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IT’S been a summer of spectacle in London, from the celebrations of the queen’s Diamond Jubilee to the ambitiously named World Shakespeare Festival, and now the grandest show of them all, the 2012 Summer Olympics, which will formally begin tonight with an extravagant opening ceremony orchestrated by the film director Danny Boyle.
对伦敦来说，这是一个被盛典缀满的夏天。从英女王登基60周年庆典，到命名夸张的世界莎士比亚戏剧节，当然还有最为璀璨的2012年伦敦夏季奥运会。富丽华美的开幕式将于今夜登场，幕后指导是曾因《贫民窟的百万富翁》获得奥斯卡金像奖的英国本土导演丹尼·波尔。
It’s no accident that all this theater is taking place in a Britain staggered by economic meltdown, a controversial austerity budget and a crisis of political legitimacy following the hacking scandal, which exposed the cozy relationship between News Corporation and the nation’s elite. At times of political or economic crisis, the British have always turned to spectacles as a way of projecting — or creating — power.
目下的英国经济不景气，紧缩的财政预算引发了各方争议，还面临着一场政治合法性危机，因为窃听丑闻使新闻集团和英国政治精英之间的亲密关系无所遁形。盛典恰在此时纷至沓来，这样的情形绝非巧合。回顾历史，在遇到政治或经济困难的时刻，英国人总是会通过举办盛典的方式来显示——或者是重塑——国家的力量。
Shakespeare often explored how spectacle could hide weakness on the British stage. He learned it from the true master of this art: Queen Elizabeth I. At her accession in 1558, she inherited a kingdom sharply divided between Catholics and Protestants and facing the threat of a Spanish invasion. She took to the streets of London in a lavish coronation procession, where she made a show of being moved by her subjects’ love for her, setting the tone for a “Cult of Elizabeth” in the national imagination. “We princes, ” she said, “are set on stages, in the sight and view of all the world. ”
莎士比亚曾经频繁探索，如何在英国的舞台上通过盛典掩饰虚弱。他从一名精通此术的大师身上习得真谛，而此人正是英女王伊丽莎白一世。1558年，伊丽莎白一世登基，她所接手的王国正面临着天主教徒和新教徒之间的尖锐分歧，还面临着西班牙入侵的威胁。女王决定在伦敦的街道上举办奢华的加冕游行，并亲临现场，上演了一场因子民爱戴而深受感动的好戏。有了这样的基调，全英民众开始在脑海中培植“伊丽莎白教”的意识。“我们这样的王族，就是活在全世界瞩目的舞台上的，”女王说。
Centuries later, Londoners wearied by the Blitz and five years of world war turned to Shakespeare. Cinematic legend has it that Winston Churchill commissioned a rousing film production of “Henry V, ” starring Laurence Olivier, to coincide with the planned invasion of France. Churchill even instructed tax officials to consider Olivier’s salary tax-free. The Inland Revenue was not pleased. But what’s money compared to British glory?
