20200423a

What Shakespeare teaches us about living with pandemics
疫情之下，莎士比亚教会我们的那件事
Twitter has been taunting us: When he was in quarantine from the plague, William Shakespeare wrote “King Lear.”
最近，推特一直在嘲笑我们：瘟疫暴发时，威廉·莎士比亚在隔离期间写了《李尔王》。
He had an advantage, of sorts: Shakespeare’s life was marked by plague. Just weeks after his baptism at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564, the register read, “Hic incepit pestis” (Here begins the plague). Shakespeare, the son of the town’s glover, survived it and many further outbreaks. Much of his work was composed, if not in lockdown, then in the shadow of a highly infectious disease without a known cure.
不过，莎士比亚算是有一项优势：瘟疫是其人生的一大特点。1564 年，他在艾冯河畔斯特拉特福镇的圣三一教堂受洗，仅仅几周之后，教区记事簿上就写道，“瘟疫暴发了”。莎士比亚是镇上手套工匠的儿子，他在这场瘟疫中幸免于难，在之后的人生里，又安然渡过多次疫病暴发。莎士比亚的很多作品，即使并非在封城中完成，也是在尚无有效治疗方法的高度传染性疾病的阴影之下创作的。
Men and women, to be sure, die in any number of inventive ways in Shakespeare's plays. In “Othello,” Desdemona is smothered in her bed. John of Gaunt dies of old age exacerbated by the absence of his exiled son in “Richard II.” In “Hamlet,” Ophelia drowns. But no one in Shakespeare’s plays dies of the plague.
的确，在莎翁的剧本中，男男女女的死法五花八门、稀奇古怪。《奥赛罗》中，苔丝狄蒙娜被闷死在床上；《理查二世》中，冈特的约翰本已老迈，又因被流放的儿子不在身侧而健康恶化，溘然长逝；《哈姆莱特》中，奥菲利亚溺死于小溪中。但是，莎士比亚笔下没有一个角色死于瘟疫。
René Girard, the French critic, wrote in a famous essay that “the distinctiveness of the plague is that it ultimately destroys all forms of distinctiveness.” Plague was indifferent to the boundaries erected by society, and its appetite was ravenous. Thousands of husbands, wives and children were led to the grave.
法国评论家勒内·吉拉尔在一篇知名论文中写道，“瘟疫的特殊性，在于它最终会抹去所有形式的不同。”瘟疫毫不关心社会划分的界限，它张着血盆大口到处肆虐，夺走了成千上万夫妇与孩童的生命。
Shakespeare's response to plague is not to deny mortality but rather to emphasize people’s unique and inerasable difference. Elaborate plots, motives, interactions and obscurities focus our attention on human beings. No one in Shakespeare’s plays dies quickly and obscurely. Rather, last words are given full hearing, epitaphs are soberly delivered, bodies taken offstage respectfully.
莎士比亚对瘟疫的回应，不是否认生命的限度，而是强调人类独一无二、无法磨灭的差异性。复杂的情节，叵测的动机，精心描绘的互动，以及晦涩的词句，都让读者专注于人类本身。莎翁的剧本中，没有一个角色死得匆忙潦草，或是死得默默无闻。相反，完整聆听死者的遗言，严肃地传达墓志铭，再庄重地将尸体抬下场——这才是莎翁赋予角色的结局。
Shakespeare is not interested in the statistics — what in his time were called the bills of mortality. Maybe, like Shakespeare, we should focus not on statistics but on the wonderfully, weirdly, cussedly, irredeemably individual.
莎士比亚并不在乎（死亡的）数据——也就是当时所谓的“死亡率表”。也许，我们也应该和莎翁一样，将目光从数据转向那神奇又怪异、恼人又不可救药的人性。