Complex Questions

The Age, the Vicar would remark, was a serious one;Englishmen were met face to face with complex questions.But the questions that had an interest for me at that time,would no doubt have seemed to the Vicar, many of them, old and imaginary. I was too often occupied, I am afraid, with the complexities of my own thoughts; their odd travels and changes;their way of peopling English forests with wood-nymphs, or transforming English orchards—seen perhaps at dawn or in the late sunshine—into Hesperian gardens. Sometimes it was merely names that filled my mind: ‘Magalat, Galgalat, Saraïm,’I syllabled to myself; were these the names of the Magi of the East; or Atos, Satos, Paratoras? What were the names of the nymphs Actaeon surprised bathing with Diana? The names of the hounds that hunted to his death that rash intruder; Ladon,Harpyia, Laelaps, Oresitrophos, as some call them; or, as they are given in other authentic books, Boreas, Omelampus, Agreus,Aretusa, Gorgo?

难题

这年头，牧师会这么说，是个不能掉以轻心的时代；英国人正面临着许多难题。可那时我觉得感兴趣的问题，要是在牧师看来，有许多无疑是子虚乌有的老问题。恐怕我是太经常耽于自己纷繁的思绪了，各种念头离奇地游走嬗变，让英国的树林住进希腊的林中仙女，或者把英国的果园——大概是黎明或黄昏时看到的果园——变成了神话中的金苹果园。有时只是些名字塞满心中：“玛伽拉、伽伽拉、萨拉姆。”我一字一顿地自言自语。这些是不是那东方三博士的名字？或者是艾托斯、萨托斯、帕拉托拉斯？那些同月神狄安娜共浴、被亚克托安吓着了的仙女们叫什么名字？那些把这个鲁莽的不速之客追着咬死的猎犬又叫什么名字？拉顿、哈皮亚、雷拉波斯、奥列西托洛弗斯，有些人这么叫它们；或者，就像其他一些权威著作中写的那样，叫波利亚斯、奥米兰普斯、阿格列斯、阿列图沙、果戈？