翻译 德龙

译者注：

文学城中，我最钦佩的博主就是润涛阎，没有之一，只有唯一。

《西雅图酋长1854年演说》是在润涛阎的《美国人的忧患意识来源与假想敌情结》中读到的。

钦佩归钦佩，看了他的译文，感觉与原文有出入，便试着翻译如下。

千百年来，远方的苍穹无数次为我的族人啜泣流泪，我们自以为老天的垂怜永世不变，我们大错特错。今天的朗朗晴空，明天许就乌云沉沉。我的字字句句如星辰般永恒。西雅图的真言，身在华盛顿那位了不起的酋长毋庸置疑，就像他坚信太阳会升起，四季会更替那般。

白人头领说华盛顿的那位酋长向我们致以友善的问候。那是他的仁慈，众所周知，他根本不需要我们的友谊。他麾下千军万马，好比覆盖着辽阔草原的青草。我的族人却寥寥无几，仿佛暴风雨肆虐后，平原上散落的残树。

那位了不起，我估计应该不错的白人酋长，捎话来说，愿意买下我们的领土，同时准许我们保留足够安生立命，丰衣足食的土地。这的确很公平，几乎慷慨，因为红种人不再拥有值得他尊重的权力，同时这个条件也很明智，毕竟我们不再需要如此辽阔的疆域。

曾几何时，我们的人遍布这片疆土，宛若波涛汹涌的海浪覆盖着贝壳铺成的海底，可惜这一切早已成为过去，部落曾经的辉煌，如今只剩下唏嘘的回忆。我不会止步不前，不会悲戚我们过早的陨落，更不会叱责白脸兄弟加快了我们衰败的进程，我们咎由自取。

年少好轻狂。每每我们的小伙儿因为某些真实或臆想的不公而忿愤，用黑漆丑化自己的脸，他们的心胸势必变得阴暗丑陋，他们十有八九会变得残酷不仁，而我们的老人，无论男女都无法约束他们。自从白人驱赶着我们的先辈一路向西，这样的悲剧就在一如既往地上演。但愿我们间的对立将永不回头，否则我们会家破人亡而一无所获。年轻人以为复仇便是得，即便以自己的性命为代价，而战乱中留在家中的老人，和失去儿子的母亲比他们清楚得多。

华盛顿那位不错的父亲，我估计他现在既是你们的父亲，也是我们的了。既然乔治国王已将他的国界向北纵深，依我看，我们了不起，不错的父亲，不如下书说，倘若我们按他的意愿行事，他就会保我们周全。他无畏的战士将是捍卫我们的城墙，他精良的战舰将布满我们的港湾，我们北方古老的宿敌，海达人和慈姆仙人，就会停止对我们的妇女，孩子和老人的威胁。如此，他才真真正正成为我们的父亲，我们才真真正正成为他的子民。这会实现吗？你们的神并不是我们的神！你们的神爱你的人民，却恨我的！神用强健的臂膀慈祥地呵护白脸孩子，牵着他的手，犹如慈父牵着自己的幼子。可是，神抛弃了他的红孩子，假设他们果真是他的孩子。我们的神，伟大的神灵，似乎也抛弃了我们。你们的神使你们日益壮大。不用多久，他们将占满所有的疆土。而我们的族人却在急速递减，就像疾疾退去的潮水，一去不回头。白人的神不会爱我们，不然他就会保护我们。我们成了无处求助的孤儿。你我怎么会亲如兄弟？你们的神怎么会成为我们的神，让我们重新繁荣，激发我们重返辉煌的梦想？假如我们有同一位天父，他一定是偏心的，因为他只光顾他白脸的孩子，我们从未见过他。神给了你们律法，却不曾给他红孩子们留下只言片语，红孩子曾在这片大陆上活力四射，如同布满苍穹的繁星。我们是两个截然不同的种族，有着不同的起源，和不同的归宿。我们间几乎没有共性。

对我们而言，先人的骨灰是神圣的，他们的安息之所便是圣地。你们远离自己祖先的墓地，在外游荡，没有丝毫遗憾。你们的信仰是你们的神用铁指写在石板上，令你们永世不忘。红种人永远不会理解，也不会记住你们的信仰。我们的信仰沿袭我们的先祖，是我们长老的梦想，伟大神灵在庄严的夜晚赋予他们的梦想；是我们酋长的憧憬，刻划在我们人民的心里。

