Othello 3 : The Language

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Othello Part 3 -the Language

奥赛罗3 语言特色：“我一生的故事”

Many of the powerful questions raised by Othello arise from the way that Shakespeare uses language. In this episode, we'll hear Shakespearean actors performing some key speeches from the play. Then we'll hear a discussion of the language and themes of these speeches from Farah Karim-Cooper, head of higher education and research at Shakespeare's Globe and professor of Shakespeare Studies at King's College, London.

《奥赛罗》这部戏剧提出的许多问题之所以如此震撼人心，是源自莎士比亚对语言的巧妙运用。在本集节目中，我们将会听到莎士比亚戏剧演员们表演的几段重要台词。每段台词之后，法拉·卡里姆-库珀教授都会和我们探讨这些台词的语言和主题。法拉·卡里姆-库珀，是莎士比亚环球剧场高等教育与研究负责人，也是伦敦大学国王学院莎士比亚研究专业的教授。

This first speech comes from Act I,when Othello is called before the Senate to explain how he came to marry Desdemona.

第一段台词选自戏剧第一幕，奥赛罗被召到元老院，向众元老解释他为何会与苔丝狄蒙娜结婚。

a. Othello, 1.3.149-195, “Her father loved me … the only witchcraft I have used.”

a.奥赛罗，第一幕，第三场，第149-195行，“她的父亲很看重我……这就是我唯一的妖术。”

OTHELLO Her father loved me, oft invited me,

奥赛罗：她的父亲很看重我，常常请我到他家里。

Still questioned me the story of my life

每次谈话的时候，总是问起我过去生命中的历史，

From year to year—the battles, sieges, fortunes

要我讲述我所经历的各次战争、围城和以外的遭遇；

That I have passed.

我就把我的一生事实，

I ran it through, even from my boyish days

从我的童年时代起，

To th’ very moment that he bade me tell it,

直到他叫我讲述的时候为止，原原本本地说了出来。

Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances:

我说起最可怕的灾祸，

Of moving accidents by flood and field,

海上陆上惊人的奇遇，

Of hairbreadth ’scapes i’ th’ imminent deadly

间不容发的

breach,

脱险，

Of being taken by the insolent foe

在傲慢的敌人手中

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence,

被俘为奴和遇赎脱身的经过，

And portance in my traveler’s history,

以及旅途中的种种见闻；

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

那些广大的岩窟，荒凉的沙漠，

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads

突兀的崖嶂，巍峨的

touch heaven,

峰岭，

It was my hint to speak—such was my process—

这都是我谈话的题目，

And of the cannibals that each other eat,

以及彼此相食的

The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

野蛮部落和肩下生头的

Do grow beneath their shoulders. These things to

化外异民，对于这种故事

hear

苔丝狄蒙娜，

Would Desdemona seriously incline.

总是出神倾听；

But still the house affairs would draw her thence,

有时为了家庭中的事务，

Which ever as she could with haste dispatch

她不能不离座而起，

She’d come again, and with a greedy ear

可是她总是尽力把事情赶紧办好，再回来孜孜不倦地

Devour up my discourse. Which I, observing,

把我所讲的每一个字都听了进去。我注意到她这种情形，

Took once a pliant hour, and found good means

有一天在一个适当的时间，从她的嘴里

To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart

逗出了她的真诚的心愿：

That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,

她希望我能够把我一生的经历，对她作一次详细的复述，

Whereof by parcels she had something heard,

因为她平日所听到的，只是一鳞半爪、残缺不全的片段。

But not intentively. I did consent,

我答应了她的要求；

And often did beguile her of her tears

她往往忍不住掉下泪来，

When I did speak of some distressful stroke

当我讲到我在少年时代

That my youth suffered. My story being done,

所遭逢的不幸打击的时候。我的故事讲完以后，

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs.

她用无数的叹息酬劳我；

She swore, in faith, ’twas strange, ’twas passing

她发誓说，那是非常

strange,

奇异

’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful.

而悲惨的；

She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished

她希望她没有听到这段故事，可是又希望

That heaven had made her such a man. She thanked

上天为她造下这样一个男子。她向我道谢，

me,

对我说，

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,

要是我有一个朋友爱上了她，

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

我只要教他怎样讲述我的故事，就可以得到她的爱情。

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake.

我听了这一个暗示，才向她吐露我求婚的诚意。

She loved me for the dangers I had passed,

她为了我所经历的种种患难而爱我，

And I loved her that she did pity them.

我为了她对我所抱的同情而爱她；

This only is the witchcraft I have used.

这就是我唯一的妖术。

Farah Karim-Cooper: In this scene, Othello's explaining to the Duke and the Venetian Senate exactly how he and Desdemona came together. In the first part of the speech, we learned that Brabantio, Desdemona's father, invited Othello to his house on many occasions. "Still questioned me. The story of my life." So the words"still"in Shakespeare's time means"always". Othello then uses the word"oft"when he says"oft invited me"."Oft"and"still"emphasizes the frequency of the visits and perhaps the intimacy of the friendship that is developing between Othello and Brabantio. And I think it's something people don't really think about often is that relationship and how Brabantio might feel betrayed by Othello as well as by Desdemona. Othello tells the Senate what he told Brabantio, the exploits adventures of his life from boyhood to the very present moment, but also his misfortunes and traumas.The speech is so rich that we often miss a very important detail that Othello was sold to slavery and that Brabantio wanted to hear about it often.

法拉·卡里姆-库珀：在这场戏中，奥赛罗首先就向公爵和威尼斯元老院的成员们详细说明了自己与苔丝狄蒙娜相爱的过程。在这段台词开始的时候，我们了解到苔丝狄蒙娜的父亲勃拉班修此前经常邀请奥赛罗去他们家中做客。奥赛罗说勃拉班修“总是问起我过去生命中的历史”，在莎士比亚生活的那个年代“总是”这个词表示“频繁地”。奥赛罗还说勃拉班修“常常请我到他家里”，这里他又使用了“常常”这个词。“总是”和“常常”这两个词突出了奥赛罗去勃拉班修家做客的频繁程度，同时也体现出了他们两人之间发展起来的亲密友谊。我觉得奥赛罗和勃拉班修之间的这种友谊常常被人们忽略，但其实也正因为两人之间存在这样的友谊，所以到后面勃拉班修才会觉得奥赛罗和自己的女儿苔丝狄蒙娜都背叛了自己。奥赛罗对元老们说自己经常向勃拉班修讲述自己那些从“童年时代起，直到他叫我讲述的时候为止”的冒险故事，以及他所遭遇的种种不幸和痛苦。这段台词内容十分丰富，但也正是这些纷繁复杂的冒险故事导致我们忽略了其中所透露出的一个重要细节，从奥赛罗的故事中我们可以注意到他曾被卖做过奴隶。可是勃拉班修却总要一遍又一遍地听奥赛罗讲述这样的经历。

So we catch a glimpse here of the slave trade. But Othello is not a slave anymore. He represents the black ex-slave and migrant striving to become part of white European familial and societal structures. But problematically here, we realize that Brabantio and Desdemona possibly glamorize slavery and their desire to hear of Othello's experiences time and again.This is the sort of white gaze that is often talked about in terms of listening to or watching movies and stories about slavery in the past. What Othello emphasizes, though, is that he is a traveler.He's seen the world and worlds in a period where not everyone travels widely because of the difficulty and danger. Now, travel narratives or writing were quite popular in this period because the world was being explored and seemed incredibly foreign, exotic and otherworldly.

