Left-Handed Commencement Address -- Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
delivered 22 May 1983, Mills College, Oakland, California
1983 年 5 月 22 日在加利福尼亚州奥克兰米尔斯学院交付
Ursula Le Guin 2009.
乌苏拉·勒吉恩 2009。
Photo by Marian Wood Kolisch
玛丽安·伍德·科利什摄
I want to thank the Mills College Class of '83 for offering me a rare chance: to speak aloud in public in the language of women.
我要感谢米尔斯学院 83 届毕业生为我提供了一个难得的机会：在公共场合用女性语言大声讲话。
I know there are men graduating, and I don't mean to exclude them, far from it.
我知道有些人即将毕业，我并不是要排除他们，事实并非如此。
There is a Greek tragedy where the Greek says to the foreigner, �If you don't understand Greek, please signify by nodding.� Anyhow, commencements are usually operated under the unspoken agreement that everybody graduating is either male or ought to be.
有一个希腊悲剧，希腊人对外国人说：“如果你不懂希腊语，请点头表示。”无论如何，毕业典礼通常是在不言而喻的协议下进行的，即每个毕业生要么是男性，要么应该是男性。
That�s why we are all wearing these twelfth-century dresses that look so great on men and make women look either like a mushroom or a pregnant stork.
这就是为什么我们都穿着这些十二世纪的衣服，这些衣服穿在男人身上非常漂亮，而女人看起来要么像蘑菇，要么像怀孕的鹳鸟。
Intellectual tradition is male.
知识传统是男性的。
Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language.
公开演讲以公共语言、民族或部落语言进行；我们部落的语言是男人的语言。
Of course women learn it.
女人当然要学。
We're not dumb.
我们并不傻。
If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how.
如果你能通过他们所说的任何内容区分玛格丽特·撒切尔和罗纳德·里根，或者英迪拉·甘地和索摩查将军，请告诉我如何区分。
This is a man�s world, so it talks a man�s language.
这是一个男人的世界，所以它说的是男人的语言。
The words are all words of power.
这些话语都是力量的话语。
You�ve come a long way, baby, but no way is long enough.
宝贝，你已经走了很长的路，但还不够长。
You can�t even get there by selling yourself out: because there is theirs, not yours.
你甚至无法通过出卖自己来到达那里：因为那是他们的，不是你的。
Maybe we�ve had enough words of power and talk about the battle of life.
也许我们已经有足够多的权力话语并谈论生命之战了。
Maybe we need some words of weakness.
也许我们需要一些软弱的话。
Instead of saying now that I hope you will all go forth from this ivory tower of college into the Real World and forge a triumphant career or at least help your husband to and keep our country strong and be a success in everything -- instead of talking about power, what if I talked like a woman right here in public?
现在我不再说，我希望你们都能从大学的象牙塔进入现实世界，开创一个成功的职业生涯，或者至少帮助你们的丈夫保持我们的国家强大，在一切事情上取得成功——而不是谈论权力，如果我在公共场合像一个女人一样说话怎么办？
It won�t sound right.
听起来不对。
It�s going to sound terrible.
听起来很糟糕。
What if I said what I hope for you is first, if -- only if -- you want kids, I hope you have them.
如果我说我对你的希望是首先，如果——只有如果——你想要孩子，我希望你拥有他们。
Not hordes of them.
不是成群结队的。
A couple, enough.
一对就够了
I hope they�re beautiful.
我希望它们很漂亮。
I hope you and they have enough to eat, and a place to be warm and clean in, and friends, and work you like doing.
我希望你和他们有足够的食物，有一个温暖干净的地方，有朋友，有你喜欢做的工作。
Well, is that what you went to college for?
嗯，这就是你上大学的目的吗？
Is that all?
这就是全部吗？
What about success?
成功又如何呢？
Success is somebody else�s failure.
成功是别人的失败。
Success is the American Dream we can keep dreaming because most people in most places, including thirty million of ourselves, live wide awake in the terrible reality of poverty.