你们的死者，一旦跨过坟墓的大门，便在星际外游荡，不再爱恋你们，也不再眷恋自己的故土。他们很快就被遗忘，永远不会归来。我们的死者永远不会忘却这个生存过的美丽世界。他们依旧深爱着葱郁的山谷，潺潺的河流，壮丽的山峦，深幽的峡谷，翠绿的湖泊和海湾，时时不忘给孤独的世人带去绵绵爱意，常常返回令人心悦的猎场，探望，指引，宽慰，安抚自己的亲人。

昼和夜不能共存。白种人一来，红种人便逃之夭夭，正如晨雾在初升的朝阳来临前，便不见了踪影。不管怎么说，你们的提议很公平，我相信我的族人会接受的，他们会退归你们划分的保留区。随后我们便可和平地分道扬镳。那位了不起的白人酋长的话，仿佛大自然在向我的族人诉说，把他们带出森然的黑暗。

至于我们在何处度过残生，无所谓了。我们的余时不多。印第安人的夜晚注定黑暗，没有一颗希望之星会在他的地平线上徘徊。风在远处悲歌，严酷的命运与红种人如影随形，无论何处，当印第安人听到残暴的驱逐者临近的脚步，他便会木讷地准备接受自己的厄运，如同受伤的母鹿听闻猎人靠近的步伐。

再有几度月缺月圆，再过几个数九寒天，曾经驰骋在这片广阔大地上威武的主人，曾经蒙受伟大的神灵庇佑，在幸福的家庭安居乐业的人们，他们的后裔中，将无一人会继续在先人的坟前祭奠，而他们的先人曾比你们的先人更强大，更乐观。我何必为我的族人过早的衰败而悲戚？部落取代部落，国家征服国家，犹如大海的波涛，前赴后继。这是自然规律，后悔无益。你们衰败的时日或许还很遥远，但它必将来临。即便是白人，有挚友般的神与彼同行攀谈，最终的命运必将与我们殊途同归，无法幸免。最终我们或许真成了难兄难弟。我们拭目以待。

我们会推敲你们的提议，等决定了，便知会你们。但是倘若我们接受了这些条款，我此时此地先提一项条件：任何时候，我们都有权为我们的先人，朋友和孩子扫墓，且不被骚扰。在我族人的意识里，这里的每寸土地都是神圣的，每一个山坡，每一个峡谷，每一个平原和每一个丛林，在过去久远的日子里，都因某个喜事或浩劫而被神化。即便是岩石，在闷热的阳光下，沿着寂静的海岸，显得那么愚钝，没有生气，它们也会因记起和我的族人息息相关，轰轰烈烈的往事，而兴奋不已。你们脚下的尘埃，对我们的脚步，会反应更亲切，毕竟土壤里饱含着我们先人的鲜血，我们光着的脚能感悟到它会意的触摸。我们逝去的勇士，慈蔼的母亲，快乐无忧的少女，甚至是欣喜地在这儿短短生活过几年的孩童，都喜欢阴郁无人出没的地方，黄昏时分，他们会迎接幽幽归来的亡灵。倘若终有一天，最后的红种人消亡了，我的部族便成了白人传颂的神话，这些海岸将飘满我族人的亡灵。当你们孩子的孩子认为自己在田野，商铺，公路，或寂静无路的林子里独处时，他们并非独处。这里的每寸土地，没有一个地方可以独享。夜幕中，你所在的城市，乡村的街道寂寥无声，你以为那里无人问津，其实街上却挤满了曾经的主人归来的亡灵，他们依旧爱恋着这片美丽的土地。白人永远不会孤单。

但愿他能公平善待我的族人，因为死人并非完全无能。死人，我是这么说的？世间没有死亡，只有交替轮回。

（原文）

"CHIEF SEATTLE'S 1854 ORATION"

Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Today is fair. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says, the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons.

The white chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. They are like the grass that covers vast prairies. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain. The great, and I presume -- good, White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our land but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.

There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.

Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.

Our good father in Washington--for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north--our great and good father,

I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors, so that our ancient enemies far to the northward -- the Haidas and Tsimshians -- will cease to frighten our women, children, and old men. Then in reality he will be our father and we his children. But can that ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine! He folds his strong protecting arms lovingly about the paleface and leads him by the hand as a father leads an infant son. But, He has forsaken His Red children, if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax stronger every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The white man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness? If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial, for He came to His paleface children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for His red children whose teeming multitudes once filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little in common between us.

To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend or remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors -- the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of the night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander away beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget this beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its murmuring rivers, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the happy hunting ground to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.

Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun. However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell apart in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of dense darkness.

It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indian's night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter.

A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time of decay may be distant, but it will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.

We will ponder your proposition and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends, and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, or in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.

Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead, did I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.