从这里，我们可以窥见当时的奴隶贸易。但是当然了，此时的奥赛罗早已不再是奴隶了。他所代表的是那些曾经身为黑人奴隶、身为移民的那群人，这些人努力奋斗，希望能融入欧洲白人家庭、白人社会。可问题是，从奥赛罗的这段台词中我们可以感觉到从勃拉班修和苔丝狄蒙娜其实在一定程度上在粉饰奴隶制度，在美化他们想要反复听奥赛罗讲述自己艰难人生经历的欲望。这种行为可以被称为“白人的关注”，指的就是那种听、观看有关以往奴隶制度的电影和故事的行为。奥赛罗强调说自己是一位“旅行者”，周游了世界的许多地方。但是，在那个年代，并不是所有人都可以像他一样的，因为周游世界在当时既困难又危险。旅行叙事和游记在那个时期很受欢迎，因为当时人们正在不断探索未知的世界，对于他们而言这一切都带着浓烈的异国情调，陌生又迷人。

So Othello in the speech is embodying this other-worldliness and he's captive audience are mesmerized by his reports of cannibals or natives to various islands and deserts. "The anthropomorphic guy", literally meaning "man-eaters". I mean, this is something that would be extraordinary to patricians living in Venice. And they're very protective, privileged worlds. Othello then demonstrates how Desdemona leans in to listen closely. She had to keep leaving the house, the room to take care of household matters. This really emphasizes her gendered position in this triangle. When a fellow remarks on this, we get a sense of the heavily demarcated spaces in Renaissance homes. The masculine domain is full of stories and adventure, dangerous exploits.

奥赛罗的这段台词中充满了浓厚的异域风情。他所讲述的那些关于食人族的故事，那些对于各类岛屿和沙漠的描述，深深吸引了故事的听众，让他们沉浸在这些曲折离奇的故事中。“化外异民”实际上指的就是那些“食人族”。这些内容对于生活在威尼斯的那些上层贵族来说是十分新奇的，要知道这些贵族都是生活在一个受保护的特权社会中。接着，奥赛罗解释说苔丝狄蒙娜也出神倾听着他的故事，但是却又不得不为了家庭中的事务离座而起。这突出了苔丝狄蒙娜在三人关系中的位置。当一位男性这样描述苔丝狄蒙娜行为时，我们可以体会到文艺复兴时期家庭中那种鲜明的界限划分，似乎只有男性的领域中才能有种种冒险故事和英勇的探险。

We hear about man-eating natives and Desdemona invades this space to quote with greedy ears devour up this discourse. And what's interesting here is Shakespeare's use of sensory language. It's sort of in Shakespeare's time, the senses were a really important storytelling device actually.It kind of aligns here with the rest of the plays and investment in the senses.The senses replaced in this time period in a hierarchy, sight and sound were often considered the top-most respectable senses, while smell and then taste and touch are at the bottom. All of the senses were the sort of portals of the body. And through these portals, knowledge entered the body. And the senses of taste and touch, unfortunately, are the two senses that actually sin happens through. So we have almost an invocation here of Eva and the Devil from the Book of Genesis. Eva listened intently to Satan's rhetoric, his story of acquiring knowledge and what it will bring. And she devoured the apple and his discourse as well. So that's a really interesting sort of analogy that seems to be implicit in his use of this idea of devouring up his discourse. We also get a kind of commingling of the senses, which Shakespeare loved to do. The ear is linked to sound and hearing. But here it is tasting, eating, devouring.Desdemona response to Othello's story is an ideal audience member. The purpose of drama, of course, is to move the audience, to make them feel emotions and respond to the emotion of the play.

奥赛罗正在讲述食人族的故事，而苔丝狄蒙娜悄悄潜入了这个男性的领域，竖起好奇的耳朵，贪婪地享用着这些故事。这段台词有一个很有意思的地方，在这里莎士比亚运用了感官语言。从某种程度上说，在莎士比亚时期，运用感官语言是一个重要的叙事手段，这种语言把戏剧的内容与人的感官感受结合在了一起。在当时的等级社会中，人们往往认为视觉和听觉是最值得尊敬的两种感觉，而嗅觉以及它之后的触觉受尊敬程度则最低。当时的人们认为，所有这些感觉在一定程度上都是身体的出入口，通过这些出入口，人们可以获取知识。但不幸的是，味觉和触觉这两种感官往往被认为是罪恶的入口。关于这一点，从《创世纪》中所记载的夏娃与恶魔的故事里我们就可以感知一二。撒旦花言巧语，让夏娃相信了他所说的那种获取知识的方法，以及知识能够带来益处。于是夏娃听信了撒旦的那套说辞，吃下了那颗苹果。在这里，莎士比亚也写到苔丝狄蒙娜把奥赛罗说的每一个字都听了进去，从一定程度上看，这其实是在把苔丝狄蒙娜与吞下苹果、听信撒旦花言巧语的夏娃在进行类比。同时，我们还可以发现，莎士比亚把多种感官感受融合在了一起，这也是他喜欢的一种写作方式。耳朵和声音与听觉有关。但是在这里，同时也有味觉，有吃和吞咽的功能。对于奥赛罗而言，苔丝狄蒙娜是一位理想的听众。戏剧的目的就是为了要打动听众，唤起他们的情绪，让他们对剧中的情绪产生共情。

Desdemona feels compassion. She's moved to empathy. She fears the stories and feels for Othello's plights. Her emotions then move her to love him. The way he describes their love is through this vehicle of storytelling and narrative and the feedback loop that this creates. And this is the ideal feedback loop in the early modern theater as well. So Othello finishes on the point that this is the only witchcraft he's used: the storytelling, a witchcraft as an interesting point of reference here. It not only demonizes gender, but it also demonizes race as well. When Brabantio asks Othello in the Senate,"What witchcraft did you use to tempt Desdemona?" He alludes to the witchcraft law of the European Renaissance, which insisted that its roots were diabolic, that it was practiced by women and by foreigners. And what many scholars miss here is the racism of the suggestion.Blackness was a color associated with the devil and the diabolic. The devil spawns witches, and witches, therefore, had supernatural powers that threatened the status quo and that threatened male power.And here its white male power. Here, Brabantio is suggesting there's no way Desdemona could fall for a black man of her own accord. He raised her better than that. So there must have been witchcraft, some supernatural element, and Othello must be commanding those elements. Othello wisely points out by recounting Brabantio fascination with the stories that he was exposed to the same charms as Desdemona was.

