【英文翻译版43】约翰·汉密尔顿：《浮士德》

A classic that came from a puppet show

一部脱胎于木偶戏的经典之作

Zachary Davis: It’s the early 1930s in Mississippi, and a young guitar player wants more than anything to become a great blues musician. One evening he grabs his guitar and goes down to the crossroads in Clarksdale, where highway 61 crosses highway 49. Shortly after he arrives, he is met by the devil.

扎卡里·戴维斯：20世纪30年代，美国密西西比州的一个年轻吉他手想要不惜一切代价，成为出色的布鲁斯音乐家。一天晚上，他拎着吉他，走到了克拉克斯代尔市的一处十字路口，在那里61号美国国道和49号美国国道相交汇。到了那儿不久，年轻人便遇到了魔鬼。

Zachary Davis: The devil picks up the guitar, tunes it, plays a couple songs, and hands it back to the young man. The man is surprised to find he now has complete mastery of the instrument. A minute ago, he was just a regular guy who wanted to play the guitar. Now, he is a master blues musician. But this new skill comes with a hefty price tag. In exchange for musical mastery, he has to sell his soul to the devil. This is the legend of the blues musician Robert Johnson. But this story didn’t start with him.

扎卡里·戴维斯：魔鬼拿起吉他，调了调音，弹了几首曲子，再把吉他还给年轻人。年轻人惊讶地发现，自己的琴艺突然就炉火纯青。一分钟前，他还只是一个想弹吉他的普通人；而现在，他已经成为了布鲁斯音乐大师。但天下没有免费的午餐。作为交换，他必须把自己的灵魂卖给魔鬼。这就是布鲁斯音乐家罗伯特·约翰逊的传奇故事。但用灵魂交换才华的传说，此前也发生在别人的身上。

Zachary Davis: Selling your soul to the devil in exchange for your deepest desire is a common theme in many western stories. The origins of this theme can be traced back to the German legend of Faust. This legend has been around since at least the 1500s, but the most well-known version today is an epic poem written by German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who completed his version of the story in the early 1800s.

扎卡里·戴维斯：为了满足内心最深处的渴望而将灵魂卖给魔鬼，这样的桥段在西方故事中并不罕见。它最早可以追溯到德国浮士德的传说。这个传说首次出现在16世纪左右，但最有名的版本莫过于德国诗人约翰·沃尔夫冈·冯·歌德在19世纪上半叶完成的诗剧——《浮士德》。

John Hamilton: Faust is probably the most important literary achievement in the German literary canon, but also in the European canon and in world literature in general, because Faust is essentially the myth of modernity. I'm John Hamilton. I'm professor of Comparative Literature in German at Harvard.

约翰·汉密尔顿：《浮士德》可谓是德国、欧洲、乃至整个世界的文学史上最重要的经典之作，因为它从本质上讲是一则关于现代性的寓言。我是约翰·汉密尔顿，是哈佛大学德语比较文学的教授。

Zachary Davis: Faust, the main character, is constantly striving beyond his human limitations. What he wants from the devil is knowledge and power. He believes he will finally be satisfied if he can obtain these things and put a stop to his striving.

扎卡里·戴维斯：主人公浮士德一直在努力突破人类的局限。他想要从魔鬼那儿得到知识和力量。他相信一旦他获得了这些，就可以心满意足，停下探索追寻的脚步。

John Hamilton: Faust's limitless striving seems to tell us something very profound about human limitation. Because it’s limitation at the very beginning that instigates limitless striving. If he were ever perfectly satisfied, if he overcame all limitation, he would no longer be limited, and he would no longer be human.

约翰·汉密尔顿：浮士德永无止境的追寻与探索展现了关于人类局限性的深刻内容。最初激发他不断努力的就是人类的局限性。如果他心满意足，或是克服了所有的局限性，那么他就无所不能，也就不会成为一个有血有肉的人类。

Zachary Davis: Part of the reason this text continues to resonate with audiences through the centuries, is that everyone can relate to this feeling of striving against our own human limitations.

扎卡里·戴维斯：几百年来，《浮士德》一直引发着读者的强烈共鸣。这或许是因为，每个人都能体会到这种想要克服人类局限性的心情。

John Hamilton: So, to be human is to be limited, and Faust brings out something that is quintessentially human about all of us: that we are defined by a limitless limitation that keeps us moving and striving and going further.

约翰·汉密尔顿：身为凡人自然会有各种各样的局限，而《浮士德》展现了我们人类最典型的一面：我们永远都有局限，但正是这种局限让我们不断奋进、越走越远。

Zachary Davis: Welcome to Writ Large, a podcast about how books change the world. I’m Zachary Davis. In each episode, I talk with one of the world’s leading scholars about one book that changed the course of history. For this episode, I sat down with Professor John Hamilton to discuss Goethe’s Faust.

扎卡里·戴维斯：欢迎收听：100本改变你和世界的书，在这里我们为大家讲述改变世界的书籍。我是扎卡里·戴维斯。每一集，我都会和一位世界顶尖学者探讨一本影响历史进程的书。在本集，我和约翰·汉密尔顿教授一起讨论歌德的《浮士德》。

Zachary Davis: Goethe was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1749. He studied law at Leipzig University, but his real passion was poetry. After he completed his studies, Goethe met German philosopher and poet Johann Gottfried Herder. They became close friends and inspirations to each other. Herder introduced Goethe to Shakespeare’s works which had a huge influence on young Goethe.

扎卡里·戴维斯：1749年，歌德出生于德意志的法兰克福。他曾在莱比锡大学学习法律，但他真正热爱的是诗歌。完成学业后，歌德遇到了德意志哲学家和诗人约翰·哥特弗雷德·赫尔德。他们成为了好朋友，给予了彼此很多灵感。赫尔德向歌德介绍了莎士比亚的作品，这些作品对年轻的歌德影响深远。

John Hamilton: So, as a young man, Goethe had the opportunity to publish with Herder and started to make a name for himself among the younger generation of poets. Manuscripts of his poems would be circulated among this close knit group of friends. And then he wrote this novella, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and almost instantaneously it became a major bestseller, and not only in the German states, but also in France and in England.

