【彩蛋】《权力的游戏》与莎士比亚3： "不可言说，不可想象"

Episode 3 - The Wooden O and the Iron Throne

第三集 —— 环形剧场与铁王座

3. “Tongue nor Heart Cannot Conceive nor Name Thee”

3.“不可言说，不可想象”

Welcome back to “The Wooden O and the Iron Throne: Game of Thrones and Shakespeare.” In this episode, we ask why these artists and these stories are so massively, globally popular. In particular, we ask what attracts us to their darker, more tragic elements. We also talk about the things that shouldn’tattract us -- problematic ways that they represent violence, race, and gender. Finally, we ask what art can do when it is willing to look this fearlessly into the problems and the darkness that have always been part of being human.

欢迎回到“环形剧场与铁王座：《权力的游戏》与莎士比亚”。在本集节目中，我们将探讨剧中的人物和故事情节之所以会在全球范围吸引如此众多粉丝的原因。我们会特别关注那些吸引我们去注意剧中更加黑暗、更加悲剧情节的原因。同时，我们还会探讨那些本不应吸引我们的内容，也就是那些难以捉摸的暴力、种族、性别等问题。最后，我们还会思考，如果艺术愿意去勇敢探究人性中固有的那些问题和黑暗面的话，艺术将会取得怎样的成就。

If you’re a Game of Thrones fan, you’ve probably asked yourself this question already: why do you like this show? That’s the question Dr. Jeff Wilson, preceptor of expository writing at Harvard University and author of Shakespeare and Game of Thrones, wanted to ask when someone recommended the show to him:

如果你是《权力的游戏》这部剧的粉丝，你也许已经问过自己这样一个问题了，“这部剧究竟哪一点吸引我？”这个问题也是杰夫·威尔逊博士在别人向他推荐这部剧的时候他想问的。威尔逊博士是哈佛大学的说明文写作导师，也是《莎士比亚与“权力的游戏”》一书的作者。

Wilson: I got into Game of Thrones because my mom recommended it to me and I watched a fewGame of Thronesepisodes. And then I called my mother and I said, “How do you like this show, knowing everything that I know about you, Mom, and your uneasiness with graphic violence and your strong dislike of rape culture, how can you be allowed into the show?”

威尔逊：我会开始看《权力的游戏》，还多亏了我母亲的推荐。在看过了几集之后，我给她打电话，我问：“你怎么会喜欢看这部电视剧呢？我很了解你的，妈妈，你一向不喜欢那种赤裸裸的暴力场面，也非常反感那种将强奸正常化的文化。所以，你究竟是怎么喜欢上这部剧的？”

This kind of criticism isn’t new to the televised spectacles of sex and violence on HBO. It echoes centuries-old criticism about Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear. In the final scene, Lear enters howling with his beloved daughter Cordelia dead in his arms. Earlier, Lear’s daughter Regan and her husband put out the eyes of Lear’s friend Gloucester; and in a climactic scene, Regan and her sister Goneril cast the aging King Lear into a violent storm, where he nearly goes mad.

针对HBO所拍摄的性和暴力场景，其实很早就有这类评论了。这和数百年前，人们对于莎士比亚的悲剧《李尔王》的评论很像。《李尔王》的最后一场戏中，李尔抱着他深爱的女儿科迪利娅的尸体嚎啕大哭。之前，李尔的另一个女儿里甘和她的丈夫挖出了李尔的朋友葛罗斯特伯爵的双眼。之后，在戏剧的一个高潮场面，老迈的李尔王在和女儿里甘和戈纳瑞争吵后，无助地逃入暴风雨中，当时气得几乎都快要发疯了。

Lear: Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow! / You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout / Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the / cocks.

李尔：吹吧，风啊！吹破你的脸颊，猛烈地吹吧！你瀑布一样的倾盆大雨，尽管倾泻下来，直到淹没我们教堂的尖顶和房上的风行标吧！

In the eighteenth century, when Samuel Johnson edited Shakespeare’s plays, he wrote of King Lear, “My learned friend Mr. Warton … remarks, that the instances of cruelty are too savage and shocking … the extrusion of Glo'ster's eyes … seems an act too horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition… I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia's death, that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor.”

18世纪，塞缪尔·约翰逊在编撰莎士比亚戏剧集时，曾这样评价《李尔王》这部剧，他写到：“我那博学的朋友沃顿先生说，这部剧中展现残酷的事例，太野蛮、太可怕了......他们挖出葛罗斯特伯爵的双眼......这一幕太骇人了，根本不适合在戏剧舞台上表演出来......很多年前，我读到科迪利娅的死，就感到无比震惊，我但是都不确定自己是否有勇气再去重读最后那几场戏，直到如今，我开始编撰这本戏剧集了，我才不得不重读它们。”

Similar comments could be made about many scenes in Game of Thrones: the shock of Ned Stark’s beheading; the savagery of Ramsay Bolton; the horror of the Red Wedding. And yet, the episodes depicting these events often prove the most popular and most critically acclaimed. And so Game of Thrones, like Shakespeare’s King Lear or Macbeth or Coriolanus, makes us ask, not simply how we endurethese stories, but why we’re drawn to them. This is Episode 3 of “The Wooden O and the Iron Throne: Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee.”

《权力的游戏》中的许多场景也得到了类似的评价，例如奈德·史塔克那可怕的斩首场面、凶残野蛮的拉姆斯·波顿、恐怖的血色婚礼等等。然而，包含这类场景的剧集，往往却是最受欢迎、最受好评的。所以，《权力的游戏》，就像莎士比亚的《李尔王》《麦克白》或《科利奥兰纳斯》这些戏剧一样，让我们思考，为什么我们不仅能够忍受这些残酷的故事，甚至还会被它们深深吸引。那么，让我们一同进入“环形剧场与铁王座”系列的第三集“不可言说，不可想象”。

To think about these questions, of why destruction draws us, we speak first with Pete Lucier, a writer on military culture and foreign policy and a fan of Game of Thrones.

毁灭与破坏为什么对我们有如此大的吸引力？针对这个问题，我们首先采访了皮特·卢西尔。卢西尔是军事文化和外交政策方面的作家，同时也是《权力的游戏》的粉丝。

Lucier: I'm a Marine veteran and so I've taken part in, not like the Battle of the Bastards or the Winds of Winter, but I have seen some combats, and war stories are full of these intense moments. And authors often describe that there's something beautiful about them. So Tim O'Brien or Michael Herr in theDispatchestalks about the beauties of these incredible destructive moments. And obviously, we see these and we're drawn to these, both inGame of Thronesand Shakespeare.

