丘吉爾：辯才造英雄

Successes in Rhetoric: Language in the Life of Churchill

丘吉爾：辯才造英雄

The orotund proclamations will be unavoidable at the new exhibition “Churchill: The Power of Words,” at the Morgan Library & Museum, because at the center of the gallery is a semi-enclosed theater. And from it, however muted, will emerge recordings of Winston Churchill’s voice, speaking to Parliament, to British radio listeners and to American audiences, breaking on the ear like waves, rising and falling with every breath, sometimes suspended unexpectedly in midair, other times rushing forward with renewed vigor.

“丘吉爾：言辭的力量” 展在摩根圖書館和博物館(Morgan Library & Museum)舉行。展覽一定會傳出響亮的宣言，因為場館中央是一個半封閉式的劇場。劇場中播放著溫斯頓·丘吉爾(Winston Churchill)的講話錄音，包括他對議會、英國的電臺聽眾和美國聽眾的講話。他的聲音無論多么柔和，都會像波浪一樣沖入人們的耳中，每一句話起落有致，聲音有時出其不意地懸在半空中，其余的時間則氣勢非凡地勇往直沖。

If you enter that small theater to hear excerpts from eight of his landmark speeches more clearly, you will also see the words on screen, laid out in poetic scansion (“The whole fury and might of the enemy/must very soon be turned on us”), just as Churchill wrote them, to match the rhythms of his voice.

如果你走進小劇場，你會更清晰地聆聽他那八個里程碑式的演說片段，還會在屏幕上看到字幕。文字正如丘吉爾當(dāng)初所寫那樣，以詩歌的韻律顯示(“敵人全部的狂暴和力量/肯定不久就會轉(zhuǎn)向我們”)，以便與他的聲音韻律相吻合。

But ignore the sound, if you can, and leave it for last. For it is best first to be reminded just how important those speeches by a British prime minister really were, and what difference they made.

如果可能的話，別去管聲音，把聲音留到最后再去聽。因為最好先想想一位英國首相的這些演講到底有多重要，它們產(chǎn)生了怎樣的影響。

This isn’t a history exhibition, so you won’t be able to take their full measure; you won’t fully grasp how washed up Churchill’s political career was in the mid-1930s; how few in England were prepared to recognize what was taking place in Germany; how few were also prepared to think the unthinkable about war, scarcely 20 years after the continent was so stained in blood; and how visionary Churchill was, in knowing what would happen and in understanding what price would be paid.

這不是一個歷史展覽，因此你看不到它們整個的來龍去脈。你不能獲悉丘吉爾在20世紀(jì)30年代中期的政治生涯是多么的潦倒;在英格蘭，準(zhǔn)備好認(rèn)識到德國正在發(fā)生什么的人是那么少;準(zhǔn)備思考戰(zhàn)爭的人也是那么少——不到20年前，歐洲大陸還沐浴在血泊之中;丘吉爾是多么的遠(yuǎn)見卓識，知道即將發(fā)生什么并且深知將付出怎樣的代價。

So you won’t really be able to understand that there was a period — between Germany’s beginning to bomb England in 1940 (killing more than 40,000) and the United States’ entrance to the war at the end of 1941 — when England might well have fallen or made generous accommodation to German demands, had Churchill not been a master of words and ideas, rallying his “great island nation” as prime minister with promises of blood, toil, tears and sweat.

所以你不會知道，曾經(jīng)有一個時期——在德國1940年開始轟炸英格蘭(炸死了4萬多人)和美國在1941年年底參戰(zhàn)之間——要不是因為丘吉爾是一位語言和思想大師，一位首相，他以熱血、辛勞、眼淚和汗水的許諾召集他“偉大的島國”，英格蘭可能會淪陷，或者慷慨地滿足德國的要求。

But you will see enough to get a sense of what his wartime leadership meant. And what the rest of this fine exhibition accomplishes is to show how Churchill’s words can seem the expression of a life force, mixing mercurial passions and extraordinary discipline, passionate devotion and exuberant self-promotion, extravagant indulgence and ruthless analysis. The show, which opened on Friday, helps put a life in perspective that even during the years after the Sept. 11 attacks has been energetically celebrated as an ideal and just as energetically derided by critics for its intemperate character.

但是你看到的展品足以讓你了解，丘吉爾在戰(zhàn)時的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)意味著什么。這場精品展的其余部分，證明丘吉爾的演說是他的生命力表現(xiàn)，這些演說集雄辯的激情與非凡的克制于一身，既赤膽忠肝，又充斥著透徹的分析。展覽于6月8日開幕，它有助于人們正確地看待丘吉爾的一生：在后“9·11”時代他被積極地頌揚為完人;因為激烈的性格，他也受到一些批評者同樣的嘲弄。

More than 60 documents and artifacts have been gathered by Allen Packwood, the director of the Churchill Archives Center at the University of Cambridge, England, for this exhibition, also drawing on the holdings of Churchill’s house at Chartwell, Kent. There are few opportunities to see these documents on public display, even in England, though many have been digitized as part of the museum at the Churchill Center and Museum in London.