约翰·汉密尔顿：歌德年轻的时候就有幸能和赫尔德一起出版作品，在年轻诗人中开始声名鹊起。他诗作的手稿在这些诗人朋友中广泛传播。后来，他写了中篇小说《少年维特之烦恼》。小说一出版就畅销德意志、法国和英国。

John Hamilton: And it sparked a wave of fanaticism where young men dressed like Werther, they wore the same clothing. And also, at least according to reports, many young men took their lives, just like Werther did. Werther commits suicide over a failed love interest. And so Goethe almost overnight became incredibly well known, very famous.

约翰·汉密尔顿：小说的畅销甚至引发了一波流行浪潮：年轻人纷纷穿起了维特的衣服；而且据报道，许多年轻人效仿维特，因为感情受挫而自杀。因为这本小说，歌德一夜成名。

John Hamilton: When Napoleon was victorious at the Battle of Jena, he was invited to meet the elector of Weimar. And he said, “No, no, no, I want to meet the author of Werther.” I mean, Goethe trumped everyone in terms of popularity and fame.

约翰·汉密尔顿：拿破仑赢得了耶拿战役后，有人邀请他和魏玛大公见面。可拿破仑却说：“不不不，我只想和《少年维特之烦恼》的作者见面。”可以说，歌德当时的名望超过了几乎所有人。

Zachary Davis: The success of this novella made Goethe so popular, he caught the attention of the young Duke of Weimar in Germany, who offered Goethe a secretarial position in the court. He held this position for the rest of his life.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这部中篇小说大获成功，歌德也一举成名。德意志年轻的魏玛大公也注意到了他，邀请他去魏玛担任公职。之后的许多年里，他都一直在那儿任职。

John Hamilton: So, he would have sort of secretarial tasks or he would have to deal with certain affairs of state, all the while creating great works of literature, tragedies, novels, lots of poetry, all while, you know, basically having this secretarial career more or less.

约翰·汉密尔顿：他一边在政府担任文职，处理国家事务，一边创作了大量文学作品，包括悲剧、小说和诗歌。

Zachary Davis: Although Goethe wrote many stories, Faust became his most well-known work and occupied his life almost entirely. When Goethe first heard the story of Faust, it had already been around for roughly 200 years.

扎卡里·戴维斯：尽管歌德写过很多作品，但最有名的、耗费他心血最久的还是《浮士德》。当歌德第一次听说浮士德的传说时，它已经流传了差不多两百年。

John Hamilton: He was 6 years old when he first saw a puppet show production of the Faust story in his hometown in Frankfort. In his autobiography, he discusses how he became obsessed with the plot even at the age of 6, and it would occupy the entirety of his very long life.

约翰·汉密尔顿：六岁时，他第一次在家乡法兰克福看了关于浮士德的木偶戏。在自传中，他说尽管当时自己只有六岁，懵懵懂懂，但还是对这个故事如痴如醉，这个故事将会贯穿他接下来的漫长人生。

John Hamilton: Just after he becomes basically world famous, publishing his first novella, The Sorrows of Young Werther, in 1774, he immediately begins working on the Faust story. He's 26 years old when he publishes the first fragmentary version of the tragedy and then continues working on it year after year, decade after decade.

约翰·汉密尔顿：1774年，歌德发表了自己的第一篇中篇小说《少年维特之烦恼》，从此享誉四海。紧接着，他就开始着手准备浮士德的故事。26岁那年，他写下了这个悲剧的第一个不完整版。之后的几十年间，他一直不断地对它打磨。

John Hamilton: In 1790, he publishes a longer fragment of the tragedy. Then in 1808, he publishes the first part. And he only completes the poem, he completes Part II at the age of 82 years old, just a couple of months before he passes away in 1832. So, from the age of 6 to the age of 82, he has persistently worked on this poem. So, if Goethe is the greatest German poet, Faust is his life work in every single sense of the term.

约翰·汉密尔顿：1790年，他发表了这部悲剧的一个更长一点的片段。到了1808年，他发表了诗剧的第一部分。直到1832年，也就是他82岁那年，诗剧的第二部分才完成。仅仅几个月之后，他便与世长辞。所以从6岁一直到82岁，他都一直在酝酿这部诗剧。如果说歌德是德国最伟大的诗人，那么《浮士德》从各方面看都堪称这位伟大诗人的毕生心血。

Zachary Davis: You mentioned that he saw the Faust story in a puppet show at age 6. Where did the original story of the Faust myth come from?

扎卡里·戴维斯：您刚刚提到，歌德六岁时在木偶戏中看过浮士德的故事。那么浮士德的原版传说从何而来呢？

John Hamilton: So, there was a Faust legend that grew up around an historical figure, Johann or Georg Faust, who was actually mentioned in Martin Luther's letters. He was reputed to have performed black magic. The legend was that he sold his soul to the devil for infinite knowledge and power.

约翰·汉密尔顿：浮士德的传说是围绕着一个真实的历史人物展开的。这个人叫约翰·乔治·福斯特，马丁·路德在书信中提到过他。据说他会黑魔法。在传说中，他为了获取无限的知识和力量，将灵魂卖给了魔鬼。

John Hamilton: And soon after this historical Faust passed away, there was a lot of sort of hearsay and legends being accumulated with various stories, usually cautionary tales, that were all collected in what we call “the chapbook.” This was a small booklet that essentially collected all of the various legends that were ascribed to the life of this Doctor Faustus. And it's a chapbook that is translated immediately into English, and that's what Christopher Marlowe picked up in London.

约翰·汉密尔顿：乔治·福斯特（也就是浮士德博士的历史原型）去世后，关于他的奇闻异事越来越多，而且往往都是些劝诫意味的故事。这些故事全都收录到一本叫《故事集》的小册子中。这本小册子基本上收录了所有关于浮士德博士的传说，很快就被翻译成英文。克里斯托弗·马洛在伦敦便接触到了它。

Zachary Davis: In the late 16th century, English playwright Christopher Marlowe adapted these chapbook tales into a play called The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus.

