新SAT阅读必考政治演说《葛底斯堡演说》, 你能背下来么?
新SAT阅读中增加了对美国经典政治演说的考察,如林肯的《葛底斯堡演说》、马丁路德金的《我有一个梦想》等,为了帮助同学们克服缺乏背景知识的障碍,我们提供新SAT必考政治演说《葛底斯堡演说》赏析,建议同学们能够将正文部分背诵下来,并理解内容。
背景:
《葛底斯堡演说》是世界历史上最著名的演说之一,美国第十六任总统亚伯拉罕•林肯在宾夕法尼亚州葛底斯堡的葛底斯堡国家公墓(Gettysburg National Cemetery)揭幕式中发表此次演说。(哀悼在长达五个半月的葛底斯堡之役中阵亡的将士)。林肯以言简意赅的语言、丰富深刻的内涵,将美国的历史、价值观进行了高度浓缩,堪称最经典的演说。他以不足三百字的字数,两到三分钟的时间,林肯诉诸独立宣言所支持的“凡人生而平等”之原则,并重新定义这场内战:不只是为联邦存续而奋斗,亦是“自由之新生”,将真正平等带给全体公民。
正文:The Gettysburg Address
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.
It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
《葛底斯堡演说》译文:
八十七年前,我们的父辈在这块大陆上创建了一个新的国家。这个新的国家在自由中孕育,信奉人人生而平等的主张。现在我们正在从事伟大的国内战争,来考验这个国家,或任何在自由中孕育,信奉人人生而平等的主张的国家,能否长久存在下去。
我们今天相聚在这场战争的一个伟大的战场上。我们相聚在这里是为了把这伟大战场的一部分奉献给那些为了我们国家的生存而献出了生命的烈士们作为最后的安息地。我们这样做完全是合情合理的。但在更广泛的意义上来说,我们不能奉献这块土地,我们不能使这块土地神圣,我们不能使这块土地光耀。那些勇敢的人们,那些曾经在这里战斗过的,活着和死去的人们,已经使这块土地神圣了,远非我们所能增加或减少。世界不大会注意,也不会永久记住我们今天在这里所说的话,但世界决不能忘记他们在这里所做过的事情。
我们这些活着的人,倒是应该在这里献身于他们长久以来如此高尚地推进的,尚未完成的工作。我们倒是应该在这里献身于留在我们面前的伟大任务:那就是继承这些光荣的先烈,对他们在这里作出最后全部贡献的事业,作出我们进一步的贡献;那就是我们在这里狠下决心,决不让这些先烈的死成为白白的牺牲;那就是我们的国家一定要在上帝底下获得新的自由;那就是决不让人民的政府,人民选举的政府,为了人民的政府,从地球上消亡。