卢西尔：我是一名海军退伍军人，虽然我没有参与过《私生子之战》或者《凛冬的寒风》这两集中里面那样激烈的战事，但是我曾目睹过一些战争场面，目睹过一些充满了紧张刺激的战争。正如一些作家们经常形容的那样，这类场景本身其实也带着一种美。蒂姆·奥布莱恩或是麦克尔·赫尔，在《深入报道》一书中，谈到了这些骇人听闻的毁灭时刻中的所蕴含美。很明显，我们在《权力的游戏》和莎士比亚的戏剧中，也都看到了这些的内容，并被它们深深吸引。

“The Battle of the Bastards” and “The Winds of Winter” are the two episodes that close Season Six of Game of Thrones. These episodes depict the violent final confrontations between Jon Snow and Ramsay Bolton at Winterfell, and then between Cersei Lannister and the Faith Militant in King’s Landing. Both received enormous critical acclaim, hailed not only as some of the best episodes of the show, but as some of the best television episodes of all time. And so they’re the perfect place to ask how tragedy and violence can be transformed into art, and how that kind of art transforms us in turn.

《私生子之战》和《凛冬的寒风》是《权力的游戏》第六季的最后两集。这两集刻画了临冬城中琼恩·雪诺和拉姆斯·波顿之间，以及君临城中瑟曦·兰尼斯特和教团武装之间的暴力决战。这两集得到了广泛的好评，人们不仅称赞它们是《权力的游戏》中最出色的两集，甚至认为它们是电视剧史上最优秀的。所以，如果从这两集入手，探讨如何将悲剧和暴力转化为艺术，以及这种艺术反过来又会对我们产生哪些影响，是最适合不过的了。

[Sound from the Battle of the Bastards]

[《私生子之战》中的声音]

Lucier: Yeah, I think of, in the show, what's almost a perfect episode of television, “The Battle of the Bastards,” that we had all been waiting for so long, you get hyped for these moments. And then somehow the show just met every expectation. And the one that I'm always drawn back to is the pile of bodies. And Jon finds himself beneath it and it is suffocating. It's so difficult to watch. And yet I've watched it three or four times, like I keep going back to it. And it's so visceral. It's -- I find it difficult to breathe while watching it.

卢西尔：是的，我认为《私生子之战》是整部剧中最近乎完美的一集。我们期待这一集很久了，你在很多地方都可以看到对这一集的宣传。在这一集播后，我们发现自己的每一个期待都得到了满足。其中有一幕满是尸体的情节我一直会反复退回去看。琼恩被压在了这堆尸体下，这个场面令人窒息，令人非常不适。但是我却看了三四遍，我不断会地退回看这一幕。我忍不住想去反复看。在看这一幕的时候，我感觉自己的呼吸也变得困难了。

“The Battle of the Bastards” presents its violence as so real, so up close, that as you watch Jon Snow almost suffocate, you lose your own breath. The next episode, “The Winds of Winter,” also depicts acts of extraordinary destruction. But it does so in a strikingly different way. Here’s Dr. Maria Devlin McNair, Shakespeare scholar and creator of “Shakespeare For All.”

《私生子之战》这一集将暴力逼真地展现出来，以致于你在看琼恩·雪诺快要窒息的时候，自己也会产生一种喘不过气的感觉。之后《凛冬的寒风》这一集，同样也展现了那些异乎寻常的破坏性场面，不过展现方式却与《私生子之战》截然不同。下面要与我们进行分享的是玛丽亚·德夫林·麦克奈尔博士，她是研究莎士比亚的学者，也是我们这档节目的英文制作人。

McNair: In “The Winds of Winter”, there's kind of a pivot where there's this aesthetic distance that's created. At the very beginning of that episode, you see all the characters putting on their clothes and there are those shots of them, like drawing, you know, their hands through the sleeves and putting on rings and getting adorned for the trial that's about to happen. And it's almost like a kind of signal that your mind is going into an aesthetic mode of watching because it's so beautiful.

麦克奈尔：在《凛冬的寒风》这集中，，所有的美都是围绕着一个中心展开的：在这集开始的时候，所有的角色都在穿衣打扮。这些特写镜头，就像画画一样，对着他们穿过衣袖的手，对着他们戴上戒指的手。所有人都在为即将开始的审判而穿衣打扮。这就像某种信号，你的头脑进入了一种美学的看剧模式，因为这一幕真的是太美了。

McNair: The music is so haunting, melodic and filled with suspense. And as you're watching all of these events sort of building and building, and you're going in the sense of anticipation of what's going to happen, I also had this sense of like, this is so perfectly done, right, this reaches a height of aesthetic perfection, the suspense that is built here. And there's something pleasing about that perfection.

麦克奈尔：这里的音乐空灵美妙，但又充满了紧张气氛。看着这些事件逐渐发展推进，你开始期待之后剧情的走向，我也有这样的感觉，这一切都拍得极其完美，甚至都达到了美学极致的巅峰，而悬念也就此构建成功。在这样的完美中有着一些吸引人的内容。

In fact, if we’re looking for a poetics of Game of Thrones--a theory that explains how something so destructive can be so aesthetically attractive--the show itself provides one. And it has to do with this idea of perfection. This is Jaime Lannister talking about his first fight alongside the legendary knight Ser Barristan Selmy.

实际上，如果我们想要找寻《权力的游戏》中的诗学，那么这部剧本身就是一个很好的例子。诗学理论解释的就是为何某些极具破坏性的东西会带有美学的吸引力。它其实与完美这个概念有关。下面这段台词中，詹姆·兰尼斯特讲述的是他与传奇的骑士巴利斯坦·塞尔弥爵士的第一场对决。

Ser Jaime: He was… A painter. A painter who only used red. I couldn't imagine being able to fight like that, not back then. And to help him do that, to be a part of something that perfect -- I don't need to explain how that felt, not to you.

詹姆爵士：他是一位画家，一位只用红色颜料的画家。那个时候，我完全无法想象能够像他那样作战。在旁边协助他，参与到这样完美的事情中来，那种感觉不用我解释，你也能明白。

Perfection, as Jaime uses it here, isn’t a moral term: it’s a formal one. It means that something is complete.It’s not missing anything or falling short anywhere. It’s flawless, it’s full up, it’s gone as far as it can go. Art that goes as far as it can go--even into horror--has a quality that nineteenth-century Romantic critics called sublime. In his 1757 treatise on aesthetics, Edmund Burke wrote, ‘whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling’. In her book This is Shakespeare, Professor Emma Smith explains how Romantic critics found the beauty in King Lear by applying this notion of the sublime: the “shock” of the play could be, quote, “elevated into a state of philosophical and physiological fulfillment; the job of great art is to approach that excess of feeling through its encounter with ‘terrible objects’.”