听过奥赛罗的故事后，苔丝狄蒙娜对他的故事产生了同理心，被他的故事感动了。这些故事让她感到恐惧，也让她对奥赛罗所经历的种种遭遇感同身受。慢慢地，这种同情又变成了她对奥赛罗的爱。奥赛罗说他和苔丝狄蒙娜之间的爱情就是产生于在这种讲故事以及由此产生的反馈循环中的。在早期现代剧院中，这种反馈循环也是一种理想循环。最后，在结尾的时候，奥赛罗说“这就是我唯一的妖术”，在这里，他把讲故事比作是“妖术”，这一点很有意思，因为这个比喻，不仅仅将性别妖魔化了，也将种族妖魔化了。在元老院，勃拉班修质问奥赛罗究竟用了什么妖术蛊惑了苔丝狄蒙娜？他这里暗指的就是欧洲文艺复兴时期的巫术法，巫术法坚称妖术是阴狠毒辣的，而施展妖术的一般都是女性或者外国人。但是关于一点，许多学者都忽略了其中所体现的那种种族主义思想。当时的人，常常将黑色肤色的人种与恶魔和阴狠毒辣联系在一起，认为恶魔都积聚于这一人种中。而女巫因为拥有超自然力量，也会威胁到当时的社会状况，会威胁男性的权威。而在这一段中，指的则是更具体的白人男性的权威。这场戏中，勃拉班修表示苔丝狄蒙娜根本不可能爱上一个黑人男性。因为，依照他对女儿的教导，根本不可能会发生这种事情。所以，勃拉班修认为奥赛罗一定是施展了某种妖术，运用了某种超自然力量蛊惑了苔丝狄蒙娜。但奥赛罗也很机智地反驳说勃拉班修本人对于他所讲述的那些故事也很痴迷，他的着迷程度完全不亚于苔丝狄蒙娜。

This speech comes from Act 2, just after Iago has told Roderigo that Desdemona and Cassio are in love. Roderigo has exited, and Iago, alone on stage, addresses this soliloquy to the audience.

我们现在要听到的这段台词也选自第二幕，此时伊阿古刚刚告诉罗德利哥说苔丝狄蒙娜和卡西奥相爱了。在罗德利哥退场后，伊阿古独自一个人站在舞台上，对观众说出了下面这段独白。

b. Iago, 2.1.308-334, “That Cassio loves her … never seen till used.” (Iago explains and develops his plot against Othello.)Anton Lesser

b.伊阿古，第二幕，第一场，第308-334行，“卡西奥爱她……恶人的面目必须到时才揭晓。”（伊阿古额这段台词解释说明了他所策划的针对奥赛罗的阴谋。）

IAGO That Cassio loves her, I do well believe 't.

伊阿古：卡西奥爱她，这一点我是可以充分相信的；

That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great credit.

她爱卡西奥，这也是一件很自然而可能的事。

The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,

这摩尔人我虽然气他不过，

Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,

却有一副坚定仁爱正直的性格；

And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona

我相信他会对苔丝狄蒙娜

A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too,

做一个最多情的丈夫。讲到我自己，我也是爱她的，

Not out of absolute lust (though peradventure

并不完全出于情欲的冲动——虽然也许

I stand accountant for as great a sin)

我也犯着这样的罪名——

But partly led to diet my revenge

可是一半是为要报复我的仇恨，

For that I do suspect the lusty Moor

因为我疑心这好色的摩尔人

Hath leaped into my seat—the thought whereof

跨上了我的鞍子。这一种思想

Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards,

像毒药一样腐蚀我的肝肠，

And nothing can or shall content my soul

什么都不能使我心满意足，

Till I am evened with him, wife for wife,

除非在他身上发泄这一口怨气，他夺去我的人，我也叫他有了妻子享受不成；

Or, failing so, yet that I put the Moor

即使不能做到这一点，我也叫这摩尔人

At least into a jealousy so strong

心里长起根深蒂固的嫉妒来，

That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do,

没有一种理智的药饵可以把它治疗。为了达到这一个目的，

If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trace

我已经利用这威尼斯的瘟生做我的鹰犬；

For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,

要是他果然听我的唆使，

I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,

我就可以抓住我们那位迈克尔·卡西奥的把柄，

Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb

在这摩尔人面前诽谤他，

(For I fear Cassio with my nightcap too),

因为我疑心卡西奥跟我的妻子也是有些暧昧的。

Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward me

这样我可以让这摩尔人感谢我、喜欢我、报答我，

For making him egregiously an ass

因为我叫他做了一头大大的驴子，

And practicing upon his peace and quiet

用诡计捣乱他的平和安宁，

Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confused.

使他因气愤而发疯。方针已经决定，前途未可预料；

Knavery's plain face is never seen till used.

恶人的面目必须到时才揭晓。

Here Iago is speculating, turning over and over in his mind what his plans should be, what his plans are. He's playing with thoughts, weighing up one set of motivations for his actions over another. But he is self-contradictory. We've seen throughout the play how he talks about Othello, often in very racist terms, objectifyingly. Here he seemingly speaks well of Othello. "The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not, is of a constant, loving, noble nature. And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona a most dear husband." So we learned that even the Iago recognizes that Othello is constant, meaning noble. He's loving and gentle, and he's noble in his nature. Now, when Elizabethans and Jacobean describe something in nature, they're referring to the very essence of the thing. This is an extraordinary revelation. Iago can see Othello's essence. He can see that his essence is loving and noble. Surely this means he's not a racist. But what does he say next? "Partly led to diet my revenge for that. I do suspect the lusty Moor, Hath leaped into my seat". "The thought whereof, Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards". So this is an interesting idea.He says he seems to contradict his own assessment that he just made of Othello's character when he presumes Othello, the lusty Moor hath leaped into his seat.

