母鸡告诉我们怎样做女人
It seems to me there are two aspects to women.There is the demure and the dauntless.
据我看来女人有两种类型，即矜持端庄型和勇敢无畏型。
Men have loved to dwell, in fiction at least, on the demure maiden whose inevitable reply is： Oh, yes, if you please, kind sir！ The demure maiden, the demure spouse, the demure mother -this is still the ideal. A few maidens, mistresses and mothers are demure. A few pretend to be. But the vast majority are not. And they don't pretend to be. We don't expect a girl skilfully driving her car to be demure, we expect her to be dauntless. What good would demure and maidenly Members of Parliament be, inevitably responding： Oh, yes, if you please, kind sir！ -Though of course there are masculine members of that kidney. -And a demure telephone girl？ Or even a demure stenographer？ Demureness, to be sure, is outwardly becoming, it is an outward mark of femininity, like bobbed hair. But it goes with inward dauntlessness. The girl who has got to make her way in life has got to be dauntless, and if she has a pretty, demure manner with it, then luck girl. She kills two birds with two stones.
男人爱恋温驯的女孩子，至少在小说中是如此，因为她总爱回答：噢，是的，亲爱的先生，如果你愿意！矜持端庄的女孩子、妻子、母亲――这依然是理想中的女性。有些女孩子、家庭主妇和母亲是矜持端庄的，有些是故作如此，但大部分都不是，她们也不假装是。我们希望一个女孩子熟练驾驶汽车时不要太矜持端庄，而应是大胆无畏的。如果议会的议员是个温驯淑女，并总是回答：“噢，是的，亲爱的先生，如果你愿意！”――当然尽管也有那种性格的男议员。――如果接线女孩是温驯娴静的，或甚至速记员是温驯娴静的，那会有什么好处呢？温柔谦卑当然在外表上很吸引人，它是女性气质的外部特征，就如同女人剪的短发一样。但外表的矜持端庄与内心的勇敢无畏却是并存的。为生计所打拼的女孩子不得不勇敢无畏，如果她举止又温驯娴淑，那她就是个幸运的女孩。她两方面都很成功。
With the two kinds of femininity go two kinds of confidence： There are the women who are cocksure, and the women who are hensure. A really up-to-date woman is a cocksure woman. She doesn't have a doubt nor a qualm. She is the modern type. Whereas the old-fashioned demure woman was sure as a hen is sure, that is, without knowing anything about it. She went quietly and busily clucking around, laying the eggs and mothering the chickens in a kind of anxious dream that still was full of sureness. But not mental sureness. Her sureness was a physical condition, very soothing, but a condition out of which she could easily be startled or frightened.
存在这两种类型的女性气质的同时也存在着两种类型的自信：自信外露的女人和温驯谦卑的女人。一个真正的当代女性是一个自信干练的女人，她不会疑虑重重、恐惧紧张，她是现代型的。而传统的温驯女人的自信就如同母鸡的自信一样，也就是说，是毫不自知的。她安静而忙碌地四处咯咯叫着，产蛋，抚育小鸡，带着一种仍然充满自信的焦急的梦想。但这自信不是精神上的，而是一种身体状态，非常镇静，但是当脱离这种状态时她会很容易受惊吓。
It is quite amusing to see the two kinds of sureness in chickens. The cockerel is, naturally, cocksure. He crows because he is certain it is day. Then the hen peeps out from under her wing. He marches to the door of the henhouse and pokes out his head assertively： Ah ha！ daylight, of course, just as I said！ -and he majestically steps down the chicken ladder towards terra firma, knowing that the hens will step cautiously after him, drawn by his confidence. So after him, cautiously, step the hens. He crows again： Ha-ha！ here we are！ -It is indisputable, and the hens accept it entirely. He marches towards the house. From the house a person ought to appear, scattering corn. Why does the person not appear？ The cock will see to it. He is cocksure. He gives a loud crow in the doorway, and the person appears. The hens are suitably impressed but immediately devote all their henny consciousness to the scattered corn, pecking absorbedly, while the cock runs and fusses, cocksure that he is responsible for it all.