詹姆这里所说的“完美”，不是道德上的“完美”，而是形式上的“完美”，是将一件事情做完整，不能有遗漏，不能有欠缺，是完美无瑕的，是完满的，必须尽一切可能把它做完整。这种追求极致的艺术，带有19世纪浪漫主义批评家们所说的“崇高”特质，这种艺术有时候甚至都会带有惊悚与恐怖的感觉。十八世纪英国美学家埃德蒙·伯克在他1757年的一篇有关美学的论文中曾这样写道：“任何适于激发产生痛苦与危险的观念，也就是说，任何令人敬畏的东西，或者涉及令人敬畏的事物，或者以类似恐惧的方式起作用，都是崇高的本源，即它产生于人心能感觉的最强有力的情感。”艾玛·史密斯教授在她所著的《这就是莎士比亚》一书中，就运用“崇高”这个概念，解释了浪漫主义批评家们为何能在《李尔王》这部戏剧中找到美。她引述说，这部剧的“惊人之处”“被提升到了一种哲学和心理学上的满足层面。伟大艺术的任务就是要通过直面那些令人敬畏的事物，从而触及丰富的情感。”

McNair: And that, to me, captures a little bit of the sensations we get from these two back-to-back episodes, “The Battle of the Bastards” and “The Winds of Winter” . These terrible objects that produce the “strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.”

麦克奈尔：我认为，这在一定程度上，概括了我们从《私生子之战》和《凛冬的寒风》这两集连续的剧集中所得到的感触。这些令人敬畏的事物营造出了我们大脑所能感受到的最强烈的情绪。

The violence and destruction in Shakespeare’s tragedies and Game of Thrones isn’t like what we’d get from a random sampling of the nightly news. Its tragic horror dramatized so exquisitely, so completely, that by its very scale it transcends mere shock and is transformed into art--sublime art. Here’s Anton Lesser, who played the character of Qyburn in Game of Thrones.

莎士比亚的悲剧和《权力的游戏》中的所展现暴力和毁灭力，不同于我们偶尔从夜间新闻中所听到的那种暴力和毁灭力。作者将悲剧的恐怖刻画得淋漓尽致，刻画得完整又彻底，所以从一定程度上看，这种恐怖已经超越了惊恐，变成了艺术，变成了“崇高艺术”。下面这段采访来自安东·莱瑟，他在《权力的游戏》饰演科本一角。

Lesser: I think that the juxtaposition of such beauty and such appalling -- it's like, I don't know, it's like watching depictions of the Holocaust with a soundtrack of the most transcendently beautiful music going on, so you're being asked to sort of -- compute in yourself how this could possibly have ever happened, the Holocaust or the destruction of King’s Landing -- But how can this, how can such terrible things happen in a world that is also sublimely beautiful? I think we go back to this thing about the potential for the greatest possible violence and evil within us and the greatest possible good. Those sort of episodes, those sort of scenes, they take … this thing that we never have to face. And we asked to say, “have a look at this and deal with what's going on in your heart, and in your head and juggle them and at the same time make 12 decisions, and that's what really ruling and power offers you, could you deal with it?” No, you absolutely couldn't. And you know what? That's the tragedy of life, that’s part of the tragedy of being human, so you're not expected to know how to do that. And I think it's just so thrilling. We're actually sort of made to feel two opposing extreme things all at the same time, somehow or other, that is both appalling and very, very challenging, but wonderful.

莱瑟：我感觉这种将美与恐怖并置的做法，就像是，为大屠杀的场景配上了最空灵缥缈的优美背景音乐。所以，在一定程度上，你会在心里估量，怎么会发生这样的事情？怎么会发生这样的大屠杀？君临城怎么就这样被毁灭了？你会想，这种可怕的事情，怎么会发生在这样一个崇高壮美的世界中？为什么会这样？我想我们又回到了这个问题上，就是说在我们的内心深处，可能存在着最大的暴力和邪恶，但同时也可能存在着最大的善。所以，这几集，这些场景，带我们直面我们从来都未曾面对过的东西。我们会思考：“看看这些，看看你内心的想法，看看你脑中的主意，你又要应对它们，同时又要做出12个决定。这是权力赋予你的，但你能处理好吗？”不，你一定没办法处理好。知道这是为什么吗？因为这就是生活的悲剧性所在，是我们生而为人就必须面对的悲剧性内容，所以你注定无法处理好这些事情。这真的很令人毛骨悚然。在同一时间，我们不得不接收两种完全对立的东西。又令人兴奋激动，又非常难以接受，但却真的精彩绝妙。

Part of what’s challenging about these works is that they force us to confront hard truths about ourselves -- including the fact that we find violence thrilling. This is how Pete Lucier reacted to his own reaction to “The Winds of Winter.”

我们之所以会觉得有点难以接受这些作品，部分原因在于这些作品迫使我们直面自己残酷的一面，其中一点就是我们会觉得暴力场景令我们激动兴奋。下面这段，皮特·卢西尔描述了自己对于《凛冬的寒风》这一集的真实感受。

Lucier: It's so pleasurable to have something truly grand and sublime and large put on as if it's for my entertainment. And there's something really human about that and really challenging and in some ways uncomfortable -- what does it mean about us that we want to see and to be a part of these things, not at the most kind of intimate, visceral level, but to stand back and sip wine like Cersei and watch it unfold. And it's wonderful and uncomfortable and makes you feel guilty in some really interesting ways.

卢西尔：能够看到这样宏大逼真、壮美崇高的场面很令人愉悦，这些场面就好像是专门供我娱乐消遣的。这是真实的人性，令人难以接受，甚至会让我们感到有些不适。因为这意味着，我们的确都想亲眼去看这一切是如何发生的，想成为其中的一部分，但我们又并不想与它们发生最直接、最亲密的接触，我们只想站在一边当一个旁观者，就像瑟曦那样，站在一旁，一边小口地抿着酒，一边看着这一切在眼前展开。这很精彩，但却又会让人感到不适，会让你产生一种有趣的愧疚感。

That discomfort might arise when we respond to these spectacles with aesthetic judgments and not with other kinds of judgments. In “The Winds of Winter,” the perfection of Cersei’s plot and of the show’s own production style frames the destruction of the Sept of Baelor as another art object --for Cersei, the event isliterally framed. But of course, it’s not art to Cersei’s victims.

我们之所以会产生这种不适感，也许是因为我们在以美学标准来看待这些场景，而不是其他的判断标准。在《凛冬的寒风》这一集中，瑟曦的完美计谋以及这部剧本身完美的制作风格，将贝勒大圣堂的毁灭定格成了一个艺术对象。对于瑟曦而言，这整个事件就像是一件艺术品。不过当然了，对于瑟曦的那些受害者而言，这根本不可能是艺术。

McNair: You see her watching the Sept of Baelor from a great way away, right, you see it through her window, through the frame of her window. She's watching it. This is spectacle, this is theatre to her. She's taking that sip of wine after she watches it happen. I feel like it almost moves us to that place -- we're experiencing it at an aesthetic distance. And so it's the perfection of the art that's been created there that we're registering and not maybe the brutality of the people who've been destroyed.