扎卡里·戴维斯：在16世纪后期，英国剧作家克里斯托弗·马洛将小册子里的这些故事改编成一部戏剧，名为《浮士德博士的悲剧》。

John Hamilton: It's Marlowe's play that has an incredible success across Europe where traveling troupes of actors would perform this piece in all of the major capitals of the continent. And then, of course, for those who cannot afford to have a troupe of actors performing in your town, there were puppet shows. And so the puppet show became a very common feature in, again, the cities across Germany. And that's precisely what the 6-year-old Goethe saw in Frankfurt.

约翰·汉密尔顿：马洛的戏剧在欧洲大获成功，剧团在欧洲各大首府巡回演出。那些没钱邀请剧团来当地巡回演出的人，就看起了浮士德的木偶戏。浮士德的木偶戏在整个德意志都非常流行，这也正是六岁的小歌德在法兰克福所看到的。

A wager with the devil

和魔鬼的一场赌约

Zachary Davis: Marlowe’s version was very popular. Although it inspired various other telling of the tale, this version was the one that continued to be read and performed. That all changed when Goethe decided to write his version of the tale. In Goethe’s telling, in Faust: Part I, what is the basic plot? What is the story?

扎卡里·戴维斯：马洛的这部剧非常受欢迎。尽管在此之后又有些其他版本的浮士德传说，但马洛的版本一直被人们阅读，也一直被搬上舞台。不过当歌德准备写浮士德故事的时候，一切都将改变。在《浮士德》的第一部分中，歌德叙述了怎样的情节呢？

John Hamilton: Well, the plot is what it always had been. Faust is a scholar. He's someone who has learned everything. He has read every book. He has entirely absorbed all the information he could possibly absorb, but the information is just information. It doesn't come with knowledge. He wants wisdom. And in order to achieve that, he makes a pact with the devil who promises him something like knowledge and power.

约翰·汉密尔顿：情节和之前的传说差不多。浮士德是一位博士，无所不知，博览群书。他已经吸收了自己所能吸收的所有信息，但信息只是单纯的信息罢了，它们没法形成知识。浮士德想要智慧，而魔鬼声称将会让拥有知识和力量。为了成为一个睿智的人，他与魔鬼立下赌约。

John Hamilton: The idea is that information for Faust becomes something like a two-dimensional phenomenon. It's all surface. There's no depth, right? It's just a lateral accumulation of information. You float across the surface, but you can never get what's beneath it.

约翰·汉密尔顿：对于浮士德而言，信息只是二维的，只浮于表面，没有深度。吸收信息只是对信息做横向的积累，但你永远浮在表面，无法领会信息背后的内容。

Zachary Davis: For Faust, information was just an unsatisfying pile of facts. He longed for something deeper, he craved knowledge.

扎卡里·戴维斯：对浮士德而言，信息就是由一堆事实情况叠加起来的东西，没法让他心满意足。他渴望更深刻的东西，比如知识。

John Hamilton: Knowledge begins when you start to connect what cannot be immediately perceived, when you can't get to the negative core that lies beneath the surface phenomenon. And only then can the information, these little specks of factoids, start to be connected into a kind of narrative.

约翰·汉密尔顿：当你联系到非直观的事物，当你透过表象挖掘本质时，知识便出现了。只有这样，这些信息、这些对客观世界的描述，才能形成一套有逻辑的说法。

John Hamilton: In German as in English, we make a distinction between “counting”, in German, “zählen,”and “recounting” or “erzählen.” So, the idea is to take the counting and turn it into a narrative recounting where what you see is connected to what you don't see, what is no longer here, what is not yet here, what is invisible, what is hidden. All of that comes together to create a certain kind of depth that we call knowledge, a knowledge that transcends the immediate positive appearance of things.

约翰·汉密尔顿：英语里“盘点”和“叙述”这两个词是有区别的，德语也一样。将信息转化为知识，就是将盘点上升为叙述，将你直接看到的东西与你看不到的、已经消逝的、尚未出现的或是隐藏其中的东西联系起来。所有这些共同构成了一种深度的内容，我们称之为“知识”。这种知识超越了事物的直观表象。

Zachary Davis: This striving for knowledge, for depth, is precisely what drives Faust. He wants to know everything.

扎卡里·戴维斯：追求知识和深度正是驱动浮士德前进的动力——他想要知晓一切。

John Hamilton: He wants to be there when the world is created. He wants to see what no one else can see, and he wants to live in these negative depths of the no longer and the not yet. That's timelessness for Faust. Otherwise, he's condemned to the mere present where everything is there, but nothing means anything.

约翰·汉密尔顿：他想要见证世界的创建，想要看见别人看不到的东西，洞察过去与未来的种种事物，了解其深度。在他看来，这才是真正的不朽。否则他将仅仅囿于当下的点滴时空中，尽管他知道所有事情，却永远悟不出它们的真谛。

Zachary Davis: In other words, Faust wants to escape the immediate present and live in eternal knowledge. He is up against the limits of humanity. It is impossible to exist in this space, but that’s what keeps Faust striving. We are first introduced to this tension in the very first scene of the story. It begins with Faust, the dissatisfied scholar, sitting in his study.

扎卡里·戴维斯：换句话说，浮士德想要挣开当下的枷锁，掌握永恒的知识。但这么做就超越了人类的局限，此生此时不可能做到，但也正是这种“不可能”驱使着浮士德向前。在诗剧的第一场中，我们就能首次感受到这种矛盾的张力。这位博士郁郁寡欢地坐在自己的书房里。

John Hamilton: And it's just beautifully clever how Goethe sets it up. The scene is set up in a high vaulted, narrow Gothic study, right? So, you have the high vaulted, the transcendence, the verticality, the striving upwards towards the heavens, but it's still a narrow study. So it's this tension between what is high-vaulted and narrow. And Faust is stuck in between these two axis, right? Between the verticality of striving and the horizontality of ennui, of boredom, of melancholy.