在鸡身上看到这两种类型的自信非常有趣。小公鸡自然是极其自信的。他喔喔地叫起来，因为他确信天亮了。然后母鸡躲在自己翅膀底下向外偷看。他走到母鸡的鸡舍门口，自信地探进头去：啊哈！当然就像我说的，天亮了！――然后他威严地从鸡舍的梯子走到地面上，他知道母鸡被他的自信吸引，并将小心翼翼地跟在后面。于是，果真如此，在他后面，跟着的是小心翼翼的母鸡。他又啼叫开了：哈哈！我们来了！――这种自信不容置疑，而母鸡也完全接受。他朝房子走去。应该有人从房子里出来撒些谷物的。为什么这人还没出现呢？公鸡要查看一下。他是自信满满的。他在门口一声高啼，人就出现了。母鸡对此钦佩极了，但很快就把她们所有的母鸡意识投入到撒落的谷物上，专心致志地啄起食来。这时公鸡在一旁不停地走动，相信他有义务对此负责。
So the day goes on. The cock finds a tit-bit, and loudly calls the hens. They scuffle up in henny surety, and gobble the tit-bit. But when they find a juicy morsel for themselves, they devour it in silence, hensure. Unless, of course, there are little chicks, when they most anxiously call the brood. But in her own dim surety, the hen is really much surer than the cock, in a different way. She marches off to lay her egg, she secures obstinately the nest she wants, she lays her egg at last, then steps forth again with prancing confidence, and gives that most assured of all sounds, the hensure cackle of a bird who has laid her egg. The cock, who is never so sure about anything as the hen is about the egg she has laid, immediately starts to cackle like the female of his species. He is pining to be hensure, for hensure is so much surer than cocksure.
如此日复一日。公鸡发现了一点精美的食物，就大声呼唤母鸡。母鸡带着特有的安详自信拖着脚走来，大口大口地吃着食物。但当是她们自己发现了一小块美食时，就会悄悄地很温驯地吞下去。当然，除非有小鸡在时，她们会很焦急地呼唤小鸡。但是母鸡内敛的温驯却以不同的方式显得比公鸡更具自信。她走过去产蛋，坚持安顿好她想要的巢，终于产下蛋来，然后再神气十足地走上前去发出最自信的声音，那是产下蛋来的充满自信的母鸡的咯咯声。公鸡对任何东西从来没有像母鸡产下蛋时那么自信过，因此他立即开始学他的同类母鸡一样咯咯叫起来。他渴望表现出母鸡一样的自信，因为母鸡的自信比公鸡的要有力得多。
Nevertheless, cocksure is boss. When the chicken-hawk appears in the sky, loud are the cockerel's calls of alarm. Then the hens scuffle under the verandah, the cock ruffles his feathers on guard. The hens are numb with fear, they say： Alas, there is no health in us！ How wonderful to be a cock so bold！ -And they huddle, numbed. But their very numbness is hensurety.
尽管如此，公鸡的自信具有领导风度。当抓小鸡的老鹰出现在天空上时，是公鸡大声啼叫鸣警。然后母鸡笨拙地走到廊檐下，公鸡竖起羽毛，保卫她们。母鸡因为害怕而麻木了，她们喃喃道：“哎呀，我们身体没那么健壮啊！要是成为一只勇敢的公鸡该多了不起啊！――她们浑身麻木，挤成一堆。但她们的麻木正是母鸡的本性。
Just as the cock can cackle, however, as if he had laid the egg, so can the hen bird crow. She can more or less assume his cocksureness. And yet she is never so easy, cocksure, as she used to be when she was hensure. Cocksure, she is cocksure, but uneasy. Hensure, she trembles, but is easy.
母鸡也能喔喔叫的，就如同公鸡也能咯咯叫着像他生了蛋一样。母鸡可以多多少少地装出公鸡的自信。但她表现出公鸡般自信时，却不如温驯谦卑时感到自在。她的确很自信，但不自在。在她瑟瑟发抖时表现出温驯谦卑时，却感觉很舒服。
It seems to me just the same in the vast human farmyard. Only nowadays all the cocks are cackling and pretending to lay eggs, and all the hens are crowing and pretending to call the sun out of bed. If women today are cocksure, men are hensure. Men are timid, tremulous, rather soft and submissive, easy in their very henlike tremulousness. They only want to be spoken to gently. So the women step forth with a good loud cock-a-doodle-do！
我认为在广阔的人类这个农院里，情况亦然。只是如今所有的公鸡都咯咯叫，假装会下蛋，所有母鸡都喔喔啼，假装叫太阳起床。如果说现在的女人自信外露，那男人则温柔顺从。男人胆小发抖，非常温驯，并如母鸡一样瑟瑟发抖时才感到自在。他需要别人轻轻地对他讲话才行。那么女人就会走上前，喔喔地大声啼叫起来。
The tragedy about cocksure women is that they are more cocky, in their assurance, than the cock himself. They never realize that when the cock gives his loud crow in the morning, he listens acutely afterwards, to hear if some other wretch of a cock dare crow defiance, challenge. To the cock, there is always defiance, challenge, danger and death on the clear air； or the possibility thereof.