麦克奈尔：瑟曦目睹着贝勒大圣堂一点点被摧毁，是的，你也看到了这一幕，你通过她房间的窗户看到了这一幕。她看着这一切发生。这一幕，对她而言，就像是一出戏剧。她一边小口抿着酒，一边看着这一切发生。这种感觉就像是我们被推到了一个特别的位置，让我们可以在一个保持美学距离的远处经历着这一切。而正是因为我们处于这样的一个位置距离，我们感受到的是艺术的完美，而不是那些被摧毁的人所遭遇的野蛮与残暴。

And I feel like theGame of Thrones, once you get to that point where the power is so great that it becomes almost perfected, then it kind of takes on that aesthetic quality. And so I find myself just sort of in admiration of someone like Tywin or Daenerys, in a way that kind of brackets my consideration of their moral identity.

在《权力的游戏》中，一旦你到达了那样的权力高峰，权力也会变得近乎完美，接着它便会呈现出美学的特征。所以，在看剧的时候，我发现自己还挺崇拜泰温和丹妮莉丝这类角色的，在某种程度上，这也是我对他们道德方面的考量。

That’s what’s potentially dangerous about art that aestheticizes violence. It can switch off certain modes of thinking, which would otherwise be telling us these are not spectacles to embrace.

这恰恰就是将暴力美学化的艺术的潜在危险，它会关闭我们某些特定的思考模式，否则的话，这些思考模式会不断告诉我们这样的场景是一定不能被接受的。

Wilson: I think when you look at Shakespeare as the most celebrated English language author and then you look at Game of Thronesas the most popular twenty-first-century television show, you have to be extremely pessimistic about the human race because, you think aboutHamlet,right, our most celebrated English literary text is all about suicide. And we're just OK with that. And you think about Game of Thrones and our most celebrated recent television show is all about rape, and we're OK with that. Just what is wrong with us?

威尔逊：我觉得，如果在你眼中，莎士比亚是最了不起的英语文学作家，而《权力的游戏》又是21世纪最受欢迎的电视剧的话，那么你一定会对人类感到非常失望。就好比《哈姆莱特》这部戏剧，这部最著名的英语文学作品整篇都在讲自杀，可我们却都觉得这可以接受。然后再看看《权力的游戏》这部近来最热门的电视剧，从头到尾都在讲掠夺和强暴，而我们依旧觉得这没什么问题。所以，我们到底是哪里不对呢？

Many scholars of Shakespeare and Game of Thrones have been dealing with these questions: how the stories represent rape, how they represent women, and how they represent other disempowered groups, including non-European races. In thinking about why we love these stories, we also have to ask what we should not love about them.

很多研究莎士比亚和《权力的游戏》的学者们都已经在研究下面这些问题了，例如：这些故事是如何展现掠夺和强暴的？它们是如何展现女性的？如何展现那些被剥夺了权力的群体的？就像那些非欧洲族裔等。要思考为什么我们喜爱这类故事，我们还必须问一问自己，对于这些故事，我们不应该喜爱的是哪些内容。

Wilson: On the one hand, you have the racism and sexism ofGame of Thronesthat has been talked about by scholars like Shiloh Caroll and Kavita Madan Finn and Helen Young and Matt Hardy. On the other hand, you have the racism and sexism in Shakespeare's history plays, which is talked about by the likes of Nina Levine and Jean Howard and Phyllis Rackin with respect to gender and then with respect to the amazing #ShakeRace hashtag that you can follow on Twitter, you have scholars like Kim Hall and Ayanna Thompson and Ambereen Dadabhoy who have been thinking really, really hard about race and Shakespeare. And one of the fascinating things to me is that you see the same texture of critical conversation grow up in response to Shakespeare's history plays and in response toGame of Thrones, especially with Shakespeare's first tetralogy. That's where you get a lot of the best female characters in Shakespeare's entire works.

威尔逊：对于《权力的游戏》中的种族歧视和性别歧视，希洛·卡罗尔、卡维塔·穆达·芬恩、海伦·扬、马特·哈代等学者已经做过了分析探讨。对于莎士比亚历史剧中的种族歧视和性别歧视也有很多学者对它们展开过讨论。尼娜·莱文、琼·霍华德、菲莉丝·拉金等学者探讨了莎剧中和性别有关的问题，而针对莎剧中的种族问题，在推特上就有#莎士比亚的种族问题#这个话题标签，在这里你可以看到金·霍尔、艾安娜·汤普森、安贝林·达达博伊等学者对于这个问题非常深入的探讨。很吸引我的一点是，在这么多对莎士比亚的历史剧和对《权力的游戏》的探讨中，我们可以看到许多相似的内容。尤其是在莎士比亚的第一组四联剧中，我们可以看到许多莎剧中最为杰出的女性角色。

Duchess of Gloucester: proud Frenchwoman / Could I come near your beauty with my nails, / I'd set my ten commandments in your face

格洛斯特公爵夫人：骄横的法国女人！要是我能挨近你这美人儿的身边，我定要左右开弓，打你两巴掌。

You get Joan of Arc, you get Margaret, who are just fearless. You get Eleanor and you get Marjorie Jordan and you have these witches and Machiavellian women and military leaders who are out on the battlefield, who are breaking some of the stereotypes of female characters at the time. You also get a lot of misogyny and you get a lot of patriarchy. And so in response to Shakespeare's first tetralogy, feminist critics have this really ambivalent reaction.

在这组四联剧中，你会读到圣女贞德，会读到玛格丽特，她们都是勇敢无畏的女性。同时，你还会读到埃莉诺，会读到马乔里·乔丹等女巫，她们是诡计多端、不择手段的女性，还有那些在战场上厮杀的女性军事领袖等等，她们都打破了那个年代对于女性的一些刻板印象。除此之外，莎剧中也存在有许多厌恶女性的男性角色和许多父权主义者。所以，对于莎士比亚的第一组四联剧所展示出的女性主义，女性主义批评家们会产生完全矛盾对立的看法。

Similarly, with respect to race, it's less ambivalent because Shakespeare's history plays are not explicitly concerned with race in the way that a text likeThe Merchant of VeniceorOthellomight be. But they're telling this national story about different nations, different ethnicities, the English, the Irish, the French coming into conflict with one another. And you see those group tensions and group dynamics, and you see often some of the not-pretty aspects of identity that can come along with those kinds of conflicts. So with gender and race in Shakespeare's history plays, you get people who sense that Shakespeare's trying to break some mould here and is trying to do some interesting, what we might call progressive things with gender and race. But you also see that Shakespeare's working within this English history play genre that seems to kind of reel him in at every possible moment because it is fundamentally at its core focused on telling the story of succession from one English king to another, which is always one male English king, one white male English king to the next white male English king.