这里伊阿古正在盘算着自己的计划，他一遍又一遍地思考要如何实施这些计划。他十分认真地思索，在心中权衡自己这么做的种种动机。但他其实又相当自相矛盾的。纵观整部戏剧，我们可以发现他经常用带着强烈种族主义的词语来形容奥赛罗。但这里他却食在夸赞奥赛罗。他说“这摩尔人我虽然气他不过，却有一副坚定仁爱正直的性格；我相信他会对苔丝狄蒙娜做一个最多情的丈夫。”从这句话中，我们了解到即便是伊阿古，也承认奥赛罗是“坚定仁爱正直”的。奥赛罗深爱着苔丝狄蒙娜，也是一个本性正直的人。在伊丽莎白一世时期和詹姆斯一世时期，当人们说到“本性”时，所指的就是那些十分本质的特性。所以这句话其实就就是在说奥赛罗最核心的特质，伊阿古看到了奥赛罗最本质的特性，他看出奥赛罗是一个仁爱正直的人。从这点，我们可以看出伊阿古并不是一个种族主义者。但他接下来又说了什么呢？他紧接着又说：“一半是为要报复他的仇恨，因为我疑心这好色的摩尔人跨上了我的鞍子。”同时，他还认为：“这一种思想像毒药一样腐蚀我的肝肠，什么都不能使我心满意足。”这前后的对比很有意思，后面这几句话与他之前对奥赛罗品行的评价都是矛盾的，他这里可是在说奥赛罗是一个“好色的摩尔人”，“跨上了我的鞍子”。

In other words, had an affair with his wife, Amelia. This seems to directly counter his previous emphasis on Othello's noble nature and his loyalty. How can you be loyal and noble and sleep with your friend's wife?This contradiction destabilizes and undermines Iago's reasoning strategy here, which makes us doubt that any of his motives are strong. The next part of the speech sets out Iago's methodology using disparaging terms. He doesn't like Othello. He says when he indicates that he can't endure him, but he doesn't really like anybody. He doesn't seem to like anybody in the play. He plots carefully now, saying he will speak ill of Cassio to Othello and cloud his judgment. At the end of the speech, he circles back to another contradictory statement and leaves us confused as to how he really feels about Othello. He will isolate Othello by proving he is being deceived by his lieutenant and his wife. And then only then，will Othello trust only Iago and he will love Iago. Iago seems to revel in this idea of Othello. Loving him, even though he sinisterly enjoys it, will be for making Othello an ass or a fool.

这句话的意思其实就是，他怀疑奥赛罗与他的妻子埃米莉亚有染。这就与他之前评价奥赛罗时说他“正直”和“忠诚”直接相违背了。因为，如果奥赛罗是一个忠诚正直的人，那他怎么会和朋友的妻子有染呢？这种矛盾动摇削弱了伊阿古的论证策略，让我们不禁怀疑他的复仇动机是否真的有那么强烈。接下来的台词，伊阿古还运用了贬损的话语。他不喜欢奥赛罗，他说自己“气他不过”，但是说实话，他压根也不喜欢其他人，他根本就不喜欢剧中的任何角色。他周密设计，计划在奥赛罗面前诽谤卡西奥，扰乱奥赛罗的判断能力。在结尾处，他又绕回到了另一矛盾的论述上，让我们百思不得其解，想不明白他究竟是怎样看奥赛罗这个人的。伊阿古计划向奥赛罗证明他的妻子和副将在合谋欺骗他，希望以此来孤立奥赛罗。伊阿古认为只有这样，只有在这种情况下，奥赛罗才会只信任他一个人，才会喜欢他。伊阿古陶醉于自己的这个想法中。他想让奥赛罗喜欢自己，并卑劣地享受着这个给他带来的乐趣，他认为这样的话就能叫奥赛罗做了一头大大的驴子或傻瓜，这都是他很乐意看到的。

This dialogue comes from Act 4 as Emilia helps Desdemona prepare for bed. Othello has accused Desdemona of committing adultery, and Desdemona wonders ifanywoman is capable of wronging her husband in that way.

最后这段台词选自第四幕，埃米莉亚正在帮苔丝狄蒙娜铺被褥。那时奥赛罗刚指责完苔丝狄蒙娜与人通奸，于是苔丝狄蒙娜就在思考世上有没有背着丈夫干这种坏事的女人。

c. Emilia and Desdemona, 4.3.79-115, “The world's a huge thing … The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.”Dame Harriet Walter

c.埃米莉亚和苔丝狄蒙娜，第四幕，第三场，第79-115行，“世界是一个很大的东西……我们所干的坏事都是出于他们的指教。”

DESDEMONA I would not do such a wrong

苔丝狄蒙娜：我要是为了整个的世界，会干出这一种丧心的事来，

for the whole world!

一定不得好死。

EMILIA Why, the wrong is but a wrong i’ th’ world;

埃米莉亚：世间的是非本来没有定准；

and, having the world for your labor, ’tis a wrong in

您因为干了一件错事而得到整个的世界，

your own world, and you might quickly make it

在您自己的世界里，您还不能把是非

right.

颠倒过来吗？

DESDEMONA I do not think there is any such woman.

苔丝狄蒙娜：我想世上不会有那样的女人的。

EMILIA Yes, a dozen; and as many to th’ vantage as

埃米莉亚：愿意做这种赌博的女人

would store the world they played for.

多着呢。

But I do think it is their husbands’ faults

照我想来，总是丈夫的过失

If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties,

导致了妻子的堕落；要是他们疏忽了自己的责任，

And pour our treasures into foreign laps;

把我们所珍爱的东西浪掷在外人的怀里，

Or else break out in peevish jealousies,

或是无缘无故吃起醋来，

Throwing restraint upon us. Or say they strike us,

约束我们的行动的自由，或是殴打我们，

Or scant our former having in despite.

削减我们的花粉钱，

Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,

我们也是有脾气的，虽然生就温柔的天性，

Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know

到了一个时候也是会复仇的。让做丈夫的人们知道，

Their wives have sense like them. They see, and

他们的妻子也和他们有同样的感受：她们的眼睛也能辨别美恶，

smell,

她们的鼻子也能辨别香臭，

And have their palates both for sweet and sour,

她们的舌头也能辨别甜酸，

As husbands have. What is it that they do

正像她们的丈夫一样。他们厌弃了我们，

When they change us for others? Is it sport?

别寻新欢，是为了什么缘故呢？是逢场作戏吗？

I think it is. And doth affection breed it?

我想是的。是因为爱情的驱使吗？

I think it doth. Is ’t frailty that thus errs?

我想也是的。还是因为喜新厌旧的人之常情呢？

It is so too. And have not we affections,

那也是一个理由。那么难道我们就

Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?

