第一次看到译林出版社的《阅读的至乐》的时候，首先看后面的预告，就知道了韦恩·布斯过世后由他人编辑的这本精选文集将出中文版。读了小半本《修辞的复兴》，觉得中译本虽然已经付出努力，但依然留下了一些瑕疵。恐怕比《阅读的至乐》的翻译水准要差上一些。韦恩·布斯的原文应该说，还不是十分难懂，关键是他一步步的论述是相当有逻辑性的。译者恐怕首先得自己去领悟透作者原文里的那层意思，先别忙着动笔，一旦动了笔，有些时候就被困在了翻译的迷雾中，简单的问题都看不透。
就我个人来说，还是推荐看英文版，很多微妙的东西不容易遗漏。中译文大概可以得70-80来分。
下面是中英文对照。红色字表示翻译有疑之处，用蓝色字加以注解。
莎士比亚在《麦克白》中给自己设置的问题，即使用最简单的词语来表达，也仍然显得很复杂。让所有的人都崇拜一个优秀高尚的人——并去毁灭他，不仅像希腊人毁灭自己的英雄那样从身体和情感方面，还要从道德和智力方面毁灭他。
这似乎并不是一个很难的
戏剧障碍，
但如果你把他看作一个最为卑鄙的凡人，
却又同时保持其悲剧英雄的形象——使其深受同情，这样在他临死之际，观众便会对他感到惋惜，而不是一味厌恶；观众看到他脱离苦海，必定会松一口气，而不会因他遭受毁灭而感到异常兴奋。套用莎士比亚自己的话来说就是：让一个满怀“道德’和“人情味”的“高尚的”人成为一个“
已死的屠夫”，却又保持其深受怜悯而不被憎恶。
Put even in its simplest terms, the problem Shakespeare gave himself in
Macbeth was a tremendous one.
Take a good man, a noble man, a man admired by all who know him-and destroy him, not only physically and emotionally, as the Greeks destroyed their heroes, but also morally and intellectually. As if this were not difficult enough as a
dramatic hurdle, while you are transforming him into one of the most despicable mortals conceivable, maintain him as a tragic hero-that is, keep him so sympathetic that, when he comes to his death, the audience will pity rather than detest him; they must feel relieved to see him out of his misery rather than pleased to see him destroyed. Put in Shakespeare's own terms:
take a "noble" man, full of "
conscience" and "the milk of human kindness," and make of him a "dead butcher," yet keep him an object of pity rather than hatred.
这里的两处take，揣测起来是create（创造）的意思，尤其是后者，创造出一个满怀“良知”和“人情味”的“高尚”的人，再让他成为一个……
“这似乎并不是一个很难的戏剧障碍，但如果你把他看作一个最为卑鄙的凡人，却又同时保持其悲剧英雄的形象……”这儿，应该是这一层意思：仿佛上面所述的转变还不够困难的，莎士比亚还要将麦克白塑造成观众能想到的最为卑劣无耻的人，同时又塑造他悲剧英雄的形象……
如果我们据此人为地重构这个问题，假设它在这部戏剧之前就已经存在，就会看到莎士比亚在选择这些“终极要点”（terminalpoints）和终极意图（terminalintentions）时，几乎用尽了其自身的戏剧写作技巧，只是莎士比亚坚信着自己如获成功，必定将非比寻常。的确，如果这种技巧能够成功，毫无疑问会产生巨大影响。
If we thus artificially reconstruct the problem as it might have existed before the play was written, we see that, in choosing these "terminal points" and these terminal intentions, Shakespeare makes almost impossible demands on his dramatic skill, although at the same time he insures that, if he succeeds at all, he will succeed magnificently. If the trick can be turned, it will inevitably be a great one.
我们只需想想，有多少作者在尝试类似的“情节”和效果时却以失败告终，便会了解这有多难了。当戏剧家或小说家尝试同情一堕落的情节“时，几乎总会出现以下失误或变形：
One need only consider the many relative failures in attempts at similar "plots" and effects to realize the difficulties involved. When dramatists or novelists attempt the sympathetic-degenerative plot, almost always one or another of the following failures or transformations occurs:
1.对戏剧主角的强烈憎恶导致观众丧失对其的同情，戏剧或小说便
成了“惩罚性的”——即读者或观众的主要乐趣依赖于他们对于
复仇或惩罚的满足.
1. The feeling of abhorrence for the protagonist becomes so strong that all sympathy is lost, and the play or novel becomes "punitive"-that is, the reader's or spectator's chief pleasure depends on his satisfaction in revenge or punishment.
2.
