会带来烦恼，只有在预想中才会带来一种没有理由的痛苦。
Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer. But in the world, at one time people shun death as the greatest of all evils, and at another time choose it as a respite from the evils in life. The wise person does not deprecate life nor does he fear the cessation of life.
因而，死亡这一所有罪恶中最可畏者，对我们而言，一无所是，因为，当我们在世时，死亡无影无踪，当死亡到来的时候，我们已驾鹤而去，因此，死亡无论对生者还是死者，都一无所是，因为它无法与生者相伴，也无法与死者共眠。但曾几何时，世间的人们就像躲避最大的恶一样躲避死亡，而另一些时候，又把死亡当成人生中缓解罪恶的手段。智者既不会藐视生命，也不会惧怕死亡。
The thought of life is no offense to him, nor is the cessation of life regarded as an evil. And even as people choose of food not merely and simply the larger portion, but the more pleasant, so the wise seek to enjoy the time which is most pleasant and not merely that which is longest. And he who admonishes the young to live well and the old to make a good end speaks foolishly, not merely because of the desirability of life, but because the same exercise at once teaches to live well and to die well. Much worse is he who says that it were good not to be born, but when once one is born to pass with all speed through the gates of Hades. For if he truly believes this, why does he not depart from life? It were easy for him to do so, if once he were firmly convinced. If he speaks only in mockery, his words are foolishness, for those who hear believe him not.
对他而言，生不为过，死亦不为罪，当民众面对面包与快乐，抉择仅仅是更大块的面包时，智者追寻的是更多的快乐，他宁可一日行乐也不愿苦难一世。说那些教导青年人要幸福生活，老年人要得善终的人胡言乱语，不仅因为他们宣扬生命是可以人为欲求的，还因为他们的教导同时要求人们活要幸福，死要得善终。更糟糕的是那些宣称人最好不要出生的人，他们认为假如人已经出生，那么就应该尽可能快地走进冥府大门，如果他真的相信这些，那他自己为何不去死？如果他对此坚信不移，这应该是轻而易举的。如果他只是说笑话，那他愚蠢无比，因为听到他话的人将不再信任他。
We must remember that the future is neither wholly ours nor wholly not ours, so that neither must we count upon it as quite certain to come nor despair of it as quite certain not to come.
我们必须记住，未来既不完全属于我们，也不完全不属于我们，所以，我们既不能仰赖于它的必然到来，也不能绝望于它的必然不到来。
We must also reflect that of desires some are natural, others are groundless; and that of the natural some are necessary as well as natural, and some natural only. And of the necessary desires some are necessary if we are to be happy, some if the body is to be rid of uneasiness, some if we are even to live. He who has a clear and certain understanding of these things will direct every preference and aversion toward securing health of body and tranquillity of mind, seeing that this is the sum and end of a happy life.
我们也必须思考这样的事实：有些欲望是自然的，有些是毫无理由的；自然的欲望中有些是自然而且必要的，有些仅仅只是自然的，必要的欲望中，有些对我们快乐生活是必要的，有些对我们的身体除弃病痛是必要的，有些对我们的生存是必要的，对此有明确理解的人将以此指导自己的每一个行为和偏好，以确保身体的健康和精神的平和，因为幸福人生的含义和目的不外乎如此。
For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, and, when once we have attained all this, the tempest of the soul is laid; seeing that the living creature has no need to go in search of something that is lacking, nor to look anything else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled. When we are pained pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the need of pleasure. For this reason we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a happy life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good. It is the starting-point of every choice and of every aversion, and to it we come back, inasmuch as we make feeling the rule by which to judge of every good thing. And since pleasure is our first and native good, for that reason we do not choose every pleasure whatever, but often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensues from them. And often we consider pains superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us as a consequence a greater pleasure.
因为我们所有行为的目的就是摆脱痛苦和恐惧，一旦我们达到了目的，心灵的风暴就平息了；因为活着的人没有必要奢望自己没有的东西，没有必要向外追求那些我们灵魂和身体的善能够实现的东西。当我们让快乐遭受痛苦时，这时，只有这时，我们才感觉到快乐的必要。由此，我们把快乐称为幸福人生的全部，快乐是我们首要而亲密的善，它是一切好恶的起点，我们回归快乐，因为是快乐让我们对判断好坏的标准有了切身体验。由于快乐是我们首要的和自然的爱好，因此我们不追逐一切快乐，很多快乐可能产生更大的烦恼，我们放弃这些快乐。长期痛苦折磨之后，我们会体验到更大的快乐，这让我们以为痛苦比快乐更根本。
While therefore all pleasure because it is naturally akin to us is good, not all pleasure is worthy of choice, just as all pain is an evil and yet not all pain is to be shunned. It is, however, by measuring one against another, and by looking at the conveniences and inconveniences, teat all these matters must be judged. Sometimes we treat the good as an evil, and the evil, on the contrary, as a good. Again, we regard. independence of outward things as a great good, not so as in all cases to use little, but so as to be contented with little if we have not much, being honestly persuaded that they have the sweetest enjoyment of luxury who stand least in need of it, and that whatever is natural is easily procured and only the vain and worthless hard to win.