不过在种族问题上，矛盾对立就没有那么明显了，因为莎士比亚的历史剧不像《威尼斯商人》和《奥赛罗》那样明显地在探讨种族问题。这些历史剧探讨的是不同民族之间的关系，是英格兰、爱尔兰、法国之间一个又一个的冲突。在这些戏剧中，你可以感受民族之间的紧张氛围，以及它们之间的互动交流。你还经常可以看到伴随这些冲突而来的那些不那么美好的内容。所以，对于莎士比亚的历史剧中的性别问题和种族问题，人们经常会有这样一种感觉，就是莎士比亚一直在试图打破一些固有模式，试图加入一些有趣的东西，这也许就是我们所说的性别问题和种族问题中那些先进开明的内容吧。但同时，你还会发现，莎士比亚在创作这些历史剧的时候，依旧遵循的是英国历史剧流派的创作模式，他的创作时刻受这一模式的约束，毕竟它的核心还是讲述英国王位的继承。继承王位的往往都是英国的男性君主，一位英国的白人男性君主继承另一位英国的白人男性君主的王位。

And then you see the exact same thing happen with Game of Thrones. George R.R. Martin self-identifies as a feminist. You get some really strong, powerful, amazing female characters. You also get a lot of misogyny inGame of Thrones. You also get a lot of patriarchy.

在《权力的游戏》你也能看到一模一样的故事情节。乔治.R.R.马丁将自己定义为一个女性主义者。在《权力的游戏》中，有不少伟大强势、令人惊叹的女性角色。同时，你也会遇到许多厌恶女性的男性角色，以及很多的父权主义者。

Nowhere do the forces of female power and patriarchy clash more dramatically than in the story of Daenerys Targaryen. In the show’s first episode, her brother sells her as a bride to Kahl Drogo in exchange for Drogo’s army--a story she later recounts to Jon Snow when she has become a queen with an army of her own.

剧中，在丹妮莉丝·坦格利安身上，就体现了女性力量与父权主义最强烈的碰撞。在第一集中，她的哥哥就安排她嫁给卡尔·卓戈，以换取卓戈的军队。下面的片段，是丹妮莉丝在成为了一位拥有自己军队的女王后，向琼恩·雪诺讲述自己的这段经历。

Daenerys: I spent my life in foreign lands. So many men have tried to kill me, I don't remember all their names. I have been sold like a broodmare. I’ve been shamed and betrayed, raped and defiled. Do you know what kept me standing through all those years in exile? Faith. Not in any gods, not in myths and legends. In myself. In Daenerys Targaryen.

丹妮莉丝：我前半生都在不同的国家流浪，无数我都不记得名字的人想要杀我。我像母马一样被售卖，我遭到了羞辱和背叛，被强奸、被玷污。你知道我逃亡了这么多年，是什么支撑着我走到了今天吗？是信仰，不是对神的信仰，也不是对传说和神话的信仰。而是对我自己的信仰，对丹妮莉丝·坦格利安的信仰。

Wilson: You get George R.R. Martin, like Shakespeare, going to great lengths to show how patriarchy and misogyny are fundamentally villainous and tragic and to make that critique. But that's still making it about the racists and the misogynists as opposed to the people who have had to experience those systems. And you really don't get that shift in either Shakespeare's history plays or inGame of Thronesto stories that center upon people who are different than white English males, people who are different from the white Westerosi males who are in charge of the power in Martin's narrative. You never really get that shift from a critique of patriarchy, misogyny, racism into a full embrace and a celebration of the stories that can come from centering different perspectives and different people in them.

威尔逊：你会发现乔治.R.R.马丁和莎士比亚很像，他也花了很大功夫向我们展现父权主义和厌女主义在根本上都是可憎又可悲的，他也在努力批判这两种思想。但即便如此，你依旧会觉得这部剧关注的是那些种族主义者和那些厌恶女性者，而没有关注那些不得不经历那些制度的人们。不论是莎士比亚的历史剧，还是《权力的游戏》，故事的中心永远是围绕白人男性展开的。在马丁的故事中，掌权的也都是维斯特洛的白人男性。所以，你不可能真正从对父权主义、厌女主义和种族主义的批判，转变为完全包容、接受不同视角下的其他种族的人物的故事。

There is one important shift Martin does make towardscentering different kinds of stories--and it’s a shift away from Shakespeare. In our first episode, we discussed the character of Richard III.

不过，马丁还是作出了一个重要转变的，这也是他与莎士比亚的一个不同之处，那就是把故事的中心放到不同类型的故事里。比如，在“环形剧场与铁王座”这个系列的第一集中，我们就探讨过理查三世这个角色。

Wilson: George R.R. Martin is obsessed with Richard III, and when Tyrion says that he has a soft spot in his heart for cripples, bastards, and broken things, that's George R.R. Martin speaking.

威尔逊：乔治.R.R.马丁非常喜欢理查三世这个角色。在《权力的游戏》中，提利昂曾经说，在他的内心有一个柔软的地方，为那些残废、私生子以及破碎的东西而留。这其实是乔治.R.R.马丁自己的真实想法。

Shakespeare’s Richard is a diabolically clever villain, whose moral deformity is ostensibly reflected in the physical deformity of his hunchbacked body. But Martin rewrites this story.

在莎士比亚笔下，理查三世是一个极其聪明的恶棍，他扭曲的驼背身形反映出了他扭曲的道德。但是马丁重写了他的故事。

Wilson: With Shakespeare, Richard III engages with societal stigma and becomes a villain and it ends up in a tragic model. With Martin, he's interested in exploring how the experience of negotiating social stigma can have a more heroic narrative to it, can strengthen character, can lead to the overcoming adversity and so forth.

威尔逊：在莎剧中，理查三世是被污名化了的，他被描写成了一个恶棍，他的结局十分悲惨。而到了马丁这儿，他着迷于探索社会污名化会如何呈现一个更具英雄主义的故事，会如何加强角色的性格，以及会如何帮助他们战胜逆境等等。

And so you'll notice that all of the protagonists inGame of Thrones, all of the noble characters, all the characters that we cheer for, have some aspect of their identity that has been stigmatized by society. And they have to engage with that. That is straight out of Richard III.

所以，你会发现，在《权力的游戏》中，所有的主角、所有高尚的角色、所有我们为之欢呼叫好的角色，在一定程度上都是被污名化了的。他们不得不适应这种污名化。这和理查三世是完全不同的。

In its very first episode, Game of Thrones highlights this condition of stigma: bearing some physical or social marker that sets you apart from others and sets you up for social rejection. Tyrion, who is a dwarf, speaks from his experience to Jon Snow, who is labeled a bastard:

《权力的游戏》的第一集，就突出强调了这样的污名化，某个角色身体上或者社会身份上的某些特点，让他们与他人有了隔阂，导致他们不被社会所接受。提利昂是一个侏儒，下面这是他对琼恩·雪诺说的一段话，而琼恩是一个私生子。

Tyrion: Let me give you some advice, bastard. Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor. Then it can never be used to hurt you.

