巴门尼德：论自然

王太庆 译 元知 2019-04-12

 

 

　　（1）我乘坐的驷马高车拉着我前进，极力驰骋随我高兴，后来它把我带上天下闻名的女神大道，这条大道引导着明白人走遍所有的城镇。于是我的马车沿着那条道路趱行，拉车的马儿十分聪明，载着我前进，少女们为我指点出途径。车轴磨得滚烫，在轴函中发出震耳的啸声，因为它的两端被旋转的车轮带着飞速地翻腾。那时太阳的女儿们离开夜宅，掠过头上的纱巾，把马车赶向光明。 
　　那里矗立着一座大门，把白天和黑夜的道路划分，上边有门楣，下边有石头的门槛；这天门上巨大的双扉闭得紧紧，保管启闭之钥的是狄凯，那专司报应的女神。少女们用恭维的辞令央告这位尊神，机灵地劝她同意把插牢的门闩拿开。于是门闩除去，两根嵌着钉子的黄铜门轴在轴函中一根接着一根转动，门道洞开。少女们驱着驷马高车笔直地走进门来，女神亲切地将我接待，握着我的右手，用下面的话语向我说： 
　　青年人，你在不朽的驭手陪同下，乘着高车驷马来到我的门庭，十分欢迎！领你走上这条大道的不是恶煞（因为这大道离开人间的小径确实很远），而是公平正直之神。所以你应当学习各种事情，从圆满真理的牢固核心，直到毫不包含真情的凡夫俗子的意见。意见尽管不真，你还是要加以体验，因为必须通过彻底的全面钻研，才能对假象作出判断。 
　　要使你的思想远离这种研究途径，别让习惯用经验的力量把你逼上这条路，只是以茫然的眼睛、轰鸣的耳朵或舌头为准绳，而要用你的理智来解决纷争的辩论。你面前只剩下一条道路，可以放胆遵循。 
　　（2）要用你的心灵牢牢地注视那遥远的东西，一如近在目前。因为它不会把存在者从存在者的联系中割裂，以致分崩瓦解，或者聚集会合。 
　　（3）在我看来存在者是一个共同体，我就从这里开始；因为我将重新回到这里。 
　　（4）来吧，我告诉你（我的话你要谛听），只有哪些研究途径是可以设想的。一条是：存在者存在，它不可能不存在。这是确信的途径，因为它遵循真理。另一条是：存在者不存在，这个不存在必然存在。走这条路，我告诉你，是什么都学不到的。因为不存在者你是既不能认识（这当然办不到），也不能说出的。 
　　（5）因为能被思维者和能存在者是同一的。 
　　（6）必定是：可以言说、可以思议者存在，因为它存在是可能的，而不存在者存在是不可能的。这就是我教你牢记在心的。这就是我吩咐你注意的第一条研究途径。然后你还要注意另一条途径，在那条途径上，那些什么都不明白的凡人们两头彷徨。因为他们的心中不知所措，被摇摆不定的念头支配着，所以像聋子和瞎子一样无所适从。这些不能分辨是非的群氓，居然认为存在者和不存在者同一又不同一，一切事物都有正反两个方向！ 
　　（7）因为勉强证明不存在者存在，是根本不可能的。你要让自己的思想远离这条研究途径。 
　　（8）所以只剩下一条途径，就是：存在者存在。在这条途径上有许多标志表明，存在者不是产生出来的，也不能消灭，因为它是完全的、不动的、无止境的。它既非过去存在，亦非将来存在，因为它整个在现在，是个连续的一。 
　　因为你愿意给它找出哪种来源来呢？它能以什么方式、从什么东西里长出来呢？（它既不能从存在者里生出，这样就会有另一个存在者预先存在了）我也不能让你这样说或想：它从不存在者里产生；因为存在者不存在是不可言说、不可思议的。而且，如果它来自不存在，它有什么必要不早一点或迟一点产生呢？所以它必定是要么永远存在，要么根本不存在。 
　　真理的力量也决不容许从不存在者中产生出任何异于不存在者的东西来。 
　　因此正义决不松开它的锁链，听任存在者产生和消灭，而是牢牢抓住存在者不放。关于这个存在者，我们要判断的是：它存在还是不存在？所以我们必须断定：要把一条途径当作不可思议、不可言说的途径抛在一边（这确实不是真的途径），而把另一条途径看做存在的、实在的途径。这样看来，存在者怎样能在将来产生，又怎样能在过去产生呢？因为如果它在过去或将来产生，现在它就不存在了。所以产生是没有的，消灭也是没有的。 
　　存在者也是不可分的，因为它全部都是一样的，没有哪个地方比另一个地方多些，妨碍它的连续，也没有哪里少些。因此它是整个连续的；因为存在者是与存在者连接的。 
　　而且，存在者是不动的，被巨大的锁链捆着，无始亦无终；因为产生与消灭已经被赶得很远，被真信念赶跑了。它是同一的，永远在同一个地方，居留在自身之内。因为强大的必然性把它用锁链从四面八方捆着，不能越雷池一步。因此存在者不能是无限的，因为它没有缺陷；如果无限，那就正好是有缺陷的了。 
　　可以被思想的东西和思想的目标是同一的；因为你找不到一个思想是没有它所表达的存在物的。存在者之外，绝没有、也绝不会有任何别的东西，因为命运已经用锁链把它捆在那不可分割的、不动的整体上。因此凡人们在语言中加以固定的东西，如产生和消灭，是和不是，位置变化和色彩变化，只不过是空洞的名词。 
　　然而，由于存在者有一条最后的边界，它在各方面都是完全的，好像一个滚圆的球体，从中心到每一个方面距离都相等，因为不能在哪个地方大一点或小一点。因为既没有一个不存在者破坏团结，也没有一个存在者在这里或那里比存在者多点或少点，因为它是完全不可损毁的。因为那个与哪一方面距离都相等的点是与边界距离相等。