成功是我们可以继续梦想的美国梦，因为大多数地方的大多数人，包括我们自己三千万人，都清醒地生活在可怕的贫困现实中。
No, I do not wish you success.
不，我不希望你成功。
I don�t even want to talk about it.
我什至不想谈论它。
I want to talk about failure.
我想谈谈失败。
Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure.
因为你是人，你就会遭遇失败。
You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss.
你将会遇到失望、不公正、背叛和无法挽回的损失。
You will find you�re weak where you thought yourself strong.
你会发现你自以为坚强的地方却很软弱。
You�ll work for possessions and then find they possess you.
你会为财产而努力，然后发现它们占有你。
You will find yourself -- as I know you already have -- in dark places, alone, and afraid.
你会发现自己——正如我知道你已经经历过的——在黑暗的地方，孤独而恐惧。
What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place.
我对你们、对我所有的姐妹、女儿、兄弟和儿子的希望是，你们能够生活在那里，在黑暗的地方。
To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign.
生活在我们理性的成功文化所否认的地方，称之为流放地、不适宜居住的地方、异国的地方。
Well, we�re already foreigners.
好吧，我们已经是外国人了。
Women as women are largely excluded from, alien to, the self-declared male norms of this society, where human beings are called Man, the only respectable god is male, the only direction is up.
女性作为女性在很大程度上被排除在外，与这个社会自我宣称的男性规范格格不入，在这个社会中，人类被称为“男人”，唯一值得尊敬的神是男性，唯一的方向是向上。
So that�s their country; let�s explore our own.
这就是他们的国家；让我们探索我们自己的。
I�m not talking about sex; that�s a whole other universe, where every man and woman is on their own.
我不是在谈论性；我在谈论性。那是一个完全不同的宇宙，在那里每个男人和女人都是独立的。
I�m talking about society, the so-called man�s world of institutionalized competition, aggression, violence, authority, and power.
我说的是社会，即所谓的人类世界，充满制度化的竞争、侵略、暴力、权威和权力。
If we want to live as women, some separatism is forced upon us: Mills College is a wise embodiment of that separatism.
如果我们想作为女性生活，一些分离主义就会强加给我们：米尔斯学院是这种分离主义的明智体现。
The war-games world wasn�t made by us or for us; we can�t even breathe the air there without masks.
战争游戏世界不是由我们创造的，也不是为我们创造的；它是为我们创造的。不戴口罩我们甚至无法呼吸那里的空气。
And if you put the mask on you�ll have a hard time getting it off.
如果戴上面具，就很难摘下来。
So how about going on doing things our own way, as to some extent you did here at Mills?
那么，继续按照我们自己的方式做事怎么样，就像您在米尔斯所做的那样？
Not for men and the male power hierarchy -- that�s their game.
不适合男性和男性权力等级制度——那是他们的游戏。
Not against men, either -- that�s still playing by their rules.
也不针对男性——这仍然是按照他们的规则进行的。
But with any men who are with us: that�s our game.
但对于任何与我们在一起的人：这就是我们的游戏。
Why should a free woman with a college education either fight Machoman or serve him?
为什么一个受过大学教育的自由女性要么与大男子主义作战，要么为他服务？
Why should she live her life on his terms?
她凭什么要按照他的方式生活？
Machoman is afraid of our terms, which are not all rational, positive, competitive, etc. And so he has taught us to despise and deny them.
大男子主义害怕我们的条款，这些条款并不都是理性的、积极的、竞争性的等等。所以他教导我们蔑视和否认它们。
In our society, women have lived, and have been despised for living, the whole side of life that includes and takes responsibility for helplessness, weakness, and illness, for the irrational and the irreparable, for all that is obscure, passive, uncontrolled, animal, unclean -- the valley of the shadow, the deep, the depths of life.