约翰·汉密尔顿：歌德精彩地描述了开场的布景。这一场发生在一个狭窄的、有着高高拱顶的哥特式书房里。尽管书房有着高高的、仿佛直入天穹的拱顶，但仍然拥挤逼仄。所以书房的纵向与横向的空间首先就形成了矛盾。而浮士德恰恰被困在这个横向与纵向的空间中。从纵向上，你能感受到力求向上的奋进感；而从横向上，一股百无聊赖、闷闷不乐的气息却向你袭来。

John Hamilton: And he laments. It's a monologue, and the monologue is actually quite long. So, we in the audience can feel the claustrophobia of this study, right, because all we hear is Faust just going on and on of how he studied philosophy and jurisprudence and medicine and, unfortunately, also theology. And what does he come up with, right? He's just the same old fool that he always was.

约翰·汉密尔顿：在这样的背景下，浮士德发起了牢骚。这段是一个非常长的独白，我们读者甚至都能感受到书房里的幽闭的气息。我们一直听浮士德抱怨着，自己如何一直发奋研究哲学、法学、医学甚至神学，可自己最终收获无几，还是一个一无所知的愚人。

John Hamilton: He's completely reached his limit. There's nothing more he can read. There's nothing more he can learn. And he feels that he knows absolutely nothing. And so he turns to magic, and magic is going to give him the opportunity maybe to tap into those sources, those hidden sources of power and knowledge that he yearns for.

约翰·汉密尔顿：他已经触及了天花板，没有其他东西可以阅读、学习了。然而他觉得自己一无所知，于是开始钻研起魔法，希望它能让自己获取到渴求已久的、却尚未发掘的力量与知识之源。

Zachary Davis: Faust takes out an old spell book and manages to summon an Earth-Spirit, but when the spirit appears, it quickly dismisses Faust and humiliates him. It is annoyed with Faust for summoning it and does not provide him the knowledge he seeks.

扎卡里·戴维斯：浮士德拿出一本旧咒语书，召唤出了一只地精。可是他把浮士德羞辱了一番，就很快离去了。他不满于浮士德的召唤，没有给他想要的知识。

John Hamilton: And the failure is so devastating to Faust that he contemplates taking his life, and he's just about to reach for the vial that he sees glimmering on his shelf. And as he brings the glass to his lips, the Easter bells resound in the town, and the Easter chorus saves him from this dreadful final step, and he’s saved for the moment from his path toward self-destruction.

约翰·汉密尔顿：召唤失败让浮士德深受打击，他决定要自杀。可正当他拿起架子上闪闪发光的小药瓶，准备服药自尽时，他听到了外面城镇上回荡的复活节钟声与合唱声，打消了自杀的念头，从自我毁灭的边缘走了回来。

John Hamilton: And the next morning, on Easter Sunday, his assistant, Wagner, persuades him to just go out into the countryside, go through the city gates, enjoy life. It's Easter Sunday. Have a beer, talk with the peasants. And it's there that this black poodle starts to trail them. And Wagner says, you know, “It's just a stray dog.” But Faust almost thinks he sees a little trail of fire coming from the dog's tail.

约翰·汉密尔顿：第二天早晨，也就是复活节当天，他的助手瓦格纳说服他去乡间漫步。他们穿过城门，享受美好春光，喝着啤酒，和农民聊聊天。在那儿，一只黑色卷毛狗开始跟着他们。瓦格纳说这不过是一只流浪狗；但浮士德说，他似乎看到狗背后一路卷起了熊熊的火焰。

Zachary Davis: The dog continues to follow them for the rest of their walk. When Faust gets back to his study, he is feeling inspired by the Easter festivities and decides to translate the Greek New Testament into German.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这只狗继续跟着他们。当浮士德回到书房后，内心受到了复活节庆祝活动的鼓舞，决定将希腊语的《圣经·新约》翻译成德语。

John Hamilton: Meanwhile, the black poodle is howling, barking up a storm, and he tries to throw something at the dog to get it out of his way. The dog goes behind the oven, and in a cloud of smoke, this traveling scholar appears, and it's Mephistopheles, an apparition that appears in his study. And that's when they start to exchange words that lead directly to the signing of the wager.

约翰·汉密尔顿：这时卷毛狗开始乱叫，浮士德准备朝它扔东西，让它安静下来。卷毛狗走到了炉子后，待到烟雾消散，炉子后走出了一位游学书生。这就是梅菲斯特。他们开始交谈起来，后来立下了一场赌约。

Zachary Davis: Mephistopheles, or Mephisto is a common character in German folklore. He is usually a demon and in this story, he is the devil himself.

扎卡里·戴维斯：梅菲斯特是德国民间传说中的常见角色，通常是魔鬼的化身。在《浮士德》中，梅菲斯特就是魔鬼本人。

John Hamilton: And I should point out that Goethe makes a very important modification here. In Christopher Marlowe and in most of the Faust accounts before Goethe, it's always a pact, and a pact has set limits, right? Usually it goes something like, “I'll give you whatever you want, I the devil, and in exchange, after 24 years, you give me your soul.” So, an even contract, right? Very clear terms. You get whatever you want for 24 years, and then you give me your soul.

约翰·汉密尔顿：需要指出的是，歌德在这里做了一个很重要的修改。在克里斯托弗·马洛和之前的种种浮士德传说中，他们签订的是契约而不是赌约。契约一般会有明确的条件，比如会写道：“魔鬼我会给你想要的任何东西，但作为交换，24年之后你要给我你的灵魂。”所以这是一个比较平等的契约，条款非常明晰。这24年间你可以得到想要的一切，但24年一过你就要把灵魂给我。

John Hamilton: But Goethe doesn't make it a pact. He makes it a wager, and a wager is completely different. Faust in Goethe’s version says “For as long as I continue to strive, I will keep my soul. If ever I, say, stay a while because this is really beautiful, if I ever stop and contemplate the beauty and the pure adequacy of things, then you could have my soul.”