 

On Nature (Peri Physeos)
by Parmenides of Elea (c. 475 B.C.)
Edited by Allan F. Randall from translations by David Gallop, Richard D. McKirahan, Jr., Jonathan Barnes, John Mansley Robinson and others.
1The mares, which carry me as far as my heart desires, were escorting me. They brought and placed me upon the well-spoken path of the Goddess, which carries everywhere unscathed the mortal who knows. Thereon was I carried, for thereon the wise mares did carry me, straining to pull the chariot, with maidens guiding the way. The axle, glowing in its naves, gave forth the shrill sound of a musical pipe, urged on by two rounded wheels on either end, even whilst maidens, Daughters of the Sun, were hastening to escort me, after leaving the House of Night for the light, having pushed back the veils from their heads with their hands.
Ahead are the gates of the paths of Night and Day. A lintel and stone threshold surround them. The aetherial gates themselves are filled with great doors, for which much-avenging Justice holds the keys of retribution. Coaxing her with gentle words, the maidens did cunningly persuade her to push back the bolted bar for them swiftly from the gates. These made of the doors a yawning gap as they were opened wide, swinging in turn the bronze posts in their sockets, fastened with rivets and pins. Straight through them at that point did the maidens drive the chariot and mares along the broad way.

The Goddess received me kindly, took my right hand in Hers, uttered speech and thus addressed me: "Youth, attended by immortal charioteers, who come to our House by these mares that carry you, welcome. For it was no ill fortune that sent you forth to travel this road (lying far indeed from the beaten path of humans), but Right and Justice. And it is right that you should learn all things, both the persuasive, unshaken heart of Objective Truth, and the subjective beliefs of mortals, in which there is no true trust. But you shall learn these too: how, for the mortals passing through them, the things-that-seem must 'really exist', being, for them, all there is.

The Way of Objectivity (Aletheia)
2"Come now, listen, and convey my story. I shall tell you what paths of inquiry alone there are for thinking:
#1. The one: that it is and it is impossible for it not to be.
This is the path of Persuasion, for it accompanies Objective Truth.
#2. The other: that it is not and it necessarily must not be.
That, I point out to you, is a path wholly unthinkable, for neither could you know what-is-not (for that is impossible), nor could you point it out.

6"Whatever can be spoken or thought of necessarily is, since it is possible for it to be, but it is not possible for nothing to be. I urge you to consider this last point, for I restrain you firstly from that path of inquiry (#2), and secondly from:
#3. The one on which mortals, knowing nothing, wander, two-headed, for helplessness in their breasts guides their wandering minds and they are carried, deaf and blind alike, dazed, uncritical tribes, for whom being and not-being are thought the same and yet not the same, and the path of all runs in opposite directions. 7For never shall this be proved: that things that are not are. But do restrain your thought from this path of inquiry, and do not let habit, born from much experience, compel you along this path, to guide your sightless eye and ringing ear and tongue. But judge by reason the highly contentious disproof that I have spoken.
8a"One path only is left for us to speak of: that it is. On this path there are a multitude of indications that what-is, being ungenerated, is also imperishable, whole, of a single kind, immovable and complete. Nor was it once, nor will it be, since it is, now, all together, one and continuous. For what coming-to-be of it will you seek? How and from where did it grow? I shall not permit you to say or to think that it grew from what-is-not, for it is not to be said or thought that it is not. What necessity could have impelled it to grow later rather than sooner, if it began from nothing? Thus it must either fully be, or be not at all. Nor will the force of conviction ever allow anything, from what-is, to come-to-be something apart from itself; wherefore Justice does not loosen her shackles so as to allow it to come-to-be or to perish, but holds it fast.
"The decision on these matters depends on this: either it is or it is not. But it has been decided, as is necessary, to let go the one as unthinkable and unnameable (for it is no true path), but to allow the other, so that it is, and is true. How could what-is be in the future? How could it come-to-be? For if it came-to-be, it is not, nor is it if at some time it is going to be. Thus, coming-to-be is extinguished and perishing unheard of.

