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  3. Shakespeare had the good fortune to write Hamlet before anyone could tell him how to fix it. Were he working today, the playwrit

Shakespeare had the good fortune to write Hamlet before anyone could tell him how to fix it. Were he working today, the playwrit

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问题     Shakespeare had the good fortune to write Hamlet before anyone could tell him how to fix it. Were he working today, the playwriting system—in this country, at least—would exhaust itself trying to improve the thing. In workshops, his fellow playwrights would nudge him to be more specific-. "So is Hamlet mad or isn’t he? And what did Gertrude know? Right now it feels a little general. " Artistic directors would shift uncomfortably when faced with a script this long and sprawling: "You know we love ambitious writing here, Will. But in these tough times, let’s cut Guildenstern. Also Act IV. " The critics would acknowledge Shakespeare’s gift for phrasemaking, but assail plot twists—e. g. the unlikely pirate attack that sends Hamlet back to Denmark—that keep the play from completely "working". If the author would "do some editing" and "decide what he’s trying to say", his play might one day be almost as profound as Gypsy, though "the songs aren’t as good".
    For one thing, Hamlet isn’t a character. He’s a real person—or might as well be. To this day I have a crisp memory of the high-school English class in which I realized, with a jolt, that the conversations we’d been having about Hamlet were exactly the same as conversations we’d have about a classmate who had just left the room. Both students were equally vivid, equally puzzling. So what if one of them was a product of 12th-century Danish folk legend?
    One source of Hamlet’s marvelously lifelike quality is a modern sense of dislocation. What is this sensitive man doing in such a corrupt and violent world, egged on by a ghost to kill his uncle when he ought to be writing brainy verses for Ophelia? While Claudius and Laertes leap at the chance to kill, Hamlet’s conscience stays his hand. His procrastination expresses a very modern confusion: how do you live when your values clash with those of the society around you?
    Three possible answers present themselves: go crazy, kill yourself, or develop an exquisite sense of humor. The last of these—the gloomy Dane tag has never done him justice—is another way in which the play appeals to us today. Hamlet is a master ironist, which means he’s funny in a way that we, in this Age of Irony, are well suited to appreciate. But unlike the prevailing tone today, Hamlet’s irony isn’t mere knowingness, a tool for cutting people down to dismissible size. In Elsinore, some mysteries remain. In fact, a large part of the play’s fun lies in working on the same puzzle that obsesses all the characters: figuring out why he’s acting the way he’s acting. Even Hamlet doesn’t know what Hamlet’s problem is.
    The play’s greatest value in this regard lies not in hearing what Hamlet thinks, but in seeing how he’s changed by thinking it. When he returns from his dubious pirate adventure, he has undergone a psychic change: he has achieved an Elizabethan form of Zen. "The readiness is all," he tells Horatio. A present-day literary manager would insist that a playwright tell us how such a change occurred. But Shakespeare didn’t, leaving us with a tantalizing challenge. If Hamlet, who is so remarkably like us, can somehow go from being tense, scared, and angry in Act I to serene and philosophical in Act V, then we should be able to do it too. Four centuries have brought us no closer to his wisdom. Put on enough revivals, though, and we may catch up to him yet.
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答案 莎士比亚真走运，在创作《哈姆雷特》时，还没有人对他的作品指手画脚。假如他是在今天搞创作，整个编剧体制会竭尽全力来完善这个剧本——至少在这个国家是如此。在各种研讨会上，编剧同仁们会暗示他情节要更加明确：“就是说，哈姆雷特是真疯了，还是装疯卖傻?格特鲁德知道些什么?眼下这剧本有点太笼统。”当艺术指导面对这么冗长且松散的脚本时，会感到左右为难：“威尔，你看，我们也喜欢雄心勃勃的作品。但是，在这么困难的时候，就砍掉吉尔登斯吞这个角色吧，还有第四幕。”评论家们会肯定莎士比亚造词方面的才能，但也会抨击百转千回的情节使该剧无法顺利“运转”，例如，海盗袭击船队迫使哈姆雷特回到丹麦这个情节就不大可能发生。如果作者可以“做一些修改”，并且“把想要说的话说明白”，那么有朝一日，他的剧作或许在内容上几乎可以像《吉卜赛》一样深刻，即便“歌曲没那么动听。” 从某方面来说，哈姆雷特不是一个角色。他是真实的人——或者说最好如此。直到今日，我都清晰地记得那堂高中英语课。在课上，我突然意识到，我们关于哈姆雷特的谈论，同我们有关刚刚离开教室的一位同学的谈论完全一样。谈论者和被谈论的学生同样鲜活，同样令人困惑。假使二者之一是12世纪丹麦民间传奇中的人物，又会有什么不同呢? 哈姆雷特的品性具有不可思议的现实色彩，一部分表现为现代的错位感。在这样一个堕落与残暴的世界里，这个敏感的人在做什么呢?在他理应为奥非莉亚书写妙语情诗之时，鬼魂怂恿他去杀叔父。当有机会杀死克劳狄斯与雷奥提斯时，哈姆雷特的良知却叫他罢手。他的这种拖延反映的是一种非常现代的困惑：当个人价值观与世俗观念发生冲突时，一个人该怎么生活? 答案可能有三种：发疯，自杀，或培养一种绝妙的幽默感。这最后一种也是该剧今天依然吸引我们的另一个原因，虽然“阴郁的丹麦人”的标签从未给他带来过公正的对待。哈姆雷特其实是一位讽喻高手，这意味着他的幽默非常适合身处这个“讽喻时代”的我们去欣赏。然而，与当今盛行的格调不同，哈姆雷特的讽喻不仅仅是真知灼见，还是一把利刃，将人们削琢得非常渺小。在埃尔西诺，仍然有一些不解之谜。实际上，该剧的妙处大半就在于破解同样令剧中所有角色困惑的这个谜团：他究竟为何如此作为。连哈姆雷特本人也不知道哈姆雷特的问题何在。 就此而言，该剧的最高价值并不在于听到哈姆雷特的心声，而在于看到他是如何以思促变。当他脱离疑窦重重的海盗险境回国之时，他历经了心灵的蜕变：达到了伊丽莎白时代的一种禅境。他告诉霍拉旭：“有备无患。”当今的文学作品经纪人会坚持认为，剧作家应该告诉人们这种转变是怎样发生的。但莎士比亚没有，而是留下了一个诱人的挑战。哈姆雷特与我们何其相似，如果他能通过某种方式从第一幕的紧张、恐惧和愤懑转变为第五幕的冷静和达观，那么我们也应该能做到。四个世纪过去了，我们在智慧上还没有拉近与他的距离。尽管如此，通过该剧一次次复排上演，我们总有一天会赶上他。”
解析     需要注意anyone could tell him how to fix it这部分，结合前边的had the good fortune和后文可知，作者对anyone的这种做法持的是否定的态度，因此使用体现贬义的“指手画脚”这个成语，能够鲜明地表现出作者的态度。
    中段的主干是One source of Hamlet’s marvelously lifelike quality is a modern sense of dislocation修饰主语One source，由于内容过长，直译易导致句子繁琐难懂，故将这部分单独翻译，先介绍哈姆雷特的品性特点，再说明其中之一是什么。
    需要注意while，leap at the chance意为“利用机会，把握机会”，结合“克劳狄斯与雷奥提斯”这两个人与“哈姆雷特”的敌对关系可知，while在文中表示对比。stays his hand很形象，表现出哈姆雷特在良知的作用下迟迟不能对敌人下杀手的状态，因此译为“罢手”。
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