约翰·汉密尔顿：但歌德写的并不是定契约，而是定赌约。赌约就完全不是一回事了。歌德版的《浮士德》中写道：“只要我一直在追寻探索，我就可以保有我的灵魂。一旦我为了什么美好而驻足赞叹、满足不已，你就可以收走我的灵魂。”

John Hamilton: And Faust knows that it's a bet he can't lose because Faust knows he'll never stop striving. Nothing is ever good enough. Nothing is ever perfect enough for him to say to himself, “Verweile doch, stay a while, du bist so schön, you are so beautiful.” And so he readily signs this wager knowing full well that he'll live a very long life and will never ever say those words.

约翰·汉密尔顿：浮士德知道自己不可能输掉这场赌约，因为他永远不会停止追寻。对他来说，没有什么是足够美好的。没有什么可以让他对自己说：“太美了，停下来欣赏欣赏吧。”他欣然定了这个赌约，但心底清楚自己会活很久，因为自己永远不会开口说这句话。

Zachary Davis: Faust is a clever character. For him this wager is a win-win. If he never finds satisfaction, his soul is his. But if he does in fact lose his soul to the devil, it will mean he has achieved perfect satisfaction, which is what he was after all along. Faust signs the wager in blood.

扎卡里·戴维斯：浮士德是个聪明人。对他来说，这个赌约是双赢的。如果他永远都不满足，那么他将保有自己的灵魂；但如果他将灵魂输给了魔鬼，那么至少他在死前也心满意足了，而心满意足恰恰是他长久以来想要达到的状态。浮士德用鲜血签下了赌约。

John Hamilton: After Faust signs the wager, Mephisto says, “Right, let's find you a girlfriend.”

约翰·汉密尔顿：浮士德立下赌约后，梅菲斯特说：“来吧，让我来给你找位姑娘。”

Zachary Davis: But before they can find Faust a girlfriend, they need to make him appear younger. Faust is in his 60s, and at this point, he looks it. Mephistopheles takes him to a witch, but Faust is a little hesitant to use magic to look younger.

扎卡里·戴维斯：可是在找到心上人之前，他们必须让浮士德看上去年轻点。浮士德当时已经六十多岁了，看上去年迈不堪。梅菲斯特把他带到了一位女巫跟前，但浮士德犹豫要不要用法术让自己显得年轻。

John Hamilton: He doesn't really care for this sort of thing. And he says, “Mephisto, do I have to go through this silly magic stuff?” And, you know, Mephisto very cheekily says, “Well, there's other ways for you to look younger. You could eat better and exercise.” And Faust says, “Okay, let's go for the magic pill instead.”

约翰·汉密尔顿：浮士德不喜欢这种事。他问梅菲斯特：“必须要用这些愚蠢的魔法吗？”梅菲斯特厚脸皮地说：“嗯，还有其他让您看起来更年轻的法子：吃健康点，多干活。”浮士德说：“好吧，那还是用魔药吧。”

Zachary Davis: They leave the witch’s house and head into town looking for a girlfriend for Faust. The first person Faust sees is a 14-year-old girl named Gretchen who is walking home from church.

扎卡里·戴维斯：离开女巫家之后，他们去城里找姑娘。第一个映入浮士德眼帘的是一个叫格雷琴的14岁姑娘，她当时刚从牧师那儿祷告完，正要回家。

John Hamilton: And the witch has made it so that the first girl Faust sees, he falls irredeemably in love with. So, of course, he says, “That's the girl. I need her.” Mephisto is very nervous about that. He says, “Can we find somebody else? I mean, she just came back from church. She just confessed all her sins. There’s plenty of girls out here.” But Faust says, “No, either you get her for me or the deal is off.”

约翰·汉密尔顿：女巫的魔法奏效了。他一眼就爱上了这个姑娘。他吩咐梅菲斯特：“把那个姑娘给我请来。”梅菲斯特很紧张，问他：“不能换个吗？她刚去了牧师那儿忏悔了所有罪过。这儿还有很多别的姑娘呢。”但浮士德态度很坚决，说：“若是你不帮我请来她，咱们就取消赌约。”

John Hamilton: And so this begins what we call “The Gretchen Tragedy”. Faust seduces Gretchen. He kills her brother who spies on her. He accidentally kills her mother. So, Gretchen's life is completely overturned by Faust’s intervention, not to mention the fact that, of course, she's only 14 years old. She's pregnant. She possibly drowns her baby. She is locked up in a prison. She, like Ophelia, has gone insane.

约翰·汉密尔顿：接下来就开始了所谓的“格雷琴的悲剧”。浮士德引诱了格雷琴，杀死了看管着格雷琴的兄弟，又无意中杀死了她的母亲。这个姑娘的生活被浮士德的出现搅得一团糟，可怜她当时只有14岁，还怀了身孕。后来她把孩子溺死，被关进了监狱，像《哈姆雷特》中的奥菲利亚一样变疯了。

John Hamilton: Faust tries to save her. Faust visits her prison, but she won't leave. She says, “This is where I belong. I deserve to die. I'm a sinner.” And she passes away in prison and as Faust is leaving on horseback with Mephisto, he hears a voice in heaven proclaiming that Gretchen is saved.

约翰·汉密尔顿：浮士德想要把她救出来，跑去监狱探视她，但她拒绝离开。她说：“我就应当待在这儿，我有罪，就算死也是活该。”最终她在监狱里与世长辞。而浮士德和梅菲斯特骑着马离开了，浮士德听见天堂中传来一个声音，告诉他格雷琴已经得到了救赎。

Ascending to heaven

升入天堂

Zachary Davis: This is the end of Part I. Having just experienced such a painful tragedy, Faust is overcome with sorrow and needs to be cleansed of his suffering. Part II begins with Faust asleep outside in a pleasant landscape. Spirits hover over him singing songs to remove his pain and guilt.