因为快乐与我们有着自然的联系，因此快乐都是善的，然而并非所有快乐都值得追求，正如所有痛苦都是恶的，但并非所有痛苦都要逃避一样，对必须作出判断的事情，我们判断的标准因时因地因情况而异，有时我们把善当成恶对待，有时相反，把恶当成善对待。尽管与我们无关的外在之物对我们几乎完全没有用处，但我们还是把它当成至宝，真的听从别人的话，认为那些无用的东西可以给我们带来最甜蜜的快乐，凡自然的东西都能轻而易举获得，而虚妄而无价值之物则很难赢得，以致当我们没有这些东西时就会觉得很不满足。
Plain fare gives as much pleasure as a costly diet, when one the pain of want has been removed, while bread an water confer the highest possible pleasure when they are brought to hungry lips. To habituate one's se therefore, to simple and inexpensive diet supplies al that is needful for health, and enables a person to meet the necessary requirements of life without shrinking and it places us in a better condition when we approach at intervals a costly fare and renders us fearless of fortune.
就填饱肚子而言，家常便餐和豪华大宴给人的快乐是一样的，对饥饿的嘴唇而言，面包和水即最大的快乐。因此，让我们习惯简单廉价的饮食，这种饮食既能维持健康，满足人们生存的必需不致匮乏，还让我们在有规律的间隔后享受佳肴胃口大开，还不必为钱袋担心。
When we say, then, that pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning, searching out the grounds of every choice and avoidance, and banishing those beliefs through which the greatest disturbances take possession of the soul. Of all this the d is prudence. For this reason prudence is a more precious thing even than the other virtues, for ad a life of pleasure which is not also a life of prudence, honor, and justice; nor lead a life of prudence, honor, and justice, which is not also a life of pleasure. For the virtues have grown into one with a pleasant life, and a pleasant life is inseparable from them.
当我们说快乐是目标和目的时，并不意味着追逐放荡不拘和感官享受，有些人出于无知、偏见和有意的误传，就是这么做的，对此我们很清楚。我们所谓的快乐是指身体无病痛，灵魂无搅扰，而不是通宵达旦的狂饮和寻欢作乐，也不是性爱、更不是在豪华的餐桌上享用山珍海味，满足口腹之欲的所谓快乐生活；快乐是一种清醒的理性，它探究我们所作一切选择的背后的根据，把可能给灵魂带来最大困扰的那些信仰抛弃，这就是审慎，因此，审慎比其他美德更加宝贵，因为快乐的人生必定是审慎、荣誉、正义的人生，缺乏审慎、荣誉、正义的人生不可能是快乐的人生，这些美德和快乐的人生已经融为一体，它们水乳交融，不可分割。
Who, then, is superior in your judgment to such a person? He holds a holy belief concerning the gods, and is altogether free from the fear of death. He has diligently considered the end fixed by nature, and understands how easily the limit of good things can be reached and attained, and how either the duration or the intensity of evils is but slight. Destiny which some introduce as sovereign over all things, he laughs to scorn, affirming rather that some things happen of necessity, others by chance, others through our own agency. For he sees that necessity destroys responsibility and that chance or fortune is inconstant; whereas our own actions are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach. It were better, indeed, to accept the legends of the gods than to bow beneath destiny which the natural philosophers have imposed. The one holds out some faint hope that we may escape if we honor the gods, while the necessity of the naturalists is deaf to all entreaties. Nor does he hold chance to be a god, as the world in general does, for in the acts of a god there is no disorder; nor to be a cause, though an uncertain one, for he believes that no good or evil is dispensed by chance to people so as to make life happy, though it supplies the starting-point of great good and great evil. He believes that the misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. It is better, in short, that what is well judged in action should not owe its successful issue to the aid of chance.
那在你心目中，谁是这一类人的楷模？这种人对诸神怀着神圣的信仰，完全消除了对死的恐惧；他勤勉地思考着自然所规定的目的，明白向善是如何轻而易举，明白恶的猖獗和持续是多么微不足道；他对某些人宣扬的主宰一切的命运报以冷笑，确信世间有些事物的发生是必然，有些是偶然，还有些是人为，他看到必然摧毁了责任，机会和好运反复无常，既然我们的行为是自由的，因而自然会受到赞扬或指责。认为接受诸神的传说比在自然哲学家强加的命运下低头要好，有人抱有一线希望，以为只要对神高唱赞歌，就有可能逃避命运的定数，但自然主义者的必然性概念对任何哀求麻木不仁。正如世间的常理所示，人不可能成为神，因为神的行为不可能混乱无序，也不可能出现这样的情况，尽管这只是一种不确定的假设，即：人们相信，尽管上天提供了大是大非的基点，但他并没有偶然地把善与恶分配给人间，以使人们幸福生活。这种人相信，智慧产生的不幸比愚蠢带来的繁荣强，也就是说，具有良好判断的行为，尽管没有成功，但它比依靠机遇获得的成功要好。
Exercise yourself in these and kindred precepts day and night, both by yourself and with him who is like to you; then never, either in waking or in dream, will you be disturbed, but will live as a god among people. For people lose all appearance of mortality by living in the midst of immortal blessings.
你和你的同道要用上述这些以及其他相关规则日月磨练你自己。无论是清醒还是在睡梦中，永远不要让你受到干扰，而要象生活在群氓中的神一样生活，因为活在不朽祝福中的人失去了凡人的外表。
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