"Nor is it divisible, since it all alike is. Nor is there any more of it here than there, to hinder it from holding together, nor any less of it, but it is all a plenum, full of what-is. Therefore, it is all continuous, for what-is touches what-is.

"Moreover, unchanging in the limits of great bonds, it is without beginning or end, since coming-to-be and perishing were banished far away, and true conviction drove them out. Remaining the same, in the same place, it lies in itself, and thus firmly remains there. For mighty Necessity holds it fast in the bonds of a limit, which fences it about, since it is not right for what-is to be incomplete. For it lacks nothing. If it lacked anything, it would lack everything.

8c"Since, then, there is an ultimate limit, it is completed from every direction like the bulk of a perfect sphere, evenly balanced in every way from the centre, as it must not be any greater or smaller here than there. For neither is there what-is-not, which could stop it from reaching its like, nor is there a way in which what-is could be more here and less there, since it all inviolably is. For equal to itself in every direction, it reaches its limits uniformly.

3"The same thing is there for thinking of and for being. 4Look upon things which, though absent, are yet firmly present in thought (for you shall not cut off what-is from holding fast to what-is, since it neither disperses itself in all directions throughout the order of the Cosmos, nor does it gather itself together). 8bIt is the same thing, to think of something and to think that it is, since you will never find thought without what-is, to which it refers, and on which it depends. For nothing is nor will be except what-is, since it was just this that Fate did shackle to be whole and unchanging; wherefore it has been named all things that mortals have established, persuaded that they are true: 'to come-to-be and to perish', 'to be and not to be' and 'to shift place and exchange bright colour'.

The Way of Subjectivity (Doxa)
5"Wherever I begin, it is all one to me, for there I shall return again.
8d"Here I stop my trustworthy speech to you and thought about Objective Truth. From here on, learn the subjective beliefs of mortals; listen to the deceptive ordering of my words. For they made up their minds to name two forms, one of which it is not right to name at all (here is where they have gone astray) and have distinguished them as opposite in bodily form and have assigned to them marks distinguishing them from one another:

#1. Here, on the one hand, aetherial flame of fire, gentle, very light, everywhere the same as itself...
#2. But not the same as this other, which in itself is opposite: dark night, a dense and heavy body.

"All this order I present to you as probable, so that no mortal belief shall ever outdo you. 9But since all things have been named light and night, and their powers have been assigned to each, all is a plenum of light and obscure night together, both equal, since nothingness partakes in neither.
10"You shall know the nature of the aether and all the signs in the aether, the destructive works of the splendid Sun's pure torch, and whence they came-to-be. And you shall learn the wandering works of the round-faced Moon, and its nature, and you shall know also the surrounding heaven, whence it grew and how Necessity did guide and shackle it to hold the limits of the stars. 14The Moon: night-shiner, wandering around the Earth, an alien light, 15always looking towards the rays of the Sun. 15aThe Earth: rooted-in-water. 11And you shall learn how Earth and Sun and Moon and the aether common to all, the Milky Way and the outermost heaven, and the hot force of the stars did surge forth to come-to-be.

12"For the narrower rings are filled with unmingled fire, the ones next to them with night, but a due amount of fire is inserted amongst it. In the midst of these is the goddess who governs everything. For she rules over hateful birth and union of all things, sending female to unite with male, and again conversely male with female.

13"She devised Love first of all the gods. 18When man and woman mingle the seeds of love that spring from their veins, a formative power, maintaining proper proportions, moulds well-formed bodies from this diverse blood (for if, when the seed is mingled, the forces therein clash and do not fuse into one, then cruelly will they plague the offspring with a double-gender). 17She placed young males on the right side of the womb, young females on the left.

16"According to the union within each person of disparate body parts, thus does mind emerge in humans. For it is the composition of body parts which does the thinking, and Thought (since it defines the plenum) is the same in each and every human.

19"Thus, according to belief, these things were born and now are, and hereafter, having grown from this, they will come to an end. And for each of these did humans establish a distinctive name. 20One and unchanging is that for which as a whole the name is: 'to be'."