扎卡里·戴维斯：这是第一部分的结尾。刚刚经历了爱情悲剧的浮士德内心极度痛苦，急需抚慰。在第二部分的开头，浮士德在一处风景如画的地方睡着了。天使的歌声在他头顶回响，消除着他的痛苦与内疚。

John Hamilton: What distinguishes Part II from Part I is that Part I is very closed in on itself, right? Faust’s study, this small episode in a small town having to do with Gretchen, but Part II opens up into the large world, right? He needs to break out into this larger realm of experience. And that's essentially what Part II is all about.

约翰·汉密尔顿：第一部分与第二部分的区别在于，第一部分的场景设置相对封闭一点，比如浮士德的书房、格雷琴的小城区。但在第二部分，浮士德来到了更广阔的世界。他需要去体验更广阔的的世界，这就是第二部分的核心主题。

John Hamilton: And he moves through this. He goes through the emperor's court. He summons the spirit of Helena of Troy. He marries her, but that's short lived because she has to return to the past from which she came. But he strives. He goes further and further. He wins the war for the emperor, and when the emperor wants to pay him back, he says, “Just give me that little strip of beach front on your realm.” And the emperor laughs at him, “What are you going to do with this tiny little strip of sand?”

约翰·汉密尔顿：他四处游历，来到了皇帝的宫廷，唤来了特洛伊的海伦。后来浮士德与海伦结婚，但美好终究短暂，海伦最终还是回到了自己所属的地方。浮士德继续追寻心中的渴望。他为皇帝平定了叛乱，皇帝想奖赏他，他说：“只要把海边的那一小块地封给我就行。”皇帝嘲笑他：“你要这一小块沙地做什么？”

Zachary Davis: On the sand, Faust builds these giant machines that drain the sea to reveal more land. He then builds a big city on that land. As the city expands, he has to clear more land. As he expands his territory, he runs into an older couple who farm the land Faust wants to build on.

扎卡里·戴维斯：浮士德在沙地上建造起巨大的机器，用它们来把海水排干，填海造地。他在那片土地上建造了一座大城市。随着城市的扩张，他必须填更多土地。他遇到了一对种地的老夫妻，但浮士德想要在这里开土拓疆。

John Hamilton: So, he tells Mephisto to get rid of that old farming couple, Philemon and Baucis, which he does by setting their farm on fire and killing the old couple. And when Faust learns that Mephisto, you know, sort of followed the instructions too murderously, he's stricken by Care. And Care is something that has never really bothered Faust before, and Care appears as this gray sister personified, creeping into his palace, right. Care infiltrates his study and blinds him. Care blinds him, and Faust has never cared before because he never cared about anyone or anything, he just strove relentlessly.

约翰·汉密尔顿：于是他吩咐梅菲斯特，让这对叫费莱蒙和鲍西丝的老夫妻搬走。于是梅菲斯特放火烧了他们的地，杀死了这对老夫妻。在听闻梅菲斯特的过分事之后，浮士德被忧愁女神吹瞎了双眼。此前浮士德从来没感受过忧愁，而这次忧愁以灰衣女子的形象来到他的宫殿，进入他的书房，吹瞎了他的双眼。浮士德此前从未担忧过任何人或任何事，永远一往无前。

John Hamilton: And now blinded, he totters out onto the open landscape, and he senses the workmen working, and he senses the great accomplishment of his new city. And he says, “I'm going to stay here a while. This is beautiful.”

约翰·汉密尔顿：他瞎着眼，蹒跚着来到了开阔的空地上。他似乎听到有人在开沟挖河，那梦寐以求的新城市似乎即将建成。他不禁喃喃自语：“我要待一会，这太美了。”

John Hamilton: And of course, with that, he loses the wager, and he falls dead on the spot. But he's over a hundred years old at this point. The angels arrive to take his soul and Mephisto has to battle with them, and they have a tug of war over Faust’s soul, but God wins out. The angels win out, and Faust is transported into heaven because he has been enjoying the grace and the intercession of Gretchen, who acts as a certain Beatrice, who summons his soul to the highest heavens for this final beatific vision.

约翰·汉密尔顿：于是浮士德输了赌约，倒地身亡，去世时已经一百多岁了。天使们来到这儿抢夺他的灵魂，梅菲斯特不得不应战。双方你争我抢，最后上帝赢了，天使们成功地抢回了浮士德的灵魂，将他带进了天堂。格雷琴就像是浮士德的贝雅特丽齐，她的宽容与祷告让浮士德得以升入天堂，看到这最后的无上美景。

Zachary Davis: Faust wins the wager in more ways than he anticipated. He finds satisfaction, and his soul is saved. Throughout the story, he goes through a spiritual journey, and he ends up striving not for knowledge, but for purpose and caring for others. For this reason, his soul ascends to heaven.

扎卡里·戴维斯：浮士德赢了赌约，收获的比预想的还要多：他不仅心满意足，灵魂也得到了拯救。在整个故事中，浮士德经历了一场精神之旅。最终他不是在为获取知识而奋斗，而是在为崇高的目标和对他人的关怀而奋斗，因此他的灵魂得以升入天堂。

John Hamiltonn: And in a way the ending of the tragedy is no ending at all. Rather, it opens onto the very long reception history of Faust where this story goes on and on and on from one century to the next.

约翰·汉密尔顿：从某种程度上讲，这个悲剧的结束并不意味着浮士德故事的结束。相反，此后浮士德的故事一直深受人们的喜爱，几百年间一直得以传承。

Zachary Davis: Can you tell us about that reception history and that kind of creative reconfiguration of the story?

扎卡里·戴维斯：您可以跟我们讲讲，这部诗剧是如何被人们所认可的吗？此后人们又对它进行了哪些再创作？

John Hamilton: Sure. I mean, to begin, when Goethe was quite old, in his 80s, he learned that a young poet named Gérard de Nerval translated Faust into French, and he received a copy, and he confessed that for the first time he's able to read his work with delight. The French translation by Nerval is so beautiful and so vivid and full of energy that he's absolutely delighted by this. And it's Nerval’s French translation that would serve as the libretto for a Gounod’s opera on Faust. And so Faust begins to have a very important operatic history in the 19th century, building on the great achievement of Gounod, and that would trigger an entire French tradition that possibly culminates with Paul Valéry and the early 20th century with Mon Faust.

