Meditation on the Moon
月色冥想

唐代诗人李白在《静夜思》中写道：“举头望明月，低头思故乡。”凝望着月亮，诗人想起故乡也在这轮明月的照耀之下，顿时陷入对故乡的思念之中。古往今来，轻柔明亮的月光不知道寄托了多少人的思绪，又在多少人的心里激荡起波澜。正如英格兰作家阿道司·赫胥黎所说：月光洒在人们的身上，它会透过眼睛的窗口，照进人的思想，直接影响人的灵魂。

Aldous Huxley
阿道司·赫胥黎

Outside my window the night is struggling to wake; in the moonlight, the blinded garden dreams so vividly of its lost colors. The white-washed wall is brilliant against the dark-blue sky. The white walls of the house coldly reverberate the lunar radiance. The moon is full.

The moon is a stone; but it is a highly numinous stone. Or, to be more precise, it is a stone about which and because of which men and women have numinous feelings. Thus, there is a soft moonlight that can give us the peace that passes understanding. There is a moonlight that inspires a kind of awe. There is a cold and austere moonlight that tells the soul of its loneliness and desperate isolation, its insignificance or its uncleanness. There is an amorous moonlight prompting to love—to love not only for an individual but sometimes even for the whole universe. But the moon shines on the body as well as, through the windows of the eyes, within the mind. It affects the soul directly; but it can affect it also by obscure and circuitous ways—through the blood.

Half the human race lives in manifest obedience to the lunar rhythm; and there is evidence to show that the physiological and therefore the spiritual life, not only of women, but of men too, mysteriously ebbs and flows with the changes of the moon. There are unreasoned joys, inexplicable miseries, laughers and remorses without a cause. Their sudden and fantastic alternations constitute the ordinary weather of our minds.

Even if we think of the moon as only a stone, we shall find its very stoniness potentially a numen. A stone gone cold. An airless, waterless stone and the prophetic image of our own earth when, some few million years from now, the senescent sun shall have lost its present fostering power…. And so on. This passage could easily be prolonged—a Study in Purple. But I forbear. Let every reader lay on as much of the royal rhetorical color as he finds to his taste. Anyhow, purple or no purple, there the stone is stony. You cannot think about it for long without finding, yourself invaded by one or other of several essentially numinous sentiments. These sentiments belong to one or other of two contrasted and complementary groups Sentiments of Human Insignificance Sentiments of Human Greatness.

窗外，夜晚正在努力醒来，月光里，被夜色笼罩的花园生动地想象着其白天才有的色彩。白色的墙壁在深蓝的夜空下显得异常明亮。房子白色的墙面在深蓝色天空的衬托下熠熠生辉。那是一轮满月。

月亮是一块石头，但是一块极其神秘的石头。或者，更确切地说，正是因为月亮，男女之间才有了种种神秘的感情。这样，柔和的月光能够带给我们不可思议的平静。月光能够激发我们的敬畏之情。冷峻的月光诉说着灵魂的寂寞和极度的孤单，无足轻重或是肮脏邪恶。多情的月光激发爱情，不仅仅是对某个人的爱情，有时候甚至是对于整个宇宙的迷恋。月光洒在人们的身上，还会透过眼睛的窗口，照进人的思想。它可以直接影响灵魂，也能通过血液等朦胧迂回的方式影响它。

有一半的人明显受到月亮盈亏的影响。有证据表明，不只是女性，男性的生理和精神状态也都神秘地随着月亮的变化而起起落落。人们总是不时会有莫名的快乐、痛苦、欢笑和懊悔。它们突然而奇异的转换构成了我们思想的常态，就像多变的天气。

尽管我们只把月亮看作一块石头，然而我们终会发现它作为石头，其本性里隐藏着一位守护神。一块石头变冷了。那预示着从现在起数百万年后，衰落的太阳失去了当下具有的孕育能力，我们地球将会如同没有空气、没有水的石头一样……我本可以轻易地把这篇文章写得更长——写成一篇华丽的文章。但我忍住了没有那样去做。让每一位读者尽情寻找符合自己品味的修辞吧。无论如何，不管修辞是否华丽，石头就是石头。你思考的时间长了就会发现，一种或几种神圣的感受侵袭而来。这些感受属于两种完全对立或互补情感中的一种，即微不足道或至高无上。

巧记词汇

reverberate [rɪˈvɜːbəreɪt] v. 反射

【拓】reflect [rɪˈflekt ] v. 反射

numinous [ˈnjuːmɪnəs] a. 神圣的

【拓】sacred [ˈseɪkrɪd] a. 神圣的

austere [ɒˈstɪə(r)] a. 严峻的

【拓】severe [sɪˈvɪə(r)] a. 严峻的

circuitous [səˈkjuːɪtəs] a. 迂回的

【拓】devious [ˈdiːvɪəs] a. 偏僻的，弯曲的

ebb [eb] v. 落潮，退潮

【拓】ebb and flow 涨落，起伏

remorse [rɪˈmɔːs] n. 懊悔

【拓】regret [rɪˈɡret] v. 后悔

numen [ˈnuːmən] n. 守护神

【拓】god [ɡɒd] n. 神

prophetic [prəˈfetɪk] a. 预言的

【拓】oracular [əˈrækjələ(r)] a. 神谕的

senescent [sɪˈnesnt] a. 衰落的

【拓】scent [sent] n. 气味

numinous [ˈnjuːmɪnəs] a. 神秘的

【拓】mysterious [mɪˈstɪəriəs] a. 神秘的

趣学短语

dream of 向往，渴望；想到；梦见

【例】When she was a little girl, she dreamed of becoming a dancer. 在她还是一个小女孩的时候，她梦想着成为一个舞蹈家。