双语诗歌翻译|王安石-《伤仲永》

《伤仲永》是北宋文学家王安石创作的一篇散文。这篇文章讲述了一个江西金溪人名叫“方仲永”的神童因后天父亲不让他学习和被父亲当作造钱工具而沦落到一个普通人的故事。文章借仲永为例，告诫人们决不可单纯依靠天资而不去学习新知识，必须注重后天的教育和学习，强调了后天教育和学习对成才的重要性。这篇文章言简意深，说理严谨。

王安石·《伤仲永》

金溪民方仲永，世隶耕。仲永生五年，未尝识书具，忽啼求之；父异焉，借旁近与之，即书诗四句，并自为其名，其诗以养父母、收族为意，传一乡秀才观之。自是指物作诗立就，其文理皆有可观者。邑人奇之，稍稍宾客其父，或以钱币乞之。父利其然也，日扳仲永环谒于邑人，不使学。

余闻之也久。明道中，从先人还家，于舅家见之，十二三矣。令作诗，不能称前时之闻。又七年，还自扬州，复到舅家问焉。曰：“泯然众人矣！”

王子曰：仲永之通悟，受之天也。其受之天也，贤于材人远矣。卒之为众人，则其受于人者不至也。彼其受之天也，如此其贤也，不受之人，且为众人；今夫不受之天，固众人，又不受之人，得为众人而已邪？

Lament over the Oblivion of Zhongyong

Wang Anshi

Fang Zhongyong, a Jinxi resident, has been farming for his entire life.

Although he had never been taught how to use a writing tool, one day at the age of five, he suddenly cried for one. Amazed, his father borrowed one from a neighbor. Instantly, he wrote down a four-line verse and signed it. The verse was something about supporting parents and improving clan relationships, which was circulated for viewing among all the scholars in the village. Ever since then, Zhongyong improvised verses on objects randomly picked, and his verses all showed literary talent and ingenuity in diction. Finding this peculiar, people in the county started to entertain his father with dinners or simply to pay for Zhongyong’s poems. Seeing the profits in this, every day, his father took him around in the country visiting people, but ignored his studies.

I heard this for a long time, but it was only after I returned to the county with my father in the year of Mingdao that I saw the boy in my uncle’s home. He was already twelve or thirteen years old by then, and the verses he wrote upon request did not attain to what was heard before. Seven years later, I came back home again from Yangzhou. Upon revisiting my uncle, I asked about the boy. “He is obscured as an ordinary person” was the reply!

Here is my comment: Zhongyong’s talent was innate. Although he enjoyed a natural gift far above most other talented people, he faded into an ordinary person because he didn’t receive enough education. If such a born talent would without education have wilted into ordinariness, then what about those ordinary people who do not have the innate talent nor receive education—just ordinary?