约翰·汉密尔顿：歌德八十多岁的时候，得知一位叫钱拉·德·奈瓦尔的年轻诗人将《浮士德》翻译成了法语。他还收到了一本样书，并坦言自己第一次这么高兴地读自己的作品。内瓦尔的法语译本非常优美生动，饱含热情，歌德对它也很满意。而内瓦尔的译本也成了古诺德的歌剧《浮士德》的剧本。在古诺德的精彩创作下，《浮士德》开始在19世纪的歌剧史上占有重要的一席之地。它甚至还影响到了法国的整个文化传统。保尔·瓦雷里20世纪上半叶的作品《我的浮士德》便是其影响力的集中体现。

John Hamilton: Meanwhile, in Germany, you have lots of retellings of the tale. Lenau’s Faust has the scholar become a devilish violinist or the devil is a violinist who seduces Faust. But it culminates, certainly, in the greatest post-war novel, namely Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, where the forced figure is Adrià LaVerkin, who is a composer, a modernist composer who essentially destroys tonality. And so Faust as a composer is going to allow Thomas Mann to reflect on the disaster of the Third Reich, of the fall of German culture, and of the untrustworthiness of German culture, right? The book, the novel is published in 1947.

约翰·汉密尔顿：与此同时，德国也出现了很多与浮士德相关的作品。雷瑙的《浮士德》将浮士德博士描绘成了一位魔鬼般的小提琴家，他受梅菲斯特小提琴声的引诱，最终屈服于梅菲斯特。当然最引人注目的，要数二战后托马斯·曼出版的《浮士德博士》。小说的主人公阿德里安·莱韦屈恩是一位现代主义作曲家，他最终摧毁了调性音乐。通过这位主人公的经历，托马斯·曼反思了德意志第三帝国导致的灾难，反思了德意志文化的衰落，也反思了德意志文化不可信赖的一面。毕竟这本小说可是出版于1947年。

John Hamilton: So, the 20th century is now given this great gift of Thomas Mann's deeply reflective and deeply ironic account of the false legend that in turn will trigger an entire array of retellings, now trying to grapple with the three main pillars of the legend, Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Goethe’s Faust, and Thomas Mann, Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus.

约翰·汉密尔顿：托马斯·曼对这个传说的深刻反省和讽刺是他送给20世纪的伟大礼物。他的这部小说也同样激发了许多人的二次创作，和马洛的《浮士德博士的悲剧》、歌德的《浮士德》并称浮士德故事中的三大重量级作品。

An allegory of the modern world

现代社会的一则寓言

Zachary Davis: It's a myth with such power that it does feel kind of eternal in a way. I'd love to hear your thoughts on why do you think it's such an effective myth of modernity?

扎卡里·戴维斯：这个故事影响力如此之大，堪称不朽。我想知道，为什么您觉得这个故事也是一则关于现代社会的寓言呢？

John Hamilton: Spengler in his great and problematic book on The Decline of the West, says that we are living in a Faustian Age, that the 20th century, especially with its enthrallment to technology, to convenience, to complacency, has left us in this constant striving without knowing what we're striving for, right? This restlessness, again, spurred by a deep sense of being cut off from something that's real, that we are living, in Baudrillard’s sense, in a realm of simulacra, that everything is flat once again, that everything is somehow reduced to a screen two-dimensionality where we don't know what's going on beneath the surface.

约翰·汉密尔顿：斯宾格勒在他备受争议的大作《西方的没落》一书中说道，我们生活在一个浮士德的时代。20世纪人们沉迷于技术，追求便捷，变得自我满足，这让我们陷入了不断的努力之中，却不知道我们是为何而努力。我们深感自己与现实割裂开来，并因此焦虑不安。按照鲍德里亚的理论看，我们生活在“拟像”的世界中，所有一切再次成为了平面的、二维的，我们不知道这些事物背后的深层内涵。

John Hamilton: I mean, even when I use my laptop, I mean, it could do so many things. I could get so much information out of it. But I don't know what's going on. Unless I'm a computer programmer, I have no clue what's going on inside this computer. I don't see how these connections work. I don't understand how the algorithms do what they do. And I certainly don't have any clue of how I'm becoming the product of these consumerist websites, that I become data points, that I become a target, that I'm being advertised as I use this technology.

约翰·汉密尔顿：比如，我可以用笔记本电脑做很多事情，可以从中获取信息。但是，除非我是个程序员，否则我并不知道它背后发生了什么、里面是怎么运转的，因而也不知道这些连接是怎么产生的。我不知道这些算法是怎么运行的，于是我也不知道自己为何成了这些消费主义网站的研究对象，成为了它们的数据点。在我使用这些技术的同时，它们也在通过这些技术向我打广告。

John Hamilton: And so the Faustian Age is because we sense, I think, that we're coming face to face with a very real sense of superficiality that bothers us as human beings. And Faust knew this, and we could read it and understand that there has to be something else beneath the surface. There has to be something else that we don't see.

约翰·汉密尔顿：之所以说我们如今生活在一个浮士德的时代，是因为今天我们人类所直面的，恰恰是这种让人类深感困扰的“肤浅”与“表面性”。浮士德深知这一点，我们也必须认识到这一点，明白在表象之下还有很多深刻的内容，还有许多我们看不到的东西。

John Hamilton: And what we don't see could be the “no longer,” but it could also be the “not yet.” It could be this great dark moment that we call “hope” or we call “the future,” “the darkness,” or “the negativity” that punctuates our present. The thing that we don't understand, the thing that disturbs us, the thing that makes us strive, can actually get us past the present and past the immediacy of the moment.