可悲的是，自信外露的女人在自信时比公鸡本身表现更趾高气扬。她们从未意识到，当公鸡清晨高声啼叫时，他接着是要敏锐地聆听，听听有没有其他讨厌的公鸡胆敢对抗着啼叫来挑衅。对于公鸡，洁净的空气中总是存在着或有可能存在着对抗、挑战、危险和死亡。
But alas, when the hen crows, she listens for no defiance or challenge. When she says cock-a-doodle-do！ then it is unanswerable. The cock listens for an answer, alert. But the hen knows she is unanswerable. Cock-a-doodle-do！ and there it is, take it or leave it！
哎呀，但当母鸡喔喔叫时，她没有倾听有无对抗还是挑战。当她喔喔啼叫时，是无责任心的。公鸡警惕地倾听一种回应，但母鸡知道她是无责任心的，喔喔喔！我叫就叫了，听不听随便你们！
And it is this that makes the cocksureness of women so dangerous, so devastating. It is really out of scheme, it is not in relation to the rest of things. So we have the tragedy of cocksure women. They find, so often, that instead of having laid an egg, they have laid a vote, or an empty ink-bottle, or some other absolutely unhatchable object, which means nothing to them.
正是这个原因使得女人的自信如此危险，如此具有毁灭性。它真地是超出常规之外，不与外界协调。因此我们发现了自信女人的悲剧。她们经常发现她们产下的不是蛋，而是选票、空墨水瓶或其他完全孵不出东西的玩意儿，所有这些对她们来说毫无价值。
It is the tragedy of the modern woman. She becomes cocksure, she puts all her passion and energy and years of her life into some effort or assertion, without ever listening for the denial which she ought to take into count. She is cocksure, but she is a hen all the time. Frightened of her own henny self, she rushes to mad lengths about votes, or welfare, or sports, or business： she is marvellous, out-manning the man. But alas, it is all fundamentally disconnected. It is all an attitude, and one day the attitude will become a weird cramp, a pain, and then it will collapse. And when it has collapsed, and she looks at the eggs she has laid, votes, or miles of typewriting, years of business efficiency -suddenly, because she is a hen and not a cock, all she has done will turn into pure nothingness to her. Suddenly it all falls out of relation to her basic henny self, and she realizes she has lost her life.
这就是现代女人的悲剧。她如公鸡一般自信，她把她所有的热情、精力和时间投入到某项事业或追求中，而不倾听那些她理应考虑的反对意见。她如公鸡一般自信，但她始终只是一只母鸡。她因为惧怕自己如母鸡一样的身份，就很极端地拼命投入选举、福利事业、体育事业或商业当中去：她相当出色，胜过男人。哎呀，但情况完全乱了套。它完全是一种人生观，某天这种观念将不可思议地成为一种束缚，一种痛苦，然后这种观点会倒塌。当这种观点倒塌时，她瞅瞅她产下的蛋，即选票、或长长的打字稿，多年的公司绩效――突然间，因为她是一只母鸡，而不是公鸡，她所做的一切对她来说都将毫无意义。瞬间这一切与她如母鸡一样的本性毫无关系，她意识到她已失去了自己的生活。
The lovely henny surety, the hensureness which is the real bliss of every female, has been denied her： she had never had it. Having lived her life with such utmost strenuousness and cocksureness, she has missed her life altogether. Nothingness！
那可爱的母鸡般的自信，即作为每个女人的真正幸福的温驯谦卑已抛弃了她：她从来就没有拥有过。尽管她用最大的努力和公鸡般的自信生活，却完全错过了自己真正的生活。一切毫无价值！
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