：曾平
Why I Write (1947)
我什作 (1947)
George Orwell
治威
From a very early age, perhaps the age of five or six, I knew that when I grew up I should be a writer. Between the ages of about seventeen and twenty-four I tried to abandon this idea, but I did so with the consciousness that I was outraging my true nature and that sooner or later I should have to settle down and write books.
小候，大五、六吧，我便知道自己大後作家。十七至二十四左右我打算放念，但我意到做是在背真我，而早晚我也平定下著的。
……
give all this background information because I do not think one can assess a writer’s motives without knowing something of his early development. His subject matter will be determined by the age he lives in -- at least this is true in tumultuous, revolutionary ages like our own -- but before he ever begins to write he will have acquired an emotional attitude from which he will never completely escape. It is his job, no doubt, to discipline his temperament and avoid getting stuck at some immature stage, in some perverse mood; but if he escapes from his early influences altogether, he will have killed his impulse to write. Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:
我提供些背景料，只因我相信若然有一作家的早年展有所了解，在不能他的作予。他作品的主其所的代氛所定 -- 至少在我糟糟的、革命的代是的 -- 但在他下之前，他得到一永不能完全的情感取。毫疑，他有任去抑制其情，也要避免乖僻失控而得不成熟；但若然他把早期的影全，又熄了其作。除了糊口的需要，我作 -- 然包括作散文 -- 有四大。每作家它的程度重有，而根作家身的境，它的比例更常有改。它是：
1. Sheer egoism.
Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen -- in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all -- and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.
一、粹的自我中心。
希望看起精明一、成象、死後留名、在童年瞧不起你的人面前一雪前，等等等等。假不是一的人疑是在，而且是大。作家共有特性的有科家、家、政治人物、律、人、赫商 -- 言之是人的整高等。大部分的人非婪比。三十以後他差不多都不以人自居 -- 主要是人而活，或者著役役的日子。但世上有有天份的、固的少份子，他意由始至只己而活，作家便於人。我必指出的是，的作家全都比新工作者更自更自以是，然相比下金的趣要低一。
2. Aesthetic enthusiasm.
Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed.
二、美的追求。
外在世界或字句的美的追求。交的趣，自扎的散文或者有奏感的好故事。渴望分享自己不可失的。
The aesthetic motive is very feeble in a lot of writers, but even a pamphleteer or writer of textbooks will have pet words and phrases which appeal to him for non-utilitarian reasons; or he may feel strongly about typography, width of margins, etc. Above the level of a railway guide, no book is quite free from aesthetic considerations.
於多作家追求美的相薄弱，但就算是小子或教科的作者，也被一些有趣的字句吸引，而非基於的考；又或者他印刷、版留白的尺寸等等的事情感深。所有比路指南高明的，一不及美感。
3. Historical impulse.
Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
三、史推。
渴望直真相，追事，以及其下以供後代使用。
4. Political purpose
-- using the word "political" in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.
四、政治目的。
是「政治」一字最的用法。渴望世界推向某一方向，改人理想社的概念。同地，有全政治偏。政治本身已是一政治取向。
It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time. By nature -- taking your "nature" to be the state you have attained when you are first adult -- I am a person in whom the first three motives would outweigh the fourth. In a peaceful age I might have written ornate or merely descriptive books, and might have remained almost unaware of my political loyalties.
由此可原力必定互相突排斥，而因因人它也程度有。我天生 -- 所的「天生」是指你大成人的 -- 三就比第四得多。太平盛世之我也雕章琢句或然描的，又或者自己的政治立全意。
者：是小家、散文家和政家治威(George Orwell)的名篇，是其小之外的作品。者翻的然是玩票性，乃行之。者手上有考料，只靠翻查字典和推文意翻。文有多不如意的地方，很可能有，希望各位者原指教。是全文的上半篇。
出：
http://www.jiulang.org/lang_0003.htm 