约翰·汉密尔顿：我们看不到的可能是已经不再发生的事情，也有可能是尚未发生的事情；那个巨大的至暗时刻被我们称作“希望”、“未来”、“黑暗”、“否定性”，正是这个时刻中断了我们所处的当下。实际上，这些我们不了解的事物，这些困扰我们、催我们奋进的事物，可以让我们超越当下、臻于永恒。

Zachary Davis: The power of the theme seems to be humanity refusing to acknowledge limits or to live within limits. But I'm curious about the limits that were seen in Goethe’s age, how were they interpreting that restless striving, that knowledge was somehow dangerous or the pursuit of it unbounded?

扎卡里·戴维斯：《浮士德》的主题似乎是赞扬人类不断突破自己的局限。不过我很好奇，在歌德那个年代，人们如何面对这种局限，如何看待这种永无止境的追寻？他们如何看待知识危险的那一面，如何看待对知识无止境的追求？

John Hamilton: For Goethe, writing at the end of the 18th century, into the 19th century, he's living in an era that was very much impacted by the Enlightenment and the Enlightenment, of course, was very suspicious of theology, very suspicious of the church and its dogma, but also suspicious of the aristocracy of those in power who say they know better, they know how to fix things.

约翰·汉密尔顿：歌德从18世纪后半期就开始写《浮士德》，一直写到了19世纪。当时启蒙运动深深地影响了整个欧洲。启蒙运动不仅怀疑神学、教会以及他们宣扬的宗教信条，对当权的贵族阶级也持有深深的怀疑，尽管这些贵族一直宣称自己知道的更多、清楚怎么解决问题。

John Hamilton: It's a democratic age that Goethe inherits. It’s an Enlightened age, but an Enlightened age of transparency, of knowing what's happening all the time. That's already quite palpable in Goethe’s day. And what it does for Goethe, it basically explains everything. And I like the word “explain” because explanatio, the planus in explanatio... Planus is the word in Latin for “flat.” Explanations make everything flat. It lays it all out there for you to see.

约翰·汉密尔顿：歌德所继承的是一个民主的时代、一个启蒙思想盛行的时代的遗产。在这个时代，人们想要洞察一切，知晓过去、现在和未来发生的事情。在歌德那个年代这种趋势已经很明显了。而在歌德看来，这么做就是在解释所有事情。我很喜欢“解释”这个词，因为解释可以摊平一切，把事物原原本本地呈现在你面前。

John Hamilton: There's nothing beneath the surface, here it is. Let me lay it out for you. Here's the plan. The plan is visible, everything is explained. And when everything is explained, you start to become apathetic. You start to become indifferent, and you start to not work as hard because everything is already there.

约翰·汉密尔顿：而摊平之后，表面之下就没有别的东西，因为所有东西都被摊在那儿、呈现在那儿，就连某个计划也都清晰可见。所有事情都被解释得清清楚楚。可这时候你也会对它们漠不关心，你不会再努力去挖掘，因为它们都触手可及。

John Hamilton: In the age of the Internet, which I think bears many more analogies with the age of Goethe’s Enlightenment than we might think about, you know, everything is basically available for us at any moment. If I need to know Goethe’s birth date, well, I type it into Google and I get it in the second or a split second. And because everything is already there and available, at least potentially in my laptop, I don't need to memorize things. And memory is precisely the storehouse of what is no longer present.

约翰·汉密尔顿：如今我们正处于互联网时代，这个时代与启蒙运动时代有很多相似之处，只不过我们从没这么想过。如今所有信息更是触手可及。如果我想知道歌德的生日，那么直接在搜索引擎上搜一搜，一秒钟之内结果马上就会跳出来。而且正是因为所有信息网上都有，或者至少电脑里面都能查到，我就不需要再记什么东西。而记忆所储存的恰恰是属于过去、不存在于当下的东西。

John Hamilton: And so we start to live in this eternal present where everything is there, everything is available, everything is accessible, there are no limits. And what are we left with? We're left with this incredible feeling of limitation that Faust again tries to break through, but breaks through in a way that doesn't ignore how incredibly violent and destructive and horrific that breaking through can be.

约翰·汉密尔顿：于是我们开始生活在这个“当下即永恒”的世界中，这里万事万物触手可及、毫无边界。可是这样我们会感受到什么？我们只会感受到巨大的限制，我们像浮士德一样想要不断冲破限制。而浮士德在冲破限制的过程中，切身体会到了这种突破是多么具有毁灭性，让他头破血流。

John Hamilton: It's not pure optimism, this breaking through. There are moments in this tragedy that are absolutely terrifying because of this striving. And yet I think the poem still resonates with us today because I feel that we are facing the same lethargy, the same boredom with everything transparent, everything accessible, everything laid flat before us.

约翰·汉密尔顿：这不是一种纯粹乐观的突破。在这部诗剧中，正是因为不断的突破、探索与追寻，才造成许多恐怖时刻。但我觉得它至今仍然能引发人们的共鸣，正是因为如今我们面对触手可及的东西时，感到的是同样的百无聊赖。

Zachary Davis: The closer we get to limitless knowledge and power, the less meaning those things start to have. While we may be able to escape certain technological and intellectual limitations, we won’t ever be able to escape our human limitations. We will always be striving beyond what is in reach. But this, as Faust learned, is exactly what makes us human.

扎卡里·戴维斯：我们越是拥有无尽的知识和力量，拥有它们的意义就越来越小。尽管我们可以摆脱某些技术和知识方面的局限，但我们永远无法摆脱人类自身的局限。我们会一直奋进、突破自我。而就像浮士德切身体会到的那样，正是这种精神让我们闪耀着人类的光芒。

Zachary Davis: Writ Large is a production of Ximalaya. Writ Large is produced by Galen Beebe, Jack Pombriant and me, Zachary Davis, with help from Liza French, Ariel Liu, Wendy Wu, and Monica Zhang. Our theme song is by Ian Coss. Don’t miss an episode. Subscribe today in the Ximalaya app. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

扎卡里·戴维斯：本节目由喜马拉雅独家制作播出。感谢您的收听，我们下期再见！