Jon: What the hell do you know about being a bastard?

Tyrion: All dwarves are bastards in their fathers’ eyes.

提利昂：那么让我给你一点建议吧，私生子小弟。永远不要忘记自己是什么人，因为这个世界不会忘记。用它来武装自己，这样就没有人可以用它来伤害你。

琼恩：你怎么会了解当一个私生子的感受？

提利昂：所有侏儒在他们父亲眼里都是私生子。

In Game of Thrones,there’s a tremendous range of these stigmatized identities: being a homosexual, being an “unfeminine” woman or even simply being a woman; having dyslexia, being castrated, being scarred by disease, having no right hand, or being unable to walk. In the final episode, the new king’s name even reflects his stigma.

在《权力的游戏》中，有很多东西是被污名化的，例如同性恋，不够淑女的女性，甚至就是因为是女性，以及不能说话，被阉割，因疾病而留下的伤疤，没有右手，不能走路等等。在最后一集中，新国王的名字甚至都体现了他的被污名化。

Tyrion: All hail Bran the Broken, first of his name, King of the Andals and the first men, lord of the six kingdoms, Protector of the Realm.

All: All hail Bran the Broken.

提利昂：残疾的布兰万岁！他是以安达尔人的国王，六国的统治者，也是全境的守护者。

众人：残疾的布兰万岁！

Wilson: Disability is everywhere inGame of Thrones, right? Sometimes it's a congenital disability that someone was born with. Sometimes it's acquired through war or through abuse, through violence or other means. But having to deal with that situation, having to figure out how I'm going to live my life after engaging with both the physical reality of impairment as well as the social dynamic of people who are casting judgments on you, making assumptions about you, it just creates really compelling narratives for characters to go through.

威尔逊：在《权力的游戏》到处都可以看到残疾的角色，不是吗？有些角色的残疾是天生的，而有的是战争、虐待、暴力等原因造成的。然而，在遭受身体的残疾和周围人的偏见后，要应对这样的情况，并找到合适的生活方式，就会产生出引人入胜的的故事情节。

One of the most compelling narratives of stigma isTyrion Lannister’s. It’s in his storyline that George R.R. Martin most clearly rewrites Richard III’s. Here’s Richard and Tyrion:

其中，与污名化有关的，最吸引人的故事之一就是提利昂·兰尼斯特的经历。乔治.R.R.马丁几乎是以他的故事线重新书写了理查三世的故事。下面是理查和提利昂各自的一段台词：

Richard III: Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, / Have no delight to pass away the time, / Unless to spy my shadow in the sun / And descant on mine own deformity: / And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, / To entertain these fair well-spoken days, / I am determined to prove a villain.

理查三世：唉，我，在这萎靡的和平时代，竟没有什么娱乐可供排遣之用，除非是在阳光之下看我自己的影子，讴歌自己的丑态。所以，我既不能成为一个情人，消磨这油腔滑调的日子，我就决心做一个恶汉。

Tyrion: I wish I had enough poison for the whole pack of you. I would gladly give my life to watch you all swallow it.

提利昂：我希望我拥有能够毒死你们所有人的毒药。我要看着你们把毒药吞下，即便要我付出生命的代价，我都愿意。

This last clip makes Tyrion sound very much like the villainous Richard III, embracing the thought of murder. But the scene as a whole actually highlights their differences. Tyrion is on trial for killing King Joffrey. Just before he declares his desire to poison the crowd, he says, “I wish I was the monster you think I am.” Because he knows he is notreally a monster or a villain like Richard--just like he knows he didn’t commit the crime he’s being tried for. He has simply been treated as a monster his whole life because he is a dwarf. But his stigma doesn’t lead him to seek revenge on the world. It leads him to sympathize with those who also suffer. Tyrion is the one who proposes that Bran be made king--just as he was the one who, long ago, designed a saddle for Bran after he suffered his fall, so that the boy who couldn’t walk could still ride.

这一个节选的片段中，我们会发现提利昂听上去很像是邪恶的理查三世，他们都在想着谋杀这件事。然而，如果完整看这一幕的话，我们会发现他们的是不同的。当时提利昂正在接受一次审判，他被指控谋杀了乔佛里国王。就在他说出想要毒杀周围的人群之前，他说“我希望我是你们眼中的那个怪物。”因为，他知道自己其实并不是像理查那样的怪物，不是那样的恶棍。同样，他也很清楚，自己根本不会去犯他被指控的那项罪行。他一直被当做怪物，只不过因为他是个侏儒。但这样的污名化并没有让他去向全世界寻求复仇。相反，这样的遭遇让他同情那些遭受痛苦的人们。之后提议让布兰做国王的也是提利昂。就像多年之前，当布兰从高处跌落，摔断了双腿后，也是提利昂为他设计了一个马鞍，让这个双腿无法正常行走的男孩，可以依靠骑马来行走。

Robb: This is some kind of trick -- why do you want to help him?

Tyrion: I've a tender spot in my heart cripples bastards and broken things.

罗柏：这有点奇怪，你为什么想帮助他？

提利昂：我的内心有一个柔软的地方，为那些残疾、私生子以及破碎的东西而留。

In some cases, according to Jeff Wilson, there’s not much deeper meaning to the question of why viewers embrace stories like Shakespeare’s tragedies and Game of Thrones. We have an appetite for graphic martial and sexual violence--and art gives us a cover to indulge that appetite.

按照杰夫·威尔逊的看法，在一些情况下，观众们之所以会喜欢莎士比亚的悲剧和《权力的游戏》这类故事，并没有什么更深层的原因。这只不过是因为我们喜欢看赤裸裸的战争暴力和性暴力，而艺术为我们提供了一个沉溺于此种爱好的机会。

Wilson: Both Shakespeare andGame of Thronesprobably give us just enough of an intellectualization of these horrible things that happen in life, and enough titillation with those horrible things to allow us to justify to ourselves spending our time enjoying this art, spending our time engaging with it, without just feeling like we're satisfying our most basic pleasure principles as base human beings.

威尔逊：莎剧和《权力的游戏》也许都让我们对生活中发生的这些可怕的事情有了足够的认知，并通过这些可怕的事情给我们带来足够刺激，让我们有充分的理由去花时间享受这种艺术，去花时间参与这种艺术，而不仅仅是满足我们生而为人的那些最基本的欢愉。

But for other viewers, even if they were initially pulled in by the blood or the sex or the shock, that might not be what keptthem there. That’s how Anton Lesser, who is also a Shakespearean actor, thinks about why audiences were first drawn into Shakespeare.

