《中西文明对比》选译（三）

梁昊译

【譯者言】   我们教机器辅助翻译课的体验是，翻译软件对当代英文的文法解读仅偶尔出错，所产出的中文译本，文法上也基本通顺。机器译文的一个常见问题是，英译中时所提供的中文对应词经常出错或不太恰当。面对一些常用英文词的多个中文对应词，机器的解决办法似乎是选择最常见的中文对应词，例如将ideal译成“理想”，people译成“人”，share译成“分享”。由于这种简单化应对方式常造成谬误或不当之处，因此人工翻译在今后相当长的时间里仍大有用武之地。在深度学习能让机器达到专业翻译的水平之前，翻译教师不用担心自己的饭碗会被机器抢走。

Education in Athens

Introduction

The Athenian ideal3 was paideia4： harmonious and natural development （limited to men only）. The Greeks may have been among the first people5 to conceive of broadly available education as important to communal well-being. The Athenians shared6 the Chinese traditional approach to learning through memorization7 of designated classic texts. But in addition they gave special emphasis to two quite different principles： that effectiveness8 in oral argument was more important than writing， and that all （male） citizens9 needed to acquire at least minimal verbal and numerical （mathematical） skills10 so that Athens could maintain its dominance in commerce and its influence over less powerful city-states. This training11 sought to guarantee the basis of effective citizenship， including gymnastics12 and military preparedness13.

1. Literacy and numeracy

These basic skills were taught in an analytic14 fashion by focusing first on the basic components and then going on to progressively more complex combinations. Here is an account from a boy about how he learned to read15 in the 1st century BCE：

When we learn to read， we first learn the names of letters， then their shapes and values， then the syllables and their properties， after this the words and their inflections （required by Greek grammar）... . Then we begin to read and write， slowly at first， and syllable by syllable. When， in due process16 of time， the forms of words are fixed in our mind， we read easily and get through any book handed to us without stumbling17， with incredible ease and speed.

Commentary： Children today still begin learning Indo-European languages by focusing on the letters of the alphabet.

2. Classic texts and memorization

According to Plato， the next steps involved extensive reading and memorization. As soon as a boy had learned his letters， and was beginning to understand what is written， they put into his hands the works of great poets like Homer or Hesiod18. “In these are contained many admonitions， and many tales， and praises of ancient famous men， which he is required to learn by heart19， in order that he may desire to be like them.” Epics like those of Homer focused attention on heroic individuals like Achilles who were held up20 as examples for admiration and imitation.

3. Music

Plato describes learning music as the next step：

The teachers of the lyre21 （small Greek harp） take care that22 their young disciple is temperate and gets into no mischief and when they have taught him the use of the lyre， they introduce him to the poems of other excellent poets， who are the lyrical poets23; and these they set to music， and make their harmonies and rhythms quite familiar to the childrens souls24， in order that they may learn to be more gentle and harmonious and rhythmical and so fitted for speech and action; for the life of man25 in every part has need of harmony and rhythm.

Commentary： Harmony， then， implies a broad concept of balanced development. Music brought the pupil into harmony with himself by bringing him into harmony with the larger outside world. The Pythagorean School of thinkers， which greatly influenced Plato， analyzed the nodes of vibration in a single string as the mathematical basis of harmonic intervals26 （2：1， the octave; 3：2， the fifth; 4：3， the fourth， etc.）. They also extended these same ratios to explain the total harmony of the universe.

4. Physical development

During adolescence， boys were trained in gymnastics and competitive sports. Wrestling was particularly important， joined by running， discus and javelin throwing， long jumping， and some other track-and-field competitions that still survive in the modern Olympics. These competitions were performed naked or at most with a loin cloth. Older men often gathered to watch and to encourage their favorites27. The goal of physical training， according to Plato， was in order that their bodies might better minister to the virtuous mind and that these young men might not， through bodily weakness， play the coward in war or on any other occasion.

All the early training aimed at balanced development of the body and the mind， culminating in areté （being the most successful one can be as a human）28.

5. Military training

Though the program details changed from time to time， by age 18 able-bodied young men entered two years of military training. The key to Greek military success was a highly disciplined battle formation called a phalanx， a square of closely packed hoplites （citizen-soldiers） formed by 10 to 20 soldiers on each side， armed with long spears and moving， even running， as a unit.

As long as the soldiers discipline held， a phalanx was likely to defeat any other battle formation known in its day. Often Greek city-states fought each other， in which case the phalanx with superior discipline and coordination won， Sparta providing the model. This phase of Greek education was， then， not incidental29 but crucial to the well-being of the city-state. By the end of his military training， a young man assumed full citizenship， remaining on call for military duty whenever the Assembly should so decide.

6. “Higher education”

After age 20， the sons of wealthy families were likely to have the means30 to engage private tutors or to join one of the upper-level schools31 that emerged in the 4th century BCE. The first Greek proto-universities were founded in Athens by and for philosophers. Plato around 387 BCE opened the Academy32， which was named for the olive grove outside Athens where these students originally met. This institution survived for 900 years. The second was the Lyceum， begun in 335 BCE by Aristotle， who liked to walk about as he lectured. His students were then called Peripatetics （Greek： “those who walk about”）. A covered colonnade in Athens， a stoa， gave its name to a competing school33 called the Stoics， whose philosophy came into greater prominence under the Romans.

Thus from the outset， there has been a certain ambiguity in the West about the idea of a school. The word could refer to the place where instruction took place or to the school of thought that was dominant there.

Note that， starting with the Greeks， Western thinkers， unlike their Chinese counterparts， often sought to establish their independence of the masters who had initiated them into intellectual life34.

The masters founded schools which then felt free to subscribe35 to competing intellectual approaches. The resulting agonistic diversity36 is one reason that it is hard to generalize about their views.

雅典的教育

导读

古代雅典人的教育理念是“男童教养”（παιδε?α，拉丁文转写是paideia或paedeia），即为城邦培养出理想的邦民。希腊人也许是最早认识到普及教育对公共福祉很重要的民族之一。在学习方式上，雅典人与中国古人一样，也是通过背会指定的古典文本来学习。此外，他们还特别强调两条十分不同的原则：一、在辩论中说服对方比写作更重要;二、所有（男性）邦民需要具备起码的读写和算术（数学）能力，这样雅典才能保持自己商业上的优势和对于弱小城邦的影响。这种教养包含赤体训练和战备训练，目的是确保每一个邦民能有效履行自己的义务。

1. 读写与算数

这些基础技能的教学以分析综合的方式进行，先聚焦基本成分，然后逐渐进入复杂组合。下面是公元前1世纪的一个男孩描述他是怎样学会识读的：