毕竟戏剧主角不会被刻画得过于邪恶；他只是在（通过暗示，并不
明说的）传统标准的审视下显得邪恶，其实是一位值得钦佩的改
革人选。
2. The protagonist is never really made very wicked, after all; he only seems wicked by conventional (and, by implication, unsound) standards and is really a highly admirable reform-candidate.
3.戏剧主角最后改过自新并避免了他应受的惩罚。
3. The protagonist reforms in the end and avoids his proper punishment.
4.书或戏剧本身成了“邪恶”的作品；即艺术家有意无意地让我们和
他塑造的堕落英雄并肩反对“道德”。
4. The book or play itself becomes a "wicked" work; that is, either deliberately or unconsciously the artist makes us side with his degenerated hero against "morality."
如果这些失误和变形是故意而为，
我们就会有类似上面第二种类型的种种宣传作品；如果是无意之作，那么作品的不道德性（如对由良家女子变成的娼妓、小偷或凶手的色情而残酷的处理手段）便使它们丧失了文学所具有的可欣赏性，除非读者或观众暂时或永久地放宽自身的道德判断标准。在大多数失败的例子中，都可以找得到这种失败或变形：堕落最后也没有得到相应解释，其动机仍然不明确；可惜的是，用来毁灭高尚之人的力量并不足以令他的堕落显得真实可信。
If it is deliberate, we have propaganda works of one kind or another,
often resembling the second type above; if it is unconscious, we get works whose immorality (as in pornographic or sadistic treatments of the good-girl-turned-whore, thief, or murderess) makes them unenjoyable as literature unless the reader or spectator temporarily or permanently relaxes his own standards of moral judgment. Any of these failures or transformations can be found in conjunction with the most frequent failure of all: the degeneration remains finally unexplained, unmotivated; the forces employed to destroy the noble man are found pitifully inadequate to make his fall seem credible.
“我们就会有类似上面第二种类型的种种宣传作品”，实为：我们就有了一批种类不一的宣传作品，多数呈现出上述第二类的特征
将之合二为一，细节上不妥。
即使有些作品获得了几分成功，它们在面临与内在困难的完全对抗时也经常会表现出某种退缩回避。譬如，《夜色温柔》（TenderIstheNight）跟《麦克白》在许多方面都有着惊人的相似之处，只是菲茨杰拉德
在个别地方减弱了效果。菲茨杰拉德塑造的“高尚之人”迪克.戴弗被毁灭了，并被毁灭得一无是处——酗酒成性，穷困潦倒，不受欢迎；他成了一个“失败者”。
他被毁灭的征兆绝不是现代读者眼中麦克白的残暴或邪恶行为，或类似的无可同情之行为，而是他与人交谈时的言辞比以往更为刻薄，他不再富有魅力。以作品本身的处理方式来说，这确实非常可惜；
但是对像菲茨杰拉德这样的艺术家来说倒也是件容易的事，因为他们会选择一种远距离的模糊描述方式，向我们诉说英雄最后的堕落：人们绝不会以看待麦克白的眼光来看待迪克·戴弗最终的可怕下场。结果便是，在他堕落的路途尽头，与其说他是个罪人，不如说他是个受害者，因此我们便会顺理成章地对其产生怜悯之情。另外由于这种堕落，远远不及麦克白在最后几个小时那般可怕，我们也就不会产生那么多的遗憾之情了。在此之后，还有其他一些削弱情感的地方。如果这种堕落不太严重，也就无需那么强大的力量来诱发堕落了（尽管会有人说为了叮信度，即使是在《夜色温柔》中也应该用强大的诱发力量）。尼科尔这个人物和24低迷颓废氛围所起的作用，假如放在《麦克白》中则需要用最大的腐蚀力量才能得以完成。
Even in works that are somewhat successful, there is almost always some shrinking from a fully responsible engagement with the inherent difficulties. For example, in
Tender Is the Night, which is in many ways strikingly similar to
Macbeth, Fitzgerald waters down the effect
in several ways. Dick Diver, Fitzgerald's "noble" man, is destroyed, but he is destroyed
only to helplessness-to unpopularity and drunkenness and poverty; he becomes a "failure." The signs of his destruction are never grotesque acts of cruelty or wickedness of the kind committed by Macbeth or of a kind which, for the modern reader, would be analogous in their unsympathetic quality. Rather, he speaks more sharply to people than he used to; he is no longer charming. This is indeed pitiful enough, in its own way, but it is easy enough, too, especially when the artist chooses, as Fitzgerald does, to report the final demoralization of the hero only vaguely and from a great distance: one never sees Dick Diver's final horrible moments as one sees Macbeth's. The result is that, at the end of his downward path, Diver has been more sinned against than sinning, and we have no obstacles to our pity. On the other hand, since the fall has not been nearly so great, our pity that the fall should have occurred at all is attenuated, compared with the awfulness of the last hours of Macbeth. Other attenuations follow from this one. If the fall is not a very great one, the forces needed to produce it need not be great (although one might argue that even in
Tender Is the Night they should have been greater, for credibility). Nicole and a general atmosphere of gloom and decay are made to do a job which, in
Macbeth, requires some of the richest degenerative forces ever employed.