但是对于另一些观众而言，即便他们一开始的确是被这些血腥、性和暴力所吸引，但这些也许并不是留住他们的根本原因。那么观众们一开始为什么会被莎剧吸引呢？下面这段是安东·莱瑟对这个问题的看法。莱瑟同时也是一位莎剧演员。

Lesser: If you think of Shakespeare -- he was appealing to the whole strata, wasn't he? If you think of the groundlings in the pit of the Globe and the people in the top -- maybe he was attracting people who you might almost patronizingly judge to be interested in low art -- they came along for the bawdy, they came along for the gags, they came along for the jokes. He was brilliant because maybe they came along for that and were perforce opened to what you might decide is high art -- maybe they came to that theater in one state and left in a very different state, and maybe left having to sort of reassess why they came. Maybe they laughed at the jokes, but got something else as well.

莱瑟：一想到莎士比亚，你就会觉得他对于社会各个阶层的人都有很强的吸引力，不是吗？想想环球剧院中的平民百姓，还有那些坐在高台上的达官贵人。也许你会以一种居高临下的态度下判断，认为莎士比亚吸引的一些观众可能只会对低俗艺术感兴趣，认为他们来剧院不过是为了看那些艳情故事、看那些插科打诨的故事，以及那些玩笑恶作剧。但莎士比亚的高明之处就在于，当观众们来剧院时，也许的确是为了看那些低俗的表演，但是等他们真的到了这里，他们看到的内容却是你所认为的那种高雅艺术。观众们来剧院的时候是一种状态，离开的时候却已经是另外一番模样了，他们很可能会再次重新思考自己来剧院看戏的原因。他们可能会被玩笑恶作剧逗得哈哈大笑，但同时也能收获其他一些东西。

FOOL: The sweet and bitter fool.

Will presently appear:

The one in motley here,

The other found out there.

LEAR: Dost thou call me “fool,” boy?

FOOL: All thy other titles thou hast given away. That thou wast born with.

KENT: This is not altogether fool, my lord.

小丑：一个傻瓜甜，

一个傻瓜酸；

一个穿花衣，

一个戴王冠。

李尔：你叫我傻瓜吗，孩子？

小丑：你把其他所有的尊号都送了别人，只有这一个名字是你娘胎里带来的。

肯特：陛下，这倒不全是傻话哩。

That “something else” we find in Shakespeare might be certain kinds of knowledge about human nature -- as King Lear gains some knowledge here about his own folly. We might also find an experience of realizing just how much we don’t know.

在莎剧中我们得到的“其他一些东西”也许就是我们对于人性某些特定的认知。就像上面这一段台词中，李尔王认识到了自己的愚笨。同时，我们还能感受到自己究竟有多么无知。

Lesser: When I watch something likeGame of Thronesor I watch Gloucester having his eyes pulled out inKing Lear-- it's not drawing me because I'm into violence, I mean, certain sections of society, yes, clearly that they like watching violence, they like watching explicit sex scenes because that's, that's their thing -- but I think a lot of people are drawn to that because they recognize that all of that, all of the potential for the worst, the worst instincts, are part of the picture of what it is to be a human being. That is, it can't be partial. And when we see, we see all the aspects of our nature as a human -- we are heaven and hell, we are beasts, we are animals, we are angels, we are lovers, we are -- we're a nightmare. We're a mess. We're the whole range, the whole spectrum of everything. That's the human part.

莱瑟：当我看《权力的游戏》这类剧的时候，或者是在看《李尔王》中葛罗斯特伯爵被挖双眼时，我会被这样的剧情吸引，但这并不是因为我喜欢暴力。我的意思是，的确，社会上有一些群体，他们喜欢看暴力的场面，喜欢看赤裸裸的性爱场面，因为他们就喜欢这种内容。但我认为，大部分的人会被这些内容吸引，是因为他们明白所有的这一切，所有这一切潜在的最糟糕的东西，这些最糟糕的本能，都是人类的一部分，是人类 不可分割的一部分。当我们看到了人性的方方面面时，我们就会发现在自己体内，有天堂，也有地狱，有兽性野蛮，也有善良友爱，我们就像是一场噩梦，我们是一片混沌，但我们也是全方位的，我们包含着许多不同的方面。而这就是人性。

CORIOLANUS: I will not do’t,

Lest I surcease to honor mine own truth

And, by my body’s action, teach my mind

A most inherent baseness.

VOLUMNIA: At thy choice, then.

To beg of thee, it is my more dishonor

Than thou of them. Come all to ruin. Let

Thy mother rather feel thy pride than fear

Thy dangerous stoutness, for I, mock at death

With as big heart as thou. Do as thou list.

科利奥兰纳斯：不，我不愿意；

我怕我会失去对我自己的尊敬，

我的身体干了这样的事，也许会使我的精神

沾上一重无法摆脱的卑鄙。

伏伦妮娅：那么随你的便。

我向你请求，比之你向他们请求，

对于我是一个更大的耻辱。 一切都归于毁灭吧 ；

宁可让你的母亲感觉到你的骄傲，

也不要让她因为你危险的顽强而担忧，

因为我用像你一样豪壮的心讪笑着死亡。你愿意怎么办就怎么办。

Lesser: But the other part of being a human being is the beingness and the being, the being that seems to be recognized because we allow the whole picture -- the beingness of ourselves is the potential for real goodness, I think. And that, I think, is what we get when we watch this horrific exposition of the totality of what it is to be a human being. We're not just fed a nice story that ends happily and we watch in a very knowing safe way. Oh, yeah, he's the good person, he's a bad person, and I know what's going to happen, and we feel sort of affirmed in our very fixed position of what we think it is to be good and moral and kind and nice. We usually watch from that position of, oh, okay, I know where I am. When you watch something likeGame of Thrones,not only are you fed the whole kaleidoscope of this thing called being human -- you are not allowed to take a position. You are not allowed to know -- to know. You are placed in a position of not knowing all the time.

莱瑟：但人性的另一面是“存在性”和“存在”。我认为，我们似乎都能看到自身的“存在”，因为我们承认人性所涵盖的一切好坏善恶，而所谓的“存在性”则是一种获取真善美的潜能。我认为，当我们看到这些对人性中惊悚的部分的完整展现时，都能体会这一点。很多时候，我们不仅仅是在看一个有着欢乐结局的美好故事，在观看的过程中，我们都很确定故事会以我们熟悉的“套路”展开。“他是好人，他是坏人。我知道接下来会发生什么。”我们在观看时，处于一个非常固定的位置，在一定程度上，我们可以肯定自己所想的那些真善美都是确定的。作为观众，我们经常站在这样一个角度看问题，我们对自己所处的位置很有把握。但是，当你看《权力的游戏》这类剧的时候，你看的不但是对“人性”这种东西的全方位完整展现，同时，你再也不能站在惯有的角度去欣赏它。你无法预计故事的走向。你所处的位置使得你不能一直都准确把握故事的脉络。

CLAUDIUS: What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?