英國劍橋大學(xué)丘吉爾檔案中心主任艾倫·帕克伍德(Allen Packwood)為本次展覽采集了60多份文件和展品，還動用了肯特郡查特威爾丘吉爾故居內(nèi)的收藏。即使在英國也很少有機會看到公開展示的這些文件，不過許多文件已經(jīng)被數(shù)字化，部分在倫敦倫敦丘吉爾中心和博物館(Churchill Center and Museum)收藏。

There are letters from Winston’s difficult childhood, when his wealthy American mother and neglectful, titled father sent him to boarding school at 8. (An early letter home from 1883 or ’84 is scrawled with a child’s “X’s” — kisses rarely returned by any but his beloved nanny.) And there is a report card in which the child, not yet 10, is described as “a constant trouble to everybody.”

文件中有溫斯頓在掙扎的童年時所寫的信件。他的母親是富有的美國人，他的父親有爵位，對他不管不問，在他8歲時父母把他送往寄宿學(xué)校。(1883年或1884年的一封家書潦草地寫著“吻你”——對于他的親吻，只有他親愛的保姆會回吻他。)還有一張學(xué)校成績單，說這個還不到10歲的孩子“總是讓所有人心煩。”

But we see the adventurer and historian begin to evolve, courting danger in battle and then writing its history. (“I am more ambitious for a reputation for personal courage,” he wrote his mother in 1897, “than of anything else in the world.”) There are drafts of speeches that are mapped out like poetry, a sample of Churchill’s amateur landscape painting, his Nobel Prize in Literature from 1953 “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory.” (The onetime Prime Minister Arthur Balfour described Churchill’s three-volume history of World War I as a “brilliant autobiography disguised as a history of the universe.”)

我們看到，這位冒險家和歷史學(xué)家開始成長。他在戰(zhàn)斗中甘于冒險，隨后開始記錄這場戰(zhàn)斗。(1897年，他在寫給母親的信中說：“在這個世界上，我最熱望獲得的美名是勇敢。”)展品中還有寫得像詩歌一樣的演講稿，一幅業(yè)余的風(fēng)景畫，以及他1953年獲得的諾貝爾文學(xué)獎，這個獎頒給他，是“因為他不僅做過光輝的演說，還精通歷史和傳記寫作的藝術(shù)”(曾擔(dān)任首相的亞瑟·貝爾福[Arthur Balfour]說，丘吉爾的三卷本一戰(zhàn)史是“偽裝成宇宙史的精彩自傳。”)

Perhaps the most remarkable document here is a New York doctor’s prescription from Jan. 26, 1932. Churchill had been on a lecture tour when he was hit by a car at Fifth Avenue and 76th Street and needed medical assistance.

也許最引人注目的文件是1932年1月26日由一位紐約醫(yī)生開具的處方。當(dāng)時丘吉爾在做巡回演講，在第五大道和第76街的路口被一輛汽車撞到，需要醫(yī)療救助。

“This is to certify,” the doctor writes — this in the midst of Prohibition — “that the postaccident convalescence of the Hon. Winston S. Churchill necessitates the use of alcoholic spirits especially at meal times.” The quantity, the doctor continues, is “naturally indefinite,” but the “minimum requirements would be 250 cubic centimeters,” or just over 8 ounces.

時值禁酒期間，這位醫(yī)生寫道：“茲證明溫斯頓·丘吉爾閣下遭遇意外后，在康復(fù)期間必須飲酒，尤其是在就餐時。”醫(yī)生接著寫，需要飲用的數(shù)量“自然是不確定的”，但“最低需要250毫升，”也就是8盎司多一點。

That “naturally indefinite” quantity would become one of Churchill’s trademarks, along with his cigars and the rhythms of his voice, which was heavily used in his political career. He was a candidate in 21 parliamentary contests between 1899 and 1955, losing 5 of them. But all of this — even the elaborate touch screens showing every document in the exhibition, along with other documents and transcriptions of handwriting — would inspire purely specialized interest had it not been for Churchill’s speeches and writings from the mid-1930s into the 1950s.

“自然是不確定的”數(shù)量的酒，后來成為丘吉爾的招牌之一。除了酒之外，還有香煙，以及他抑揚頓挫的聲音——他在政治生涯中大量用到它。1899到 1955年之間，他21次競選議員，只失敗過5次。要不是因為丘吉爾從30年代中期到50年代的演說和著述，所有這些展品——哪怕是展覽上顯示所有文件的精致觸摸屏，還有其他的文件和手稿——都只能激起專業(yè)人士的興趣。

This was a rhetorical achievement, almost a musical one, in which Churchill’s innate optimism provided a kind of elevating promise even as he was trying to map out the scope of cataclysm. It was also a strategic achievement, for in his speeches we can see him demonstrating that there were choices to be made. And it was a political achievement because before the United States was involved in World War II, America had to be addressed as well, made to understand the stakes.

