A Wise Provision of the Ancients: The Preface to Book VII of On Architecture

1. It was a wise and useful provision of the ancients to transmit their thoughts to posterity by recording them in treatises, so that they should not be lost, but, being developed in succeeding generations through publication in books, should gradually attain in later times, to the highest refinement of learning. And so the ancients deserve no ordinary, but unending thanks, because they did not pass on in envious silence, but took care that their ideas of every kind should be transmitted to the future in their writings.

1. 古人有一项明智而有益的安排：把自己的思想记录在著作里，传给后世，使它们不致失传，而是经过一代又一代以书籍的形式流传发展，在后来的时代里逐渐达到学问的最高精妙。因此，古人应当得到的不是寻常的感谢，而是无尽的感谢，因为他们没有怀着嫉妒保持沉默，而是用心把各种各样的思想写下来，传给未来。

2. If they had not done so, we could not have known what deeds were done in Troy, nor what Thales, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Xenophanes, and the other physicists thought about nature, and what rules Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, and other philosophers laid down for the conduct of human life; nor would the deeds and motives of Croesus, Alexander, Darius, and other kings have been known, unless the ancients had compiled treatises, and published them in commentaries to be had in universal remembrance with posterity.

2. 假如他们没有这样做，我们就不可能知道特洛伊发生过什么事迹，也不会知道泰勒斯、德谟克利特、阿那克萨戈拉、色诺芬尼以及其他自然哲学家对自然有什么看法，苏格拉底、柏拉图、亚里士多德、芝诺、伊壁鸠鲁以及其他哲学家为人生的行为定下了什么准则；克罗伊斯、亚历山大、大流士以及其他国王的事迹和动机也不会为人所知，除非古人编成了著作，把它们发表在评述之中，让后世普遍记住。

3. So, while they deserve our thanks, those, on the contrary, deserve our reproaches, who steal the writings of such men and publish them as their own; and those also, who depend in their writings, not on their own ideas, but who enviously do wrong to the works of others and boast of it, deserve not merely to be blamed, but to be sentenced to actual punishment for their wicked course of life. With the ancients, however, it is said that such things did not pass without pretty strict chastisement. What the results of their judgments were, it may not be out of place to set forth as they are transmitted to us.

3. 所以，古人值得我们感谢；相反，那些窃取这些人的著作、当作自己的作品发表的人，则应当受到我们的谴责；还有那些写作时不依靠自己的思想、却出于嫉妒去损害别人的作品并以此自夸的人，不但应当受到责备，而且应当因为他们邪恶的行径而受到真正的惩罚。据说在古人那里，这样的事是不会不受到相当严厉的惩戒的。他们的裁决结果如何，按照流传给我们的样子讲一讲，也许并不离题。

6. A group of poets was first brought in to contend, and, as they recited their compositions, the whole audience by its applause showed the judges what it approved. So, when they were individually asked for their votes, the six agreed, and awarded the first prize to the poet who, as they observed, had most pleased the multitude, and the second to the one who came next. But Aristophanes, on being asked for his vote, urged that the poet who had least pleased the audience should be declared to be the first.

6. 首先被带进来比赛的是一群诗人，他们朗诵自己的作品时，全场听众用掌声向评判们表明了自己赞赏什么。所以，当评判们被逐一问到如何投票时，那六位意见一致，把头奖授予他们看到最能取悦众人的那位诗人，二等奖授予其次的一位。可是问到阿里斯托芬时，他却主张把最不讨听众喜欢的那位诗人定为第一名。

7. As the king