in several ways 该是“以若干种方式”“菲茨杰拉德塑造的“高尚之人”迪克.戴弗被毁灭了，并被毁灭得一无是处”，漏掉了最重要的“Only”，迪克·戴弗确实是被毁掉了，可只是被毁至无助的境地，远没有麦克白那么结局凄惨。“他被毁灭的征兆绝不是现代读者眼中麦克白的残暴或邪恶行为，或类似的无可同情之行为” 里，“现代读者眼中”放错了位置，应该是“现代读者眼中类似的无可同情之行为”。（“类似的无可同情之行为”译得很贴切，赞一下）
“但是对像菲茨杰拉德这样的艺术家来说倒也是件容易的事”，第一个问题，“也是件容易的事”到底是什么事？即原文中it代指了什么？在下认为是成功描写迪克·戴弗的堕落这一令人意外的过程，也就是篇首的“莎士比亚在《麦克白》中给自己设置的问题”。第二点，原文中的“容易”并不是对于“像菲茨杰拉德这样的艺术家来说”，而是当作家像菲茨杰拉德一样，选择以远距离的模糊描述方式，向我们诉说英雄最后的堕落的时候，那件差事就很容易了。如此说来，不管这两部作品有着怎样显著的差别，如果以上那些结构要点的比较是合理的，那就意味着莎士比亚在《麦克白》中对设置困难这个技巧的运用，比菲茨杰拉德
更胜一筹，因为据我所知，在这方面无人能望其项背。
If, then, comparison on these structural points is just, in spite of the strong differences between the works, it indicates that in point of the difficulties created, Shakespeare in
Macbeth has it all over Fitzgerald, as he has it all over anyone else I know of who has attempted this form.
“更胜一筹”不足以表达出have it all over 的意思，个人以为是“莎士比亚在《麦克白》中的表现完胜菲茨杰拉德”任何读者都难以对《麦克白》是如何尽管（或者说因为）遇到重重困难，却能取得成功作出详尽研究。但人们还是能够简单地列举并讨论莎士比亚使用的主要手段——虽然没有人知道他是如何做到“有意识地”使用它们。
A complete study of how
Macbeth succeeds in spite of-or rather because of-the difficulties is beyond the capacities of any one reader. But the major devices employed by Shakespeare-one never knows how "consciously"-can be enumerated and discussed quite simply.
要使我们相信麦克白的堕落确实是一场悲剧，首先就得让我们相信他确实堕落了。这则需要让我们了解：麦克白曾是一个值得我们钦佩的人，拥有巨大的潜质。说服我们的一种办法即应当像菲茨杰拉德表现迪克.戴弗那样，向我们展示他是
个值得钦佩、有生命力的人。尽管这在休闲小说中是可能的，但在戏剧中则会浪费展现重要事件的时间，这些事件的开端始于开场战斗结尾处麦克白面临的巨大诱惑。因此，这里的最佳选择（尽管无须总做这种选择）就是
先对堕落的第一真正诱因做陈述铺垫，并通过其他人物来证明和构建戏剧主角的
极端善良。因此从一开始，种种迹象就提示我们，麦克白在出场前就具备了极其高尚的品质。当戏剧开始时，他已经垂涎上位，正如他对女巫预言过分紧张的反应那样；好像他已经考虑好了要用卑劣的手段得到它。只不过，尽管这个有可能发生的邪恶主意己呈现在他脑海，我们也早已拥有足够理由认为，麦克白是位值得钦佩的人。他“勇敢”、“英勇”，是一位“可敬的人”：邓肯称他为“高贵的麦克白”。这些修饰语只有在回想之时，才具有讽刺意味；当它们第一次被使用，并没有理由让我们去怀疑。
The first step in convincing us that Macbeth's fall is a genuinely tragic occurrence is to convince us that there was, in reality, a fall: we must believe that Macbeth was once a man whom we could admire, a man with great potential. One way to convince us would have been to show him, as Fitzgerald shows Dick Diver,
in action as an admirable man. But, although this is possible in a leisurely novel, in a play it would have wasted time needed for the important events, which begin only with Macbeth's great temptation at the conclusion of the opening battle. Thus the superior choice in this case (although it would not necessarily always be so) is to begin your representation of the
action with the first real temptation to the fall and to use testimony by other characters to establish your protagonist's
prior goodness. We are thus given, from the beginning, sign after sign that Macbeth's greatest nobility was reached at a point just prior to the opening. When the play begins, he already covets the crown, as is shown by his excessively nervous reaction to the witches' prophecy; it is indeed likely that he has already considered foul means of obtaining it. But, in spite of this wickedness already present to his mind as a possibility, we have ample reason to think Macbeth a man worthy of our admiration. He is "brave" and "valiant," a "worthy gentleman"; Duncan calls him "noble Macbeth." These epithets have an ironic quality only in retrospect; when they are first applied, one has no reason to doubt them.