不会喜新厌旧，跟男人们一样吗？

Then let them use us well. Else let them know,

所以让他们好好地对待我们吧；否则我们要让他们知道，

The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

我们所干的坏事都是出于他们的指教。

In this intimate scene, Desdemona and her gentle-woman, Amelia, who is also Iago's wife, are talking about infidelity. Strikingly a sort of proto-feminist message emerges from their conversation. Desdemona has said she would not be unfaithful to her husband for all the world.

这是一段很私密的对话，苔丝狄蒙娜和她的女仆埃米莉亚正在讨论对丈夫不忠这件事。埃米莉亚就是伊阿古的妻子。这段对话很明显地体现出了某种早期女性主义的观点。苔丝狄蒙娜表示即使为了整个世界，她都不会对丈夫不忠。

It seems like a rhetorical expression. But Amelia contemplates it literally. She wouldn't cuckold her husband for simple pleasures or individual items like rings and clothes. And these are all very expensive commodities. But she might cheat on him for all the world. Desdemona says it would be wrong. And Amelia's dizzying logic seems to make sense. "Why the wrong is but a wrong in the world and having the world for your labor to the wrong in your own world. And you might quickly make it right." She uses the device of repetition here, repeating "world" to make the point that "the world" is what is at stake here. Wrong is repeated three times to emphasize the moral nature of the deed that they're actually discussing. But if Desdemona did do this wrong and therefore inherited the world, well, the world would be hers and she could rewrite the code of morality and make her wrong right. This syllogistic reasoning demonstrates Amelia's wit and also the honest openness that the two women share. Desdemona expresses a sort of naive innocence when she says she cannot imagine there ever being such a woman. You get the sense that Amelia is more worldly-wise.

苔丝狄蒙娜这么说其实用了修辞的表达，但是埃米莉亚却从字面上去理解了这句话。她说她不会为了简单的欢愉或戒指、衣服这类小玩意而背叛丈夫，虽然这些东西都很昂贵的，她也不会愿意背叛丈夫。但是为了整个世界，她是愿意背叛丈夫的。苔丝狄蒙娜表示，这样做是不对的。但埃米莉亚的逻辑论证却让这种做法显得可以接受了。她说“世间的是非本来没有定准；您因为干了一件错事而得到整个的世界，在您自己的世界里，您还不能把是非颠倒过来吗？”。在这里，埃米莉亚不断重复“世界”这个词，就是为了证明“世界”是这里最关键的一个概念。“是非”或是“错事”她一共说了三次，这也是为了强调她们所讨论的背叛丈夫这个行为的道德本质。如果苔丝狄蒙娜为了整个世界背叛了丈夫，那么她就可以得到整个世界，这样的话，她就可以重写世界上的道德准则，把是非颠倒过来。从这种三段论的辩论方法中，我们可以看出埃米莉亚的智慧，也可以感受到埃米莉亚和苔丝狄蒙娜之间的坦诚。苔丝狄蒙娜说她无法想象世界上会有背叛自己丈夫的女人，从这点上我们可以感受到她的天真无邪。但从埃米莉亚的话中，我们可以感受到埃米莉亚有着更加丰富的人生智慧。

She's probably older, full of experience and therefore cynicism. She is not in a good marriage. So she's bringing that whole experience and frame of reference to the conversation. And as the play unfolds, this becomes even more clear. The rest of the dialogue is Amelia's diatribe about men and her proto-feminist justification for the behavior of women as reflecting the ills done to them. She catalogs these ills, which include beating and cheating. Men get tired of women, so they exchange them for newer, younger models. The sensory imagery is interesting too, which we see a lot of in this play. Here we get taste used to describe the likenesses between men and women. Women have palates and appetites to the word, and notion of appetite often refers in this period to sexual desire. So actually, this is a very bold feminist ideal in a world like Shakespeare's England, where women were expected to be chaste, silent and obedient, more docile and certainly more modest than men were. We have a woman declaring in a public playhouse that women want and like sex, too. And why not? This is extraordinary.

也许是因为她更为年长，有着丰富的生活经验，才会这样愤世嫉俗。她的婚姻并不幸福。所以她把自己的经历和感受带入到了这次对话中。随着剧情的推进，这一点愈发明显，这段台词的后半部分，全都是埃米莉亚对男性的讥讽，她说妻子的堕落总是丈夫的过失，这就是一种早期的女性主义观点。她列举了丈夫的种种过失，如殴打和另寻新欢。她说丈夫会厌弃她们，别寻新欢。在《奥赛罗》这部剧中，我们经常可以看到这种感官意象。但在这里，我们看到了作者对于男性和女性相似之处的描写。女性对于世界其实也有自己的审美和欲望，这里所说的“欲望”指的就是性欲。这种思想在莎士比亚时期的英国，是十分大胆的女性主义思想。因为，在那时，人们都认为女性应该贞洁沉默孝顺，相比男性，女性应该更温顺、更谦逊。但现在，我们在看戏的时候，有一位女性公然在公共场合宣布说女性也想要性，女性也喜欢性。她大声质问为什么女性不能拥有性？这是番言论真的相当与众不同。

Our performer for Othello’s speech to the Senate was Keith Hamilton Cobb, author of American Moor. American Moor is a play that uses Othello as a lens to think about Shakespeare, about being a Black actor, and about the experience of being a Black man in America. The following is Mr. Cobb’s reflection on the play Othello.

奥赛罗对元老院的那段台词的英文版是由基思·汉密尔顿·科布为我们呈现的，科布也是《美国的摩尔人》这部戏剧的作者，戏剧以奥赛罗为中介，探讨了莎士比亚、黑人演员身份，以及黑人演员在美国的经历。下面是科布先生对于《奥赛罗》这部戏剧的一些思考和感想。

Keith Hamilton Cobb: In discussions of Othello, we will need to begin with a play written in England in the year, we believe, of Queen Elizabeth's death, that is to say, 417 years ago. We will need to begin with a play now so far removed from its original colloquial context that nothing remains as relevant other than its depictions of human nature. Which are sometimes accurate, other times not so much.Human nature does not evolve. We are currently the same essential animals that we were in the 16th and 17th centuries.We still see ourselves in the behavior of the characters in Shakespeare's plays, which is what allows them to endure. Inarguably the playwright was extraordinary and yet genius in and of itself is neither sacrosanct nor infallible.In 1603, as today, one aspect of basic human nature was to allow truth to fall prey to agenda.It is so innate a trait that it is often exhibited inadvertently. Shakespeare need not have been conscious of what his agenda actually was in order to skew perception and presentation towards what was, for any number of reasons, more comfortable for him and his audience alike in the historical moment. Of agendas he had several. There were financial agendas and political agendas. Surely each of these influenced the other. And there were also agendas of identity, which is to say most simply, and here I paraphrase Anaïs Nin and no doubt countless others, “Not seeing things as they are, but as we are.”

