Benjamin Jowett - Last Words on Plato 汉译

And so having brought into the world “noble children”, he rests from the labours of authorship. More than two thousand two hundred years have passed away since he returned to the place of Apollo and the Muses. Yet the echo of his words continues to be heard among men, because of all philosophers he has the most melodious voice. He is the inspired prophet or teacher who can never die, the only one in whom the outward form adequately represents the fair soul within; in whom the thoughts of all who went before him are reflected and of all who come after him are partly anticipated. Other teachers of philosophy are dried up and withered, –after a few centuries they have become dust; but he is fresh and blooming, and is always begetting new ideas in the minds of men. They are one-sided and abstract; but he has many sides of wisdom. Nor is he always consistent with himself, because he is always moving onward, and knows that there are many more things in philosophy than can be expressed in words, and that truth is greater than consistency. He who approaches him in the most reverent spirit shall reap most of the fruit of his wisdom; he who reads him by the light of ancient commentators will have the least understanding of him.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

We may see him with the eye of the mind in the groves of the Academy, or on the banks of the Ilissus, or in the streets of Athens, alone or walking with Socrates, full of those thoughts which have since become the common possession of mankind. Or we may compare him to a statue hid away in some temple of Zeus or Apollo, no longer existing on earth, a statue which has a look as of the God himself. Or we may once more imagine him following in another state of being the great company of heaven which he beheld of old in a vision. So, “partly trifling, but with a certain degree of seriousness”, we linger around the memory of a world which has passed away.

最后评说柏拉图

本杰明·乔伊特

就这样，他给世界带来了“高尚的孩子”之后，便停止著述，开始休息了。自从他回到阿波罗和缪斯诸女神的地方，二干二百多年已经过去了。然而，他的话继续在人们中间回响着，因为，在所有哲学家里，他的声音最悦耳。他是受神灵启示的永垂不朽的预言家或导师，他的外在形式充分代表了内在的美丽灵魂，他既反映了先前所有人的思想，也部分地预料了后来所有人的思想，在这些方面，他是独一无二的。别的哲学导师们已经枯竭了，枯萎了——几个世纪之后他们就变成了尘埃；但他仍然很新，而且繁盛，而且，总是在人们心中孕育新的思想。他们是片面的，抽象的；他则具有多方面的智慧。他并不总是前后一致，因为他一直在前进，而且他知道，在哲学里，有很多概念是无法用语言表达的，他也知道，真理比一致性更伟大。怀着最崇敬的精神对待他的人会收获他绝大部分的智慧果实；只凭古代的评注去阅读他的人最不容易理解他。

我们可以用心灵的眼睛看见他在学园的树林里，或在伊利萨斯河岸上，或在雅典的街道上， 独自思考或与苏格拉底边散步边谈论那些后来变成人类共同财富的思想。或者，我们不妨把他比作曾经隐于宙斯或阿波罗神庙（现在地球上已不复存在）里的雕像。或许，我们不妨再次想象他以另一种生活形态追随他很久以前在幻想中所看见的天国众神。因此，“多少带点轻佻，但也怀着某种程度的严肃”，我们逗留在一个已逝世界的记忆里。