在我们的社会中，女性曾经生活过，也因为生活过而被鄙视过，生活的整个方面包括无助、软弱、疾病、非理性和无法挽回的事情，以及所有晦涩、被动、不受控制、动物性、不洁的事物——生命的阴影之谷、深渊、深处，并承担责任。
All that the Warrior denies and refuses is left to us and the men who share it with us and therefore, like us, can�t play doctor, only nurse, can�t be warriors, only civilians, can�t be chiefs, only indians.
战士否认和拒绝的一切都留给我们和那些与我们分享的人，因此，像我们一样，不能扮演医生，只能扮演护士，不能成为战士，只能成为平民，不能成为酋长，只能成为印第安人。
Well so that is our country.
好吧，这就是我们的国家。
The night side of our country.
我们国家的夜晚。
If there is a day side to it, high sierras, prairies of bright grass, we only know pioneers� tales about it, we haven�t got there yet.
如果有白天的一面，高耸的山脉，长满明亮青草的草原，我们只知道拓荒者的故事，我们还没有到达那里。
We�re never going to get there by imitating Machoman.
我们永远无法通过模仿大男子主义来实现这一目标。
We are only going to get there by going our own way, by living there, by living through the night in our own country.
我们只有走自己的路，住在那里，在我们自己的国家过夜，才能到达那里。
So what I hope for you is that you live there not as prisoners, ashamed of being women, consenting captives of a psychopathic social system, but as natives.
所以我对你的希望是，你不是以囚犯的身份生活在那里，不是以身为女性而感到羞耻，而是以本地人的身份生活在精神病态的社会体系中。
That you will be at home there, keep house there, be your own mistress, with a room of your own.
你会在那里像在家里一样，在那里管家，做你自己的情妇，有你自己的房间。
That you will do your work there, whatever you�re good at, art or science or tech or running a company or sweeping under the beds, and when they tell you that it�s second-class work because a woman is doing it, I hope you tell them to go to hell and while they�re going to give you equal pay for equal time.
你会在那里做你的工作，无论你擅长什么，艺术、科学、技术、经营一家公司或扫床底下，当他们告诉你这是二等工作，因为这是一个女人在做的时候，我希望你告诉他们见鬼去吧，尽管他们会给你同工同酬。
I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated.
我希望你的生活不需要被支配，也不需要被支配。
I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people.
我希望你们永远不是受害者，但我希望你们没有权力凌驾于他人之上。
And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is.
当你失败、被击败、在痛苦中、在黑暗中时，我希望你能记住，黑暗是你的国家，你生活的地方，没有战争发生，也没有赢得战争，但未来就在那里。
Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country.
我们的根扎在黑暗里；地球是我们的国家。
Why did we look up for blessing -- instead of around, and down?
为什么我们要向上寻求祝福，而不是向四周、向下寻求祝福？
What hope we have lies there.
我们的希望就在那里。
Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon.
不是在充满轨道间谍眼睛和武器的天空中，而是在我们所瞧不起的地球上。
Not from above, but from below.
不是从上面，而是从下面。
Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.
不是在令人盲目的光明中，而是在滋养人类的黑暗中，在那里人类的灵魂得以成长。
Text Source : Ursula K.
文本来源：Ursula K.
Le Guin Image Source : https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Ursula_Le_Guin_%283551195631%29_%28cropped%29.jpg Page Updated : 12/11/21 U.S. Copyright Status : Text = Used with permission.
Le Guin 图片来源：https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Ursula_Le_Guin_%283551195631%29_%28cropped%29.jpg 页面更新：12/11/21 美国版权状态：文本 = 经许可使用。
(original permission URL at http://www.ursulakleguin.com/LeftHandMillsCollege.html ) .
（原始权限网址为http://www.ursulakleguin.com/LeftHandMillsCollege.html）。
Image = Copyright � by Marian Wood Kolisch and used under the terms found here .
图片 = 版权所有 � Marian Wood Kolisch 并根据此处的条款使用。
� Copyright 2001-Present.
� 版权所有 2001 年至今。
American Rhetoric.
美国修辞学。