基思·汉密尔顿·科布：在探讨《奥赛罗》时，我们首先要明确，这部戏剧创作于伊丽莎白一世女王去世那年，那已经是417年前了。创作这部戏剧时最初的那种口语语境早已不复存在了，不过戏剧对人性的刻画时至今日对于我们依旧有参考意义。这些刻画有时很准确，但有时却不然。数百年来，人性其实并没有太大的进步和发展。从本质上看，如今的我们与16-17世纪的人们相比，并没有什么差别。从莎剧中那些形形色色的人物身上，我们依旧可以看到自己的影子。所以，我们也都能包容他们的所作所为。毫无疑问，莎士比亚是一位杰出的剧作家。但天才并非永远不容置疑，他们有时也会犯错。和如今一样，在1603年，人性基本的一点就是，人们为了实现自己得目的，可以牺牲真理。这一点十分在人性中十分地根深蒂固，时不时地就会在不经意间表现出来。出于各种原因，莎士比亚希望自己和观众们能够更好地接受那些观点和呈现方式。不过，他完全不必为了达到这个目的而刻意关注自己的目的究竟是什么。他有许多不同的目的。有的目的与金钱有关，有的与政治有关。而且，这些目的之间也会互相影响。同时，也有一些目的与身份认同有关，简单来说，我想在这里转述一下阿娜伊斯·宁的观点，当然这也是无数其他人的看法，“我们看到的不是事情的本质，而是我们所相信内容”。

Thus, when Shakespeare decided to appropriate a story about an African descended man, a presence not new but still fairly uncommon in the Elizabethan frame of reference, the result was bound to be rife with inaccuracy and untruth.Othello is a play about an African brown man written by an English white man from a story written by an Italian white man.

因此，当莎士比亚决定创作一个非洲人后裔的故事时，虽说这种情况并不是第一次出现，但在伊丽莎白时期这还是相当少见的，因此这其中必然充满了不准确和不真实的内容。《奥赛罗》这部剧讲述的是一个非洲黑人的故事，它是一位英国白人作家在一位意大利白人作家所写的故事的基础上创作的。

What could go wrong?

这可能会出现什么问题呢？

Exacerbating the issues, at least for my 21st-century sensibilities, even while human nature, the focus of all drama, has gone unchanged, is the superficiality of early modern stagecraft and dramatic writing. Now, I am bound to be pilloried for calling it superficial. Is there a better term, I wonder? All that I actually mean to say is that conventions of drama that were wholly acceptable to early modern audiences require in the present day so huge a suspension of disbelief as to render unwatchable for me much of Shakespearean theater. The ages of scholarship that have inundated the Shakespearean canon have not rectified this problem for me. It is very much like the Old Testament Bible in as much as the original texts in Aramaic and Hebrew were written for a specific people experiencing some specific things at a particular historical moment.

至少从我21世纪当代人的感觉来看，虽然人性作为所有戏剧的焦点这一点一直没有发生什么改变，但是在早期现代，编剧艺术和戏剧写作对于在剧作中突出人性这点的运用还是相对肤浅的，这就加重了这些问题。这里我用了“肤浅”这个词，肯定会有人批评抨击我。我也在想，那么是否有一个更好的词呢？我想说的是，那些对于现代早期的观众来说完全可以接受的戏剧惯例，却会令如今的观众感到怀疑，这也是我会觉得看不下去许多莎剧的缘故。虽然我对大量经典莎剧进行了很多年的研究，但我依旧看不下去这些戏剧。这就像《旧约圣经》那样，原始的阿拉姆语和希伯来语文本，其实是为特定历史时期中那些经历了某些特定事件的特定人群而写的。

More than a thousand years later, after endless translation and transcription influenced by multiple agendas and irretrievably removed from original context. There are those who will call it the irrefutable word of God. Such is the case with Shakespeare's Othello. For all that there is to admire about the intricacies of some of the play's characters for which the playwright is rightly lauded, Othello began as a bad play or at least a play that would only reflect its period's early evolving perspectives on love, race and the ethics surrounding various interpersonal relationships in its society.The plausible thread of its narrative is so frayed and weak that it will not legitimately support the weight of its tragic conclusions, and it has only grown increasingly ridiculous with the distance in time it has traveled from the context of Elizabethan acceptance that it was born into. To sit and read it from some Quarto or First Folio at the Folger Shakespeare Library is to commune with what it was. To watch it played now as it was then written, and come away feelingas though one has taken in something of redeeming contemporary cultural value, can only again begin to beg the question of whether what one is seeing is as it is, or as he or she is.

然而经过一千多年来无数次的翻译和改写，在各种不同目的的影响下，如今的文本其实早已脱离了最初的创作背景。但仍有一些人会说《旧约圣经》是上帝的话语，不容辩驳。莎士比亚的《奥赛罗》也是如此。的确，戏剧刻画了一众复杂的人物角色，这是很令人惊叹的，莎士比亚也因此受到了人们的赞扬和钦佩。不过，最初《奥赛罗》其实可以算是一部糟糕的剧作，或者至少可以说，它仅仅只反映了当时那个时代对爱情、种族，以及围绕在社会中各类人际关系的伦理道德的观点，这些观点在当时也只是处于最初的成型阶段。《奥赛罗》的叙事线索看似合理，但其实是较为粗糙薄弱的，根本无法支撑戏剧的悲剧结尾，难以将其合理化。并且随着时间的推移，伊丽莎白时代逐渐远去，创作背景的缺失就使得这部戏剧显得愈发荒诞可笑了。坐在福尔杰莎士比亚图书馆中，阅读“四开本”或“第一对开本”中所记载的《奥赛罗》，就是在与它最真实的样子进行交流。如今观看根据初写成的剧本排演的《奥赛罗》，并且在离场时领悟到了一些可取的当代文化价值，却只会让我们怀疑自己看到的究竟是什么，剧中的男男女女们究竟是怎么一番模样。

More often than not, audiences sitting for contemporary productions of Othello tend to laugh as much as recoil in horror at what was originally intended to be a tragedy, as one would imagine crimes of passion should be. And it bears noting that for a tragedy, suspiciously, Shakespeare depended in its construction upon several established elements of comedy. I am left to wonder if these elements weren't employed only to make the non-white tragic hero appear particularly pathetic in his fall.