“向我们展示他是个值得钦佩、有生命力的人”，“有生命力的”属于无中生有，in action as an admirable man，用事实来向我们展示他是个值得钦佩的人。
“这里的最佳选择（尽管无须总做这种选择）就是先对堕落的第一真正诱因做陈述铺垫”，这处错误同样和 action有关。前文说要用“action”来展示麦克白是个值得钦佩的人，这儿就说该从麦克白第一受到堕落的诱惑时就开始这种“action”的展示。action很难译，在舞台上可以代表人物的行动，用行动来展示？极端善良 prior goodness，prior应该是“最初的”意思，goodness译成“善良”不妥，后文中的“高尚”一词较贴切。这里是，用其他人物的表述来证明麦克白起初是个品德高尚的人。
弗蘭克·M.儸賓遜（1926——）美國科幻小説家、高科技驚險小説家。
弗蘭克·M.儸賓遜出身低微，父親是一名發票僞造者，弗蘭克本人的第一份工作是在報社打雜，后二戰爆發，他參加美國海軍，直至戰爭結束，進入大學修讀物理學，但畢業后找不到寫作方面的工作，於是重新回到海軍，在韓國服役。在此階段，弗蘭克閲讀甚多，勤奮創作，在《驚駭故事》（Astounding）雜誌發表作品。
退役之後，弗蘭克回到大學研究生院修讀新聞學位，畢業后在芝加哥的報社裏找到工作，輾轉工作于《科學文摘》、《Rogue》、《騎士》(Cavalier）雜誌社。后兩本雜誌都是與《花花公子》定位相似的男性色情雜誌，但都登載相當多的科幻小説，與科幻小説家也頗有不解之緣。譬如，哈蘭·埃裏森在弗蘭克·M.儸賓遜之後擔任Rogue雜誌的編輯。而《騎士》雜誌上出現過的科幻作家更加多，包括艾薩克·阿西莫夫、西奧多·斯特金、雷·布拉德伯裏等人，在20世紀70年代，斯蒂芬·金也給《騎士》雜誌寫過不少小説，后結集為《Cavalier Yearbook》。
60年代時，弗蘭克·M.儸賓遜此時已經儼然成爲男性色情雜誌行業的資深人士，《花花公子》也邀請他過去寫專欄，酬勞自然豐厚，從1969年寫到1973年，之後弗蘭克終于圓了幼時的夢想，成爲了全職作家。
1970年代，本身是同性戀的弗蘭克·M.儸賓遜遷居至思想開放的加州洛杉磯，為同性戀政治家哈維·米爾克擔任演講稿撰寫人。在奧斯卡影帝西恩·潘主演的電影《米爾克》裏，弗蘭克也跑了一回籠套。
弗蘭克·M.儸賓遜的長篇小説創作數量並不算太多，其中有幾本曾一度是暢銷書，被攝製成影視作品。
值得注意的倒是弗蘭克·M.儸賓遜寫作的兩本非虛構作品。一本是1988年出版的《20世紀科幻小説》（Science Fiction of the 20th Century），可貴之処在於，弗蘭克·M.儸賓遜從50年代開始就是美國科幻圈的一分子，能以内部人士的獨到眼光回憶記錄給科幻文學作出貢獻的那些作者、插畫家和編輯。
另外一本書名為《地攤文化：紙漿雜誌的藝術》（Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines），顧名思義，這本書就是介紹林林總總的美國紙漿雜誌，包括色情、偵探、西部、冒險、科幻等種類的雜誌，因爲介紹面廣，因而都是點到而已，只追求一個“全”字。
電影《米爾克》海報
電影《米爾克》劇照：注意看，走在前面、頭戴帽子的老頭就是弗蘭克·M.儸賓遜
我很好奇，這張插圖出自何處？大清勇士vs.日本戰機