历史翻到几个世纪之后，厌烦了闪电式轰炸和绵延五年的世界大战的英国人将目光转向了莎士比亚 。电影界的一个传说是，战时首相丘吉尔曾在即将强攻法国时下令拍摄了鼓舞人心的影片《亨利五世》，主演是劳伦斯·奥利弗。丘吉尔甚至指示税务官员，让他们考虑对奥利弗的薪水免税。英国的国内税务局不乐意了，但什么样的金钱比得上不列颠的荣誉呢？
When London last staged the Olympics, in 1948, the capital was still scarred by bomb damage, ration cards were required to buy food, and the athletes were housed in the homes of volunteers. But these “Austerity Games” showed the world the city’s resilience at a time when postwar rebuilding had only just begun. In contemporary Britain, austerity may once again be the political reality, but where there’s no bread, there can apparently be circuses. 伦敦上一次举办奥运会是在1948年 ，炮弹轰炸在城市里留下的伤疤还历历在目。买食物需要配给卡，运动员只能住在志愿者的房子里。但是，在那个战后重建工作刚刚开始的时候，那届“艰苦朴素的奥运会”向世界展示了伦敦的韧性。在今天的伦敦，艰苦朴素恐怕会再次成为政治上的现实，但对英国来说，即使在没有面包的地方，显然也可以有马戏团。
In December, Prime Minister David Cameron doubled the budget for the Games’s opening and closing ceremonies, to about $107 million, to “showcase the best of Britain to a massive global TV audience. ” Reports this week from London speak of tension on the set; if tempers are running high, it’s probably because so much is at stake. Critics are questioning the expense of the games, which will cost a total of about $18 billion, with words like “fiasco, ” “disaster” and “complete nightmare. ” Last year, rioters, and the Occupy protesters encamped at St. Paul’s Cathedral, staged their own spectacles of anger and dissent. But Mr. Boyle’s big-budget ceremony, titled “Isles of Wonder” in a nod to a speech by Caliban in “The Tempest, ” will try to deliver exactly what Elizabethan London did so well: theater that resolves the culture’s tensions by entrancing even its furious Calibans with the wonders of this sceptered isle.
去年12月，英国首相戴维·卡梅伦将奥运会开闭幕式的预算翻倍，提升至1. 07亿美元，为的是“向数量庞大的全球电视观众展现出不列颠最精彩的一面”。但就本周从伦敦发回的报道来看，这种大手笔似乎引起了社会气氛的紧张。如果说民众情绪激动，恐怕是因为英国押的宝太大了。总数高达180亿美元左右的奥运会开销受到批评家的质疑，批评声中不乏“惨败”、“灾难”和“彻底的噩梦”这样的字眼。去年，骚乱者和“占领”运动的抗议者们在圣保罗大教堂扎营抗议，自行上演了一场以愤怒和异议为主题的“盛会”。但波尔导演的这场预算高昂的开幕式以“奇幻之岛”为名，借用了莎剧《暴风雨》当中卡利班的说法，旨在做到和伊丽莎白一世当年一模一样的事情：以戏剧性的场面纾解文化中的冲突，方法则是用这个君主岛国的种种奇迹麻醉众人，甚至是像卡利班这样的愤怒反对派。
In the midst of the World Shakespeare Festival this summer, archaeologists discovered the remains of the Curtain — Shakespeare’s theater during the building of the Globe, the original “wooden O” of “Henry V” — beneath a construction site in East London. What lies hidden at the foundations of London, it turns out, is theater. The raising of the Curtain offered a timely reminder of another age in which spectacles of power concealed mountains of debt. In the 1590s, both Shakespeare’s company and Queen Elizabeth were in the red, but that made the performance of wealth and power all the more crucial.
今夏的世界莎士比亚戏剧节期间，考古学家在伦敦东区的建筑工地下发现了“帷幕剧场”的遗址，也就是莎翁在“环球剧场”建造期间（亦即《亨利五世》上演期间）使用的木制环形剧场。伦敦城的基石竟然是一座剧场。帷幕剧场的重现天光是一个适时的提醒，让人们想起了另一个力量炫示遮掩如山债务的时代。在16世纪90年代，莎士比亚剧团和伊丽莎白女王都是负债累累，这倒使得财富和权势的展示显得更为关键了。
What “Henry V” taught British audiences was the power of performance to overcome fear. “Imitate the action of the tiger, ” Henry tells his soldiers when urging them once more unto the breach, “disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage. ” That is, show me your war face; act like a hero and you’ll become one; make history by imitating past glories. 《亨利五世》带给英国观众的启发是，表演的力量可以克服恐惧。在催促士兵再一次冲上城墙缺口的时候，亨利五世说道：“模仿老虎的动作，用可怖的怒火遮掩你们温和的个性。” 这句话的意思就是，将你好战的一面暴露出来；像英雄那样行事，你就会成为一名英雄；模仿过去的荣耀可以创造今日的历史。
Of course, this image of the actor-king is a double-edged sword. Even Elizabeth recognized the portrait of herself in Shakespeare’s portrait of the failed king Richard II, which was staged by her enemies during the Essex Rebellion. “I am Richard II, ” she is believed to have said. “Know ye not that?”