更多的时候，观众们坐在台下观看现代版《奥赛罗》戏剧时，会时不时地会被逗得哈哈大笑。然而，莎士比亚最初创作可是一个悲剧啊，而且是人们想象中的那种冲动犯罪。而且值得注意的是，虽然这是一部悲剧，但我怀疑莎士比亚在写作戏剧的时候运用了不少公认的喜剧元素。我不禁怀疑，莎士比亚运用这类元素是不是只是为了让非白人的悲剧英雄在毁灭中显得格外令人惋惜。

Of course, I have no irrefutable knowledge of the cultural or personal perspective that motivated him in the writing of this play or any other. I cannot indict Shakespeare outright and I have no desire to. I can, however, point to Leontes, the white king of Sicily inThe Winter's Tale, who suffers no such utter indignities as does Othello for his even less explicable flight of irrational jealousy.  Leontes looks upon his wife Hermione playing hostess to his friend Polixenes and mayhem immediately ensues. He requires no villainous instigator to incessantly aggravate his jealousies for an entire act. It is drawn from nothing and wreaks havoc, and yet all ultimately live happily ever after.The Winter's Taleis not technically a tragedy, so one may fairly accuse me of comparing apples and oranges. But it is, like Othello, a story drawn from another piece of fiction with the playwright having alicense to make of the characters what he pleases. Why did he please to make Othello as ridiculous as he did?

当然，我毫不怀疑他拥有那些激发他创作这部或其他任何一部戏剧的文化洞察力和个人见解。我不是在全盘否定莎士比亚，我也不想这么做。不过，我想提一下莎士比亚的另一部戏剧——《冬天的故事》——中西西里的白人国王里昂提斯，虽然里昂提斯荒谬的嫉妒心比奥赛罗还要不可理喻，但是他并没有遭受像奥赛罗那样彻底的侮辱。里昂提斯让他的妻子埃尔米奥娜王后招待自己的朋友波利克塞尼斯，但这却引发了极大的混乱。从头到尾，压根都不需要小人的唆使，他的嫉妒心就已经在不断增长。他的嫉妒完全是无中生有，并带来了巨大的灾难，可是这个故事里的所有人最终还是幸福地生活在一起了。严格来说，《冬天的故事》并不属于悲剧，所以也许就有人会指责说我就像在用苹果和橙子这两种完全不同的东西作比较。但《冬天的故事》和《奥赛罗》一样，它们都取材于别的小说，同时莎士比亚也都是在随心所欲地塑造着剧中的人物。那么他为什么要将奥赛罗刻画得如何荒唐可笑呢？

I think the least that can be said is that a black other in Elizabethan society would have been an easy mark.

我认为这至少表明，在伊丽莎白时代，社会中的某个黑色皮肤的异族人更可能成为一个污点。

Contemplating the laughter, I'm not at all sure that contemporary audiences are buying into Othello's poor depiction of black masculinity. Obliviousness to racial bias in our culture is so deeply endemic that a white audience might hardly find occasion to care. For those who attend the American theater at all anymore, it's equally possible that they might attend a performance of Othello the way I as a teenager attended midnight showings of the movie Mommie Dearest, a piece of cinema so exaggerated in its depictions of some of the most abhorrent aspects of human behavior as to render it nothing but camp, regardless of any former intention, and an evening's diversion to revel in the outrageous. Whether contemporary productions of Othello are taken seriously by theatre-makers and audiences or not, they remain, for me, an anomaly of American theatre culture.

联想到观众们看剧时发出的笑声，我不是十分确定当代观众是否接受《奥赛罗》中对于黑人男子气概的那糟糕描述。在我们的文化中，对种族偏见的漠视十分普遍常见，所以一位白人观众可能很难有机会去关心这个问题。对于那些经常观看美国戏剧的人来说，他们在看《奥赛罗》的感受，很可能就像我十几岁时看午夜场电影《亲爱的妈咪》一样。这部电影夸张地呈现了人类行为中一些最令人深恶痛绝的地方，所以对于这部电影，不论它最初想表达什么意图，人们只会觉得它事在故作夸张，原本的夜间消遣却变成了令人难以容忍的愤慨。不论戏剧制作人和观众是否看重如今版本的《奥赛罗》，就我个人而言，我认为它仍然是美国戏剧文化的一个异常现象。

Why do we do it? Hamlet is a far superior play. So is Romeo and Juliet, for that matter, and the other 50 percent or so of the canon that anybody attempts to regularly produce. No one producesThe Two Noble Kinsmen because it is not a very interesting or a very good play.

我们为什么要重新制作这部戏剧呢？相比之下，《哈姆莱特》比它好太多了，《罗密欧与朱丽叶》也比它好，甚至莎士比亚经典作品集中一半以上会被定期改编再创作的戏剧都比《奥赛罗》强。没有人会去重新制作莎士比亚的《两位贵族亲戚》这部剧，因为它既不是非常有趣，也没有特别出彩。

But somehow ,Othello ,with all of its utter implausibility, remains in the stage of top 10.

但不知何故，虽然《奥赛罗》中充满了各种不合理的内容，但它在剧院的演出率一直排在前十之内。

I am a African American male actor.And no one ever asked me to consider any of those other plays in any way and to anywhere near the extent to which Othello has been forced into my consciousness throughout my professional life, not as an aspiration, but as the most plausible option.

我本人就是一个美国黑人男演员，一直以来，根本没有人会让我考虑演其他的那些剧目，这就导致在我整个职业生涯中，周围的人不断地将《奥赛罗》强加到我的意识中，他们这么做并是不觉得我渴望出演这部剧，而是认为这部剧对于我来说是最合适的一个选择。

Life is frightening. And it compels those alive to seek safety. A look back through history will reveal the wrangling of men and women for power position and anything that they perceive would create for them a lifeless frightening. One might need to look closely, as one has come to look to us like simply being alive is really a perpetual striving for life.That striving could be as unremarkable as seeking to secure a daily wage or as extraordinary as seeking the presidency. But it is all the same striving. People seek purpose to define life for them, because definition is less frightening than the unquantifiable.They seek reasons, but life is largely reasonless. It is as unjust as it is absurd, and we human animals clown about perceiving ourselves to be not only intrinsic to it, but at the very center of it. The more absurd and unjust our world becomes, the more ethically unhinged are the strivings for safety of the human-animal in the face of it.

