2008年J.K.罗琳在哈佛大学毕业典礼上的演讲(中英文)

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they

might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all

the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to

name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the

keys to an executive bathroom.

我不记得将这事告诉了父母，他们可能是 在我毕业典礼那一天才发现的。我想，

在全世界的所有专业中，他们也许认为，不会有比 研究希腊神话更没用的专业

了，根本无法换来一间独立宽敞的卫生间。

< br>

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my

parents for

their point of

view.

There

is

an

expiry date on

blaming

your

parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old

enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more,

I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience

poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and

I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty

entails fear, and

stress, and sometimes depression; it means a

thousand

petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own

efforts,

that

is

indeed

something

on

which

to

pride

yourself,

but

poverty

itself is romanticised only by fools.

我想澄清一下：我不会因为父母的观点，而责怪他们。埋怨父母给你指错方向

是有一个时 间段的。当你成长到可以控制自我方向的时候，你就要自己承担责

任了。尤其是，我不会 因为父母希望我不要过穷日子，而责怪他们。他们一直

很贫穷，我后来也一度很穷，所以 我很理解他们。贫穷并不是一种高贵的经历，

它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有绝望，它意味 着许许多多的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己

的努力摆脱贫穷，确实可以引以自豪，但贫穷本身只有 对傻瓜而言才是浪漫的。

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

我在你们这个年龄，最害怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university,

where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and

far

too

little

time

at

lectures,

I

had

a

knack

for

passing

examinations,

and that, for years,

had been the measure

of success in my life and

that

of my peers.

我在您们这么大时，明显缺乏在大学学习的动力 ，我花了太久时间在咖啡吧写

故事，而在课堂的时间却很少。我有一个通过考试的诀窍， 并且数年间一直让

我在大学生活和同龄人中不落人后。

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and

well- educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and

intelligence

never

yet

inoculated

anyone

against

the

caprice

of

the

Fates,

and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an

existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

我不想愚蠢地假设，因为你们年轻 、有天份，并且受过良好的教育，就从来没

有遇到困难或心碎的时刻。拥有才华和智慧， 从来不会使人对命运的反复无常

有所准备；我也不会假设大家坐在这里冷静地满足于自身 的优越感。

However,

the

fact

that

you

are

graduating

from

Harvard

suggests

that

you

are

not

very

well- acquainted

with

failure.

You

might

be

driven

by

a

fear

of

failure

quite

as

much

as

a

desire

for

success.

Indeed,

your

conception

of

failure

might

not

be

too

far

from

the

average

person's

idea

of

success,

so high have you already flown academically.

相反，你们是哈佛毕业生的这个事实，意味着你们并不很了解失败。你们也许

极其渴望成 功，所以非常害怕失败。说实话，你们眼中的失败，很可能就是普

通人眼中的成功，毕竟 你们在学业上已经达到很高的高度了。

Ultimately,

we

all

have

to

decide

for

ourselves

what

constitutes

failure,

but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let

it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere

seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An

exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a

lone

parent,

and

as

poor

as

it

is

possible

to

be

in

modern

Britain,

without

being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had

for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was

the biggest failure I knew.

最终，我们所有人都必须自己决定什么算作失败， 但如果你愿意，世界是相当

渴望给你一套标准的。所以我承认命运的公平，从任何传统的 标准看，在我毕

业仅仅七年后的日子里，我的失败达到了史诗般空前的规模：短命的婚姻 闪电

般地破裂，我又失业成了一个艰难的单身母亲。除了流浪汉，我是当代英国最

穷的人之一，真的一无所有。当年父母和我自己对未来的担忧，现在都变成了

< br>现实。按照惯常的标准来看，我也是我所知道的最失败的人。

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That

period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going

to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale

resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long

time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

现在，我不打算站在这里告诉你们，失败是有趣的。那段日子是我生命中的黑

暗岁月，我 不知道它是否代表童话故事里需要历经的磨难，更不知道自己还要

在黑暗中走多久。很长 一段时间里，前面留给我的只是希望，而不是现实。

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure

meant

a

stripping

away

of

the

inessential.

I

stopped

pretending

to

myself

that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my

energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really

succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination

to succeed in the one arena

I believed I truly belonged. I was

set

free,

because

my

greatest

fear

had

already

been

realised,

and

I

was

still

alive,

and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter

and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which

I rebuilt my life.

那么为什么我要谈论失败的好处呢？因为失败意味 着剥离掉那些不必要的东

西。我因此不再伪装自己、远离自我，而重新开始把所有精力放 在对我最重要

的事情上。如果不是没有在其他领域成功过，我可能就不会找到，在一个我 确

信真正属于的舞台上取得成功的决心。我获得了自由，因为最害怕的虽然已经

发生了，但我还活着，我仍然有一个我深爱的女儿，我还有一个旧打字机和一

个很大的想法。所以困境的谷底，成为我重建生活的坚实基础。

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is

inevitable.

It

is

impossible

to

live

without

failing

at

something,

unless

you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all

–

in which case, you fail by default.

你们可能永远没 有达到我经历的那种失败程度，但有些失败，在生活中是不可

避免的。生活不可能没有一 点失败，除非你生活的万般小心，而那也意味着你

没有真正在生活了。无论怎样，有些失 败还是注定地要发生。

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing

examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have

learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more

discipline

than

I

had

suspected;

I

also

found

out

that

I

had

friends

whose

value was truly above rubies.

失败使我的内心产生一种安全感，这是我从考 试中没有得到过的。失败让我看

清自己，这也是我通过其他方式无法体会的。我发现，我 比自己认为的，要有

更强的意志和决心。我还发现，我拥有比宝石更加珍贵的朋友。

The

knowledge

that

you

have

emerged

wiser

and

stronger

from

setbacks

means

that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will

never truly know

yourself,

or the strength of your relationships, until

both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for

all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any

qualification I ever earned.

从挫折中获得智慧、变得坚强，意 味着你比以往任何时候都更有能力生存。只

有在逆境来临的时候，你才会真正认识你自己 ，了解身边的人。这种了解是真

正的财富，虽然是用痛苦换来的，但比我以前得到的任何 资格证书都有用。

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year- old self

that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list

of

acquisition

or

achievement.

Your

qualifications,

your

CV,

are

not

your

life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse

the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total

control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its

vicissitudes.

如果给 我一部时间机器，我会告诉

21

岁的自己，人的幸福在于知道生 活不是一

份漂亮的成绩单，你的资历、简历，都不是你的生活，虽然你会碰到很多与我< /p>

同龄或更老一点的人今天依然还在混淆两者。生活是艰辛的，复杂的，超出任

何人的控制能力，而谦恭地了解这一点，将使你历经沧桑后能够更好的生存。

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of

imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but

that

is not wholly

so.

Though

I

will

defend

the

value

of bedtime

stories

to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader

sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision

that

which

is

not,

and

therefore

the

fount

of

all

invention

and

innovation.

In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the