O wretched state! O bosom black as death!

O limèd soul, that, struggling to be free,

Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay.

克劳狄斯：那么怎们办呢？还有什么法子好想呢？

试一试忏悔的力量吧。什么事情是忏悔所不能做到的？

可是对于一个不能忏悔的人，

它又有什么用呢？啊，不幸的处境！

啊，像死亡一样黑暗的心胸！

啊，越是挣扎，越是不能脱身的胶住了的灵魂！救救我，天使们！试一试吧。

Game of Thrones and Shakespeare’s tragedies force us to experience that uncomfortable, disturbing position of not knowing. But strangely, those same works of art that force us into not knowing are also the ones that can lead us to deeper understanding.

在观看《权力的游戏》和莎士比亚的悲剧时，我们被迫站在一个无法预知故事发展的位置，这令我们感到不适与不安。但奇怪的是，这类让我们陷入“无法预知”的艺术作品，却往往能激发我们更为深刻的理解。

Lesser: I think there's a special alchemy that happens when the author is himself open to something other than a fixed perspective -- when there is not a fixed idea trying to be communicated, but the author himself, because of something that he's been touched by, the case of George R.R. Martin -- when you have an author like him, like Shakespeare, who's clearly a very evolved being, he was probably a sage -- when that mind produces a work of art, when it's a mind that itself has been permeated by light in some way or whose heart has been touched in some way, and they are somehow compelled because of that experience to write in a particular way that doesn't obscure that interest, that thread that's being explored -- then that is communicated. There are pieces of writing that are the conduit for this golden thread of investigation into what's really true.

莱瑟：我觉得，如果作者本身对某件事情持开放的态度，不以固定的视角看问题的话，就会产生一种特殊的魔力。因为这样的话，作者在创作的时候，并没有试图传达某个特定的概念，而是希望向读者传递某种打动了他的内容。这就是乔治.R.R.马丁所在做的。像马丁和莎士比亚这样的作者，很明显是发展完全了的“存在”，他们也许都可以称得上是圣人。当这样的人在创作艺术作品时，当他们的思绪被光点亮，内心被触动时，这种经历会迫使他们以一种特殊的方式进行写作，而这种写作方式不会模糊那种兴趣，不会掩盖他们正在探寻的线索，这样的创作就是他们的交流方式。这些文字作品串联起了这条珍贵的对真理的探寻线索。

Now, obviously, we all respond to these things in different ways. And some people watchGame of Thronesand think, Oh no, I don't get it. So clearly it's not infallible as a means of touching everybody. But certainly, with the greats -- Shakespeare, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Beethoven, Mozart, you know, the popular ones, seemingly they have -- it's worked for many, many, many, many people. They have been sensitive to something that transcends a good story.

很明显，我们对这些内容的反应各不相同。有的人看《权力的游戏》，会觉得，哦，我看不出它好在哪里。所以，很明显，它不可能打动每一个人。但是像莎士比亚、契诃夫、托尔斯泰、贝多芬、莫扎特这些著名的伟大人物，他们的作品还是被许多许多许多许多人所喜爱的。他们不仅仅想讲述好一个故事，更想传递某种超越了好故事的令他们深有感触的内容。

So--what is that transcendent thing that goes beyond a good story?

那么，这种超越了好故事的卓越内容是什么呢？

Lesser: If we think of art reflecting life -- which is what certainly George R.R. Martin is concerned about, that's why he includes so much death and destruction, because he believes it should be a reflection of what life includes, which is very much, death is an important part of that -- if art reflects life or art, what did Shakespeare say, holds the mirror up to nature, that's its purpose. Then hopefully we're kind of trying to get access to something called truth. But it's a very different truth to chronological or historical truth, it's a truth that’s something to do with our inner state, something to do with absolutes rather than relatives -- Truth with a capital T -- somehow or other, through all the storytelling, there is all the time the potential for the stories to point just to something you could say was absolute.

莱瑟：艺术反映生活。这是乔治.R.R.马丁关注的，所以他会将死亡和毁灭融入作品中，因为他相信艺术必须真实反映生活，而死亡又是生活的一个重要组成部分。那么关于“艺术反映生活”，莎士比亚又是怎么说的呢？他说艺术就是举着镜子照见自然，这就是艺术的目的。所以，在一定程度上，我们希望能够触碰到那个叫做“真理”的东西。但这里所谓的“真理”与编年史或历史的“真理”不同，这个“真理”与我们的内心有关，是绝对“真理”，不是“相对”真理，它是一个专有名词。不论怎样，在所有故事叙述中，所有的故事中一直都潜在地指向某种“绝对”的内容。

Maybe we do love works of art like Game of Thrones and Shakespeare’s plays because their size, their scale, their reaching for the perfect or the transcendent or the sublime, makes us sense that they are bringing us closer to some more absolute form of truth. We might also sense that they say something truthful because we feel we’ll never get to the end of what they have to say.

也许，我们喜欢《权力的游戏》和莎剧这类的艺术作品，是因为它们宏大的规模和磅礴的场面，以及它们的完美、超然和“崇高”让我们感受到，它们使我们更加靠近更加绝对的真理。我们也许还可以感受到它们在表达一些真理的内容，因为对于它们所表达的内容，我们总是能够不断有新的收获。

Lesser: I love the fact that somebody else said that Shakespeare, that really great writing is like a jewel with so many facets. And each time you pick this jewel up, maybe in a new production, in your rehearsal period, you're never going to look through the same facet at the light that's inside here. You’re always going to be looking through a slightly different one. So it's infinitely interpretable, infinitely revealing of -- to go back to what we talked about earlier -- Truth with a big T.

莱瑟：有句话我很喜欢，有人说，莎剧这样的伟大作品就像是宝石，有着许多不同的琢面。每次你拿起这块宝石，都会有新的发现。在再创作时，在彩排时，每一次你都会从不同的面看到里面的光。每一次都会发现细微的不同。所以，你可以对这些作品有无限的解读，可以无限地展现我们前面提到的那种绝对“真理”。

This is why “Shakespeare For All” focuses on the questions that each play asks. No one course can reveal the infinite truth contained in a great work of art. What we can do is offer you some new facets to examine the light that lives inside. We hope it will illuminate something for you.

也正因为此，我们这档节目关注每一部戏剧中的各种问题。虽然没有任何一个节目可以完全展现一部伟大作品中所包含的无限真理，但我们能够做的就是为大家提供一些新的角度，供大家去探寻作品中的光芒。我们希望我们的节目能带给大家一定的启发。