生活是可怕的。所以活着的人不得不努力寻找安全感。回望历史，我们会发现古往今来世上男男女女之间那不休的争论，不过是在争取权力地位以及任何他们认为会让自己生活不那么可怕的东西。不过回望历史的时候，我们还需要有细致的观察，因为对我们而言，仅仅想要活着就已经是一项需要恒久努力奋斗的事业了。这类努力奋斗可以是微不足道的，如努力获得每天的工资；同时，这种努力也可以是非凡卓越的，如竞选总统职位。但是它们都是努力，都是奋斗，不分高低贵贱，是一样的。人们总希望能够定义生活，因为相较于那些不可估量的内容，明确的定义往往没有那么可怕。人们寻求理性，但生活大多数时候却都是非理性的。生活是荒诞的，同时也是不公正的。我们人类动物就像小丑一样，愚蠢地认为自己不但是世界的关键要素，甚至还觉得自己处于世界的核心地位。世界变得越荒诞越不公正，我们这些人类动物在面对世界的时候，对安全的追求从伦理道德上看就越混乱越不正常。

The early moderns did that, too. Othello does it. And certainly Iago does it, and perhaps to a less obvious extent, so do the four other major characters in the play. Every human actor on the world stage is engaged in this play. Shakespeare said that. And in his play, characters are generally all engaged in this most recognizable of human engagements. At an acting school, we would have called it "pursuing our objectives." But we called it that because we were learning to imitate life, learning to portray people in the process of chasing purpose or comfort or safety, leveling as much intention and self-determination as each might muster, along with whatever requisite of untenable rationale required to muster it on the navigation of a journey through the unquantifiable and absurd, terrifying reasonlessness of living.

早期现代的人们就是这样。奥赛罗也是这样。伊阿古同样也是这样，剧中另外的四个主要人物可能没有奥赛罗和伊阿古那么明显，但他们其实也都是这样做的。在世界这个大舞台上，每一位人类演员多少都与这部剧有所牵连。莎士比亚曾经这么说过。而且在他的戏剧中，所有的角色都参与了这种最清晰可辨的人类关系。在表演学校，我们称之为“追求我们的角色”。但我们这么说，是因为我们当时正在学习如何再现生活，正在学习如何刻画那些追求目标、安逸和安全感的人物形象，同时在无法量化、荒谬可怕且非理性的生活旅程中，我们也在尽可能多地将每个人的意图和自主选择权提升到更高水平，尽可能地拉平那些站不住脚的理由。

In Othello, I am acutely aware of the six main characters grasping at comfort, purpose, as they navigate the absurdity of life. What makes them unequal is the extent to which their individual human striving is well written -- that is to say, some are written far less realistically than others and the eponymous hero, least realistically of all.

在《奥赛罗》这部剧中，我清晰地感觉到，剧中的六个主要人物都努力想在荒诞的人生中寻求安逸、实现目标。这些角色之所以会存在差异和不平等，是因为作者对他们个人奋斗的着墨各不相同。也就是说，作者对其中一些角色的刻画远不如其他的角色那么真实，而剧名中的主人公“奥赛罗”，则有是剧中所有人物里面最不真实的一个。

And I wonder why.

我很想知道这是为什么。

I am an actor, and as such, my interest in any play is its playability. How does it workwith me? For me?

因为我自己是一名演员，所以对于任何戏剧，我的兴趣点都是它是否适合演出。这部剧对于我而言是怎样的？对我有什么意义呢？

With respect to Shakespeare, much more of it tends to work for me as literature than it does as performance. That is to say, I can read it and appreciate its literary value much more easily than I can find truth in the work as living theatre. That is at least with regard to how it is being most currently performed. As an African American actor, I find it lamentable that the play towards which I have been most frequently pointed, after the works of August Wilson, of course, and a singular, memorable work by Lorraine Hansberry, is a role for a black man, yet one so poorly depicted in his humanity as to be nearly, if not utterly, beyond redemption.

虽然我很敬佩莎士比亚，但我还是更倾向于将莎剧看作是文学作品，而不是表演作品。也就是说，我可以阅读莎剧，也可以欣赏它们的文学价值，但是我却很难在现实的莎剧表演中发现真理。至少，就目前莎剧的表演方式而言确是如此。作为一位非洲裔的美国男演员，我感到很可悲的一点是，除了出演被称为“剧院里的黑人诗人”的奥古斯特·威尔逊的一系列作品以及黑人剧作家洛林·汉斯伯里的那部令人难忘的独特作品之后，《奥赛罗》我最频繁被指定出演的一部戏剧，可是剧中这个黑人角色的人性却被刻画得无比糟糕，就算他还不是完全无法救赎，但离这种情况也不远了。

Be that as it may, there is a desire as a black man -- I should say, as this black man -- to redeem him, to care for him, even if it is impossible to like him. Other black actors might find it easy to ignore him and his play. That option has been suggested to me more than once, implying that neither Othello nor Shakespeare is worthy my effort. Those voices might be right. Others still might rise to the playing of him however he has represented on the page and make the best of it, -- simply do their jobs, which I find admirable.

不过，尽管如此，我作为一个黑人，或者应该说，我扮演这个黑人角色时，我心中是带着一种渴望的，我渴望救赎他，我想要关心他，虽然我可能无法喜欢上他。其他黑人男演员也许很容易就忽视了这个角色，忽视了这部戏剧。其实，其他人不止一次对我说过这种想法，他们暗示说，不论是《奥赛罗》还是莎士比亚都不值得我那么努力。这些看法也许是对的。还有其他一些扮演奥赛罗的演员们，他们不在意剧本对奥赛罗负面的刻画，而是会尽全力表现好这个人物角色，他们只是要做好自己的工作，这一点很令我钦佩。

But if one can neither embrace it nor let it go -- the third option might be just to keep seeking for a third option and hope to find some purpose in the pursuit.

但是，如果你既不能接受它，但又不想就这样就此不了了之，那么你还有第三种选择，而这第三种选择就是去不断寻找第三种选择，并期待在追寻的过程中发现一些重要意义。

An actor does not play a villain. He does not play a clown or a dope or a failure.

演员并没有在扮演一个反面角色，也没有在扮演小丑、笨蛋或是失败者。

He plays a person in pursuit of positive ends, even if that person is the only one who perceives those ends as positive. Othello is hamstrung in this pursuit by a playwright who does not support him nearly as much as he supports his antagonist.

他扮演的是一个在追求积极结局的角色，即便这个角色是唯一一个认为那样的结局是积极的。奥赛罗在追寻过程中的那种无能为力，是因为创作他的剧作家根本就不支持他，甚至可以说是在支持他的对手。

Othello really never stands a chance,though hardly for the reasons that scholars often espouse.

奥赛罗根本没有成功的可能，虽然几乎没有学者们赞同其中的理由。

He is miswritten, plain and simple. And mine is most likely a lost cause.

他是被误写的、是简单朴素的。而我的这些努力似乎是注定要失败的。