Shakespeare’s Sister
假如莎士比亚有个妹妹
By Virginia Woolf
弗吉尼亚•伍尔夫
It would have been impossible, completely and entirely, for any woman to have written the plays
of Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare. Let me imagine, since facts are so hard to come by ,
what would have happened had Shakespeare had a wonderfully gifted sister, called Judith, let us
say.
在莎士比亚生活的年代，如果能有女性写出莎翁笔下的戏剧，是不可能的——绝对、根本不可能。既然当时的情况无从得知，那就让我来想象一下，假如莎士比亚有个天资聪颖的妹妹，名叫朱迪思，她的人生会是怎样的轨迹。
Shakespeare himself went, very probably—his mother was an heiress —to the grammar school ,
where he may have learnt Latin—Ovid, Virgil and Horace —and the elements of grammar and
logic. He was, it is well known, a wild boy who poached rabbits, perhaps shot a deer, and had,
rather sooner than he should have done, to marry a woman in the neighborhood, who bore him
a child rather quicker than was right. That escapade sent him to seek his fortune in London. He
had, it seemed, a taste for the theatre; he began by holding horses at the stage door. Very soon
he got work in the theatre, became a successful actor, and lived at the hub of the universe ,
meeting everybody, knowing everybody, practicing his art on the boards , exercising his wits in
the streets, and even getting access to the palace of the queen.
由于母亲继承了大笔遗产，莎士比亚很可能上过文法学校，在那里接受拉丁文教育——读过古罗马诗人奥维德、维吉尔和贺瑞斯的诗作，学习文法和逻辑学的基础知识。众所周知，年轻时的莎士比亚是个风流小子，偷猎过兔子，射杀过麋鹿，早早娶了邻里的姑娘为妻，因为人家怀了他的孩子。种种出格行为，迫使他为了赚钱养家，前往伦敦寻找发迹。他似乎对戏剧情有独钟，因为在伦敦的第一份工作就是在剧院门前给人管马。很快，他得以在剧院里从事表演工作，成为了大受欢迎的演员，似乎居于宇宙的中心，与很多人相识，结交各种人物；他在舞台上纯熟演艺，在市井间增进智慧，甚至还受邀前往王宫为女王演出。
Meanwhile his extraordinarily gifted sister, let us suppose, remained at home. She was as
adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was. But she was not sent to school.
She had no chance of learning grammar and logic, let alone of reading Horace and Virgil. She
picked up a book now and then, one of her brother’s perhaps, and read a few pages. But then her
parents came in and told her to mend the stockings or mind the stew and not moon about with
books and papers. They would have spoken sharply but kindly , for they were substantial people
who knew the conditions of life for a woman and loved their daughter—indeed, more likely than
not she was the apple of her father’s eye. Perhaps she scribbled some pages up in an apple loft
on the sly, but was careful to hide them or set fire to them. Soon, however, before she was out of
her teens, she was to be betrothed to the son of a neighboring woolstapler. She cried out that
marriage was hateful to her, and for that she was severely beaten by her father. Then he ceased
to scold her. He begged her instead not to hurt him, not to shame him in this matter of her marriage. He would give her a chain of beads or a fine petticoat, he said; and there were tears in
his eyes. How could she disobey him? How could she break his heart?
同时，我们假设，他那位天赋异禀的妹妹，却留在家中。她像莎士比亚一样热爱冒险，富于想象，迫切地想了解这个世界。但是父母不让她上学。她没有机会学习文法和逻辑，更别说阅读贺拉斯和维吉尔的诗作了。她只能偶尔拿起一本书，可能是哥哥留下的书，匆匆读上几页。然而父母进屋以后，要么让她做点针线活儿，要么派她去看炉灶上的热锅，告诉她不要尽顾着书啊纸啊的。父母言辞尖厉，却是刀子嘴豆腐心，他们都是本分人，了解女人的生活状态，也爱自己的女儿——其实，父亲把她当心肝宝贝一样看待。她也许会躲进放苹果的阁楼，偷偷抹上几页纸，小心翼翼地藏好，或者付之一炬。时间过得很快，才十几岁的年纪，父母就把她许配给了附近羊毛商的儿子。她痛恨这桩婚事，大哭大闹，却遭到父亲的痛打。后来，父亲不再责怪她，却反过来求女儿不要伤他的心，不要在婚姻大事上给他丢脸。父亲许诺说，可以送给她一串珠宝，或者一件高档裙装；说话的时候，眼里噙着泪花。她又怎么能违背父亲的意愿呢？她怎么可以令父亲心碎呢？
The force of her own gift alone drove her to it. She made up a small parcel of her belongings, let
herself down by a rope one summer’s night and took the road to London. She was not seventeen.
The birds that sang in the hedge were not more musical than she was. She had the quickest fancy,
a gift like her brother’s, for the tune of words. Like him, she had a taste for the theatre. She stood
at the stage door; she wanted to act, she said. Men laughed in her face. The manager—a fat,
loose-lipped man—guffawed. He bellowed something about poodles dancing and women
acting—no woman, he said, could possibly be an actress. He hinted—you can imagine what. She
could get no training in her craft. Could she even seek her dinner in a tavern or roam the streets
at midnight? Yet her genius was for fiction and lusted to feed abundantly upon the lives of men
and women and the study of their ways . At last—for she was very young, oddly like Shakespeare
the poet in her face, with the same grey eyes and rounded brows—at last Nick Greene the
actor-manager took pity on her; she found herself with child by that gentleman and so—who
shall measure the heat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s
body? —killed herself one winter’s night and lies buried at some cross-roads where the
omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle .
可就是那一点天生的禀性，还是让她由了性子。她把自己的衣物打成一个小包裹，在某个夏夜里顺窗缒下，直奔伦敦而去。她还不满17岁。她的歌声婉转动听，比林中歌唱的鸟儿也不逊色。像哥哥一样，她的天赋，令她对文字的韵律表现出超群的想象力。和哥哥一样，她也迷恋戏剧。她站在剧院的门边，说，我想演戏。男人们听罢讪笑起来。剧院经理——一个口无遮拦的胖子——更是捧腹大笑。他大着嗓门讲了一些关于卷毛狗跳舞和女人演戏的笑话——他说，哪有娘们儿演戏的。言外之意大家都猜得到。她找不到地方接受职业训练。她难道要去小酒馆解决晚饭，或者孤苦伶仃游荡在深夜的街头？不过，她的天分在于文学，她如饥似渴地从世间男女的生活中汲取养分。最后——由于她年轻貌美，与诗人莎士比亚的脸庞出奇地相像，都有灰色的眼眸和弯曲的眉毛——最后，演员经理尼克•格林心生怜悯，收留了她；不久她发现自己怀上了那个男人的孩子。就这样——谁又能说清楚，当诗人的心灵禁锢于女人的身体内，是怎样的一种焦灼和暴烈？——在一个冬日的夜晚，她愤而自杀，死后葬在某个十字街头，就是大象和城堡酒店门外公交车停靠的地方。