当然，这种国王兼演员的身份是柄双刃剑。即使是伊丽莎白也从莎翁笔下理查二世的失败形象当中看到了自己的影子，《理查二世》正是被伊丽莎白在艾塞克斯起义中的死敌搬上舞台的。“我就是理查二世，”据信女王曾这样说过。“你难道不知道吗？”
Even if the Shakespeare festival confronts Londoners with the unpleasant realization that the most interesting productions of the bard’s plays come dressed in foreign costumes — while their own theater companies have slipped into playing to the tourists who pay the bills — it’s still the empire of culture that colonized those distant lands, mining their traditions to spice up the British imagination.
莎士比亚戏剧节引起了伦敦市民的不满，因为剧作家最有意思的剧作竟被别国演员演绎着，而他们本地的剧院正经历票房的下滑，只能给游客们表演些他们愿意付费看的剧目。尽管如此，不列颠仍然是一个文化帝国，它征服了那些遥远的土地，并利用它们的传统来刺激本土的想象力。
The British can no longer conquer the world with yeomen’s cries of “God for Harry! England and Saint George!” but the world still tunes in to watch their spectacles with fascination. And more important, so do the British. These spectacles allow them to regain their composure after a season of bad news, but also to compose themselves as the Great Britain we know so well, turning the well-worn face of majesty to the world once more.
不列颠已经不能再在帝国义勇军 “上帝保佑亨利!英格兰和圣乔治!”的呼声中征服世界，但全世界仍将目光集中到英国，如痴如醉地观看他们的盛典。更重要的是，英国人自己也在看。在一系列坏消息之后，这样的盛典能够安定民心，还能将英国民众凝聚成我们所熟悉的大不列颠形象，让世人再一次看到它那张饱经风霜的威严面孔。?
Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky is a professor of English at Kenyon College.
对伦敦来说，这是一个被盛典缀满的夏天。从英女王登基60周年庆典，到命名夸张的世界莎士比亚戏剧节，当然还有最为璀璨的2012年伦敦夏季奥运会。富丽华美的开幕式将于今夜登场，幕后指导是曾因《贫民窟的百万富翁》获得奥斯卡金像奖的英国本土导演丹尼·波尔。
It’s no accident that all this theater is taking place in a Britain staggered by economic meltdown, a controversial austerity budget and a crisis of political legitimacy following the hacking scandal, which exposed the cozy relationship between News Corporation and the nation’s elite. At times of political or economic crisis, the British have always turned to spectacles as a way of projecting — or creating — power.
目下的英国经济不景气，紧缩的财政预算引发了各方争议，还面临着一场政治合法性危机，因为窃听丑闻使新闻集团和英国政治精英之间的亲密关系无所遁形。盛典恰在此时纷至沓来，这样的情形绝非巧合。回顾历史，在遇到政治或经济困难的时刻，英国人总是会通过举办盛典的方式来显示——或者是重塑——国家的力量。
Shakespeare often explored how spectacle could hide weakness on the British stage. He learned it from the true master of this art: Queen Elizabeth I. At her accession in 1558, she inherited a kingdom sharply divided between Catholics and Protestants and facing the threat of a Spanish invasion. She took to the streets of London in a lavish coronation procession, where she made a show of being moved by her subjects’ love for her, setting the tone for a “Cult of Elizabeth” in the national imagination. “We princes, ” she said, “are set on stages, in the sight and view of all the world. ”
莎士比亚曾经频繁探索，如何在英国的舞台上通过盛典掩饰虚弱。他从一名精通此术的大师身上习得真谛，而此人正是英女王伊丽莎白一世。1558年，伊丽莎白一世登基，她所接手的王国正面临着天主教徒和新教徒之间的尖锐分歧，还面临着西班牙入侵的威胁。女王决定在伦敦的街道上举办奢华的加冕游行，并亲临现场，上演了一场因子民爱戴而深受感动的好戏。有了这样的基调，全英民众开始在脑海中培植“伊丽莎白教”的意识。“我们这样的王族，就是活在全世界瞩目的舞台上的，”女王说。
Centuries later, Londoners wearied by the Blitz and five years of world war turned to Shakespeare. Cinematic legend has it that Winston Churchill commissioned a rousing film production of “Henry V, ” starring Laurence Olivier, to coincide with the planned invasion of France. Churchill even instructed tax officials to consider Olivier’s salary tax-free. The Inland Revenue was not pleased. But what’s money compared to British glory?
