英語美文：愛情不是商品

摘要：許多人心目中普遍存在的一種錯誤觀念——愛情, 像商品一樣, 可以 “偷走”。實際上，許多州都頒佈法令，允許索取“情感轉讓”賠償金。

A reader in Florida, apparently bruised by somepersonal experience, writes in to complain, “If I steala nickel’s worth of merchandise, I am a thief andpunished; but if I steal the love of another’s wife, Iam free.”

佛羅里達州的一位讀者顯然是在個人經歷上受過創傷, 他寫信來抱怨道: “如果我偷走了五分錢的商品, 我就是個賊, 要受到懲罰, 但是如果我偷走了他人妻子的愛情, 我沒事兒。”

　　This is a prevalent misconception in many people’s minds—that love, like merchandise, canbe “stolen”. Numerous states, in fact, have enacted laws allowing damages for “alienation ofaffections”.

這是許多人心目中普遍存在的一種錯誤觀念——愛情, 像商品一樣, 可以 “偷走”。實際上，許多州都頒佈法令，允許索取“情感轉讓”賠償金。

But love is not a commodity; the real thing cannot be bought, sold, traded or stolen. It is anact of the will, a turning of the emotions, a change in the climate of the personality.

但是愛情並不是商品;真情實意不可能買到，賣掉，交換，或者偷走。愛情是志願的行動，是感情的轉向，是個性發揮上的變化。

When a husband or wife is “stolen” by another person, that husband or wife was already ripefor the stealing, was already predisposed toward a new partner. The “love bandit” was onlytaking what was waiting to be taken, what wanted to be taken.

當丈夫或妻子被另一個人“偷走”時，那個丈夫或妻子就已經具備了被偷走的條件，事先已經準備接受新的伴侶了。這位“愛匪”不過是取走等人取走、盼人取走的東西。

We tend to treat persons like goods. We even speak of the children “belonging” to theirparents. But nobody “belongs” to anyone else. Each person belongs to himself, and to dren are entrusted to their parents, and if their parents do not treat them properly, thestate has a right to remove them from their parents’ trusteeship.

我們往往待人如物。我們甚至說孩子“屬於”父母。但是誰也不“屬於”誰。人都屬於自己和上帝。孩子是託付給父母的，如果父母不善待他們，州政府就有權取消父母對他們的託管身份。

Most of us, when young, had the experience of a sweetheart being taken from us by somebodymore attractive and more appealing. At the time, we may have resented this intruder—but aswe grew older, we recognized that the sweetheart had never been ours to begin with. It wasnot the intruder that “caused” the break, but the lack of a real relationship.

我們多數人年輕時都有過戀人被某個更有誘惑力、更有吸引力的人奪去的經歷。在當時，我們興許怨恨這位不速之客—但是後來長大了，也就認識到了心上人本來就不屬於我們。並不是不速之客“導致了”決裂，而是缺乏真實的關係。

On the surface, many marriages seem to break up because of a “third party”. This is, however,a psychological illusion. The other woman or the other man merely serves as a pretext fordissolving a marriage that had already lost its essential integrity.

從表面上看，許多婚姻似乎是因爲有了“第三者”才破裂的。然而這是一種心理上的幻覺。另外那個女人，或者另外那個男人，無非是作爲藉口，用來解除早就不是完好無損的婚姻罷了。

Nothing is more futile and more self-defeating than the bitterness of spurned love, thevengeful feeling that someone else has “come between” oneself and a beloved. This is always adistortion of reality, for people are not the captives or victims of others—they are free agents,working out their own destinies for good or for ill.

因失戀而痛苦，因別人“插足”於自己與心上人之間而圖報復，是最沒有出息、最自作自受的樂。這種事總是歪曲了事實真相，因爲誰都不是給別人當俘虜或犧牲品——人都是自由行事的，不論命運是好是壞，都由自己來作主。

But the rejected lover or mate cannot afford to believe that his beloved has freely turned awayfrom him— and so he ascribes sinister or magical properties to the interloper. He calls him ahypnotist or a thief or a home-breaker. In the vast majority of cases, however, when a homeis broken, the breaking has begun long before any “third party” has appeared on the scene.

但是，遭離棄的情人或配偶無法相信她的心上人是自由地背離他的——因而他歸咎於插足者心術不正或迷人有招。他把他叫做催眠師、竊賊或破壞家庭的人。然而，從大多數事例看，一個家的破裂，是早在什麼“第三者”出現之前就開始了的。

　　關於愛情最經典的英文名言20句

Relationships: some dread them, while others crave them. And what is it about them that make them so lovable yet difficult at the same time?

We all have gone through the honeymoon phase, when we are convinced that the perfection is here to stay―forever―and then we dive into that not-so-perfect zone when we realize that we might have taken that love for granted. The perfect relationship is about balance. Neglecting any aspect of it might rock the boat a little and a few friendly reminders cause no harm. Therefore, here are a few quotes about unconditional love, the ups and downs of marriage, and everlasting friendship that every couple should know.

1. Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. ― Zora Neale Hurston

2. You know you have found love when you can’t find your way back. ― Robert Brault

3. He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began. ― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

4. And still, after all this time, the Sun has never said to the Earth, “You owe me.” Look what happens with love like that. It lights up the sky. ― Rumi

5. Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings. — Anaïs Nin

6. The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space. — Marilyn Monroe

7. But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. ― Khalil Gibran

8. By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher. ― Socrates

9. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I’d hoped to give to you forever. ― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

10. Our eyelashes brushed like they would weave together by themselves, turning us into one wild thing. I say, “I think I missed you before I met you even.” ― Francesca Lia Block

11. Last night, I got up the courage to ask you if you regretted us. “There are things I miss,” you said. “But if I didn’t have you, I’d miss more.” ― David Levithan, The Lover’s Dictionary

12. The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands. ― Alexandra Penney

13. The most important ingredient we put into any relationship is not what we say or what we do, but what we are. ― Stephen R. Covey

14. Millions and millions of years would still not give me half enough time to describe that tiny instant of all eternity when you put your arms around me and I put my arms around you. ― Jacques Prévert

15. When I am with you, we stay up all night. When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep. Praise God for those two insomnias! And the difference between them. ― Rumi

16. Men marry women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men with the hope they will change. Invariably they are both disappointed. — Albert Einstein

17. Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind. And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. ― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

18. So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s going to be really hard; we’re gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me…everyday. — Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

19. Passion makes the world go round. Love just makes it a safer place. ― Ice T

20. Take my hand and we’ll make it―I swear! ― Jon Bon Jovi, Livin’ on a Prayer