這是一項辯才的成就，他的演說如音樂一般動聽，丘吉爾天性樂觀，在演說中，哪怕在他描繪災(zāi)難之無遠(yuǎn)弗屆時，也給人們做出了振奮人心的許諾。這也是一項戰(zhàn)略成就，因為從他的演說中我們可以看出，他宣告人們面前仍有選擇。這還是一項政治成就，因為在英國卷入二戰(zhàn)之前，他需要讓美國人聽到，使他們明白其中的利害。

Churchill shaped a notion of the “English-speaking peoples” that proved fundamental because he understood that the English literary and political traditions had defined the very character of liberal democracy that was coming under threat. Churchill’s speeches declared an allegiance of language and of ideology. They also helped shape that allegiance, celebrating a particular heritage and its possibilities, while emphasizing its vulnerabilities and the need for its defense.

丘吉爾塑造了“說英語的人”這一概念。事實證明這個概念至關(guān)重要，因為他知道，英語文學(xué)和政治傳統(tǒng)確定了正遭受威脅的自由民主的特征。丘吉爾的演說宣布要忠誠于英語和意識形態(tài)。這些演說也幫助塑造了這種忠誠，贊頌一種特定的傳統(tǒng)及其可能性，同時強調(diào)它容易受到傷害，需要加以守衛(wèi)。

The achievement is a little like Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, defining the stakes of the Civil War while reshaping the America’s conception of itself. There are a few comparisons between Churchill and Lincoln in these documents, which seem thoroughly appropriate. (President Roosevelt framed some lines by Lincoln as a 70th-birthday gift for Churchill in 1944.)

這一成就有點像林肯的葛底斯堡演說的成就。林肯的演說指出了內(nèi)戰(zhàn)的利害關(guān)系，并重塑了對于美國的認(rèn)知。展覽中多處把丘吉爾和林肯相提并論，這一對比完全是恰當(dāng)?shù)摹?1944年，羅斯福總統(tǒng)曾經(jīng)抄了林肯的幾句話，作為生日禮物，送給70歲的丘吉爾。)

Churchill was attentive to the long line of historical ideas. And his ability to conjure that tradition for support is another reason individual setbacks were less crucial for him. Something larger was at stake. It wasn’t just a matter of opposition; it was a matter of what was being championed, even if the British Empire was in its twilight and the United States was beginning to bear the standard.

丘吉爾十分留意長線的歷史觀。他借助英語傳統(tǒng)支持自己的能力也證明，個人的得失對他來說并不那么重要。某種更重大的東西處于危急關(guān)頭。這不僅是意見相左的問題，而是捍衛(wèi)什么的問題，雖然大英帝國已經(jīng)日薄西山，美國正開始撐起大旗。

This was a reason Churchill urged the United States to claim European territory in the late days of the war, to prevent Stalin from gaining too much control. It was Churchill, in the wake of the war, who saw what was on the horizon. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,” he said in his famous 1946 speech in Fulton, Mo., “an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” There would be no respite for the war-weary.

因此丘吉爾催促美國在戰(zhàn)爭后期為歐洲人爭取領(lǐng)土主權(quán)，以阻止斯大林控制太多地盤。在戰(zhàn)爭結(jié)束后能夠高瞻遠(yuǎn)矚的是丘吉爾。在密蘇里州的富爾頓，他在著名的1946演說中說：“從波羅的海邊的斯德丁到亞德里亞海邊的的里雅斯特，一幅橫貫歐洲大陸的鐵幕已經(jīng)降落。”被戰(zhàn)爭弄得疲憊不堪的歐洲并沒有喘息的時間。

All this is latent in this marvelously compact and suggestive show. It also demonstrates why attempts to displace Churchill from a central position in recent history are misguided. Flaws and failings are plentiful in individual lives, as in cultures and civilizations, but there are more important things deserving recognition: traditions that run deep and wide, that justly inspire advocacy and allegiance and that might even lead, as Churchill promises, to “broad, sunlit uplands.”

這一展覽布置緊湊，發(fā)人深思，丘吉爾所有的考慮都在展覽中若隱若現(xiàn)。它還說明，為何近年來把丘吉爾趕下核心位置的企圖是錯誤的。個人生活，跟文化、文明一樣，都存在許多缺陷和失誤，但其中還有值得賞識的更重要的東西：深厚和深遠(yuǎn)的傳統(tǒng)，這一傳統(tǒng)恰當(dāng)?shù)丶ぐl(fā)人們的擁護與忠誠，可能還會如丘吉爾所許諾的，把人們帶進一個“陽光普照的遼闊高地”。