历史翻到几个世纪之后，厌烦了闪电式轰炸和绵延五年的世界大战的英国人将目光转向了莎士比亚 。电影界的一个传说是，战时首相丘吉尔曾在即将强攻法国时下令拍摄了鼓舞人心的影片《亨利五世》，主演是劳伦斯·奥利弗。丘吉尔甚至指示税务官员，让他们考虑对奥利弗的薪水免税。英国的国内税务局不乐意了，但什么样的金钱比得上不列颠的荣誉呢？
When London last staged the Olympics, in 1948, the capital was still scarred by bomb damage, ration cards were required to buy food, and the athletes were housed in the homes of volunteers. But these “Austerity Games” showed the world the city’s resilience at a time when postwar rebuilding had only just begun. In contemporary Britain, austerity may once again be the political reality, but where there’s no bread, there can apparently be circuses. 伦敦上一次举办奥运会是在1948年 ，炮弹轰炸在城市里留下的伤疤还历历在目。买食物需要配给卡，运动员只能住在志愿者的房子里。但是，在那个战后重建工作刚刚开始的时候，那届“艰苦朴素的奥运会”向世界展示了伦敦的韧性。在今天的伦敦，艰苦朴素恐怕会再次成为政治上的现实，但对英国来说，即使在没有面包的地方，显然也可以有马戏团。
In December, Prime Minister David Cameron doubled the budget for the Games’s opening and closing ceremonies, to about $107 million, to “showcase the best of Britain to a massive global TV audience. ” Reports this week from London speak of tension on the set; if tempers are running high, it’s probably because so much is at stake. Critics are questioning the expense of the games, which will cost a total of about $18 billion, with words like “fiasco, ” “disaster” and “complete nightmare. ” Last year, rioters, and the Occupy protesters encamped at St. Paul’s Cathedral, staged their own spectacles of anger and dissent. But Mr. Boyle’s big-budget ceremony, titled “Isles of Wonder” in a nod to a speech by Caliban in “The Tempest, ” will try to deliver exactly what Elizabethan London did so well: theater that resolves the culture’s tensions by entrancing even its furious Calibans with the wonders of this sceptered isle.
去年12月，英国首相戴维·卡梅伦将奥运会开闭幕式的预算翻倍，提升至1. 07亿美元，为的是“向数量庞大的全球电视观众展现出不列颠最精彩的一面”。但就本周从伦敦发回的报道来看，这种大手笔似乎引起了社会气氛的紧张。如果说民众情绪激动，恐怕是因为英国押的宝太大了。总数高达180亿美元左右的奥运会开销受到批评家的质疑，批评声中不乏“惨败”、“灾难”和“彻底的噩梦”这样的字眼。去年，骚乱者和“占领”运动的抗议者们在圣保罗大教堂扎营抗议，自行上演了一场以愤怒和异议为主题的“盛会”。但波尔导演的这场预算高昂的开幕式以“奇幻之岛”为名，借用了莎剧《暴风雨》当中卡利班的说法，旨在做到和伊丽莎白一世当年一模一样的事情：以戏剧性的场面纾解文化中的冲突，方法则是用这个君主岛国的种种奇迹麻醉众人，甚至是像卡利班这样的愤怒反对派。
In the midst of the World Shakespeare Festival this summer, archaeologists discovered the remains of the Curtain — Shakespeare’s theater during the building of the Globe, the original “wooden O” of “Henry V” — beneath a construction site in East London. What lies hidden at the foundations of London, it turns out, is theater. The raising of the Curtain offered a timely reminder of another age in which spectacles of power concealed mountains of debt. In the 1590s, both Shakespeare’s company and Queen Elizabeth were in the red, but that made the performance of wealth and power all the more crucial.
今夏的世界莎士比亚戏剧节期间，考古学家在伦敦东区的建筑工地下发现了“帷幕剧场”的遗址，也就是莎翁在“环球剧场”建造期间（亦即《亨利五世》上演期间）使用的木制环形剧场。伦敦城的基石竟然是一座剧场。帷幕剧场的重现天光是一个适时的提醒，让人们想起了另一个力量炫示遮掩如山债务的时代。在16世纪90年代，莎士比亚剧团和伊丽莎白女王都是负债累累，这倒使得财富和权势的展示显得更为关键了。
What “Henry V” taught British audiences was the power of performance to overcome fear. “Imitate the action of the tiger, ” Henry tells his soldiers when urging them once more unto the breach, “disguise fair nature with hard-favoured rage. ” That is, show me your war face; act like a hero and you’ll become one; make history by imitating past glories. 《亨利五世》带给英国观众的启发是，表演的力量可以克服恐惧。在催促士兵再一次冲上城墙缺口的时候，亨利五世说道：“模仿老虎的动作，用可怖的怒火遮掩你们温和的个性。” 这句话的意思就是，将你好战的一面暴露出来；像英雄那样行事，你就会成为一名英雄；模仿过去的荣耀可以创造今日的历史。
Of course, this image of the actor-king is a double-edged sword. Even Elizabeth recognized the portrait of herself in Shakespeare’s portrait of the failed king Richard II, which was staged by her enemies during the Essex Rebellion. “I am Richard II, ” she is believed to have said. “Know ye not that?”
当然，这种国王兼演员的身份是柄双刃剑。即使是伊丽莎白也从莎翁笔下理查二世的失败形象当中看到了自己的影子，《理查二世》正是被伊丽莎白在艾塞克斯起义中的死敌搬上舞台的。“我就是理查二世，”据信女王曾这样说过。“你难道不知道吗？”
Even if the Shakespeare festival confronts Londoners with the unpleasant realization that the most interesting productions of the bard’s plays come dressed in foreign costumes — while their own theater companies have slipped into playing to the tourists who pay the bills — it’s still the empire of culture that colonized those distant lands, mining their traditions to spice up the British imagination.
莎士比亚戏剧节引起了伦敦市民的不满，因为剧作家最有意思的剧作竟被别国演员演绎着，而他们本地的剧院正经历票房的下滑，只能给游客们表演些他们愿意付费看的剧目。尽管如此，不列颠仍然是一个文化帝国，它征服了那些遥远的土地，并利用它们的传统来刺激本土的想象力。
The British can no longer conquer the world with yeomen’s cries of “God for Harry! England and Saint George!” but the world still tunes in to watch their spectacles with fascination. And more important, so do the British. These spectacles allow them to regain their composure after a season of bad news, but also to compose themselves as the Great Britain we know so well, turning the well-worn face of majesty to the world once more.
不列颠已经不能再在帝国义勇军 “上帝保佑亨利!英格兰和圣乔治!”的呼声中征服世界，但全世界仍将目光集中到英国，如痴如醉地观看他们的盛典。更重要的是，英国人自己也在看。在一系列坏消息之后，这样的盛典能够安定民心，还能将英国民众凝聚成我们所熟悉的大不列颠形象，让世人再一次看到它那张饱经风霜的威严面孔。?
Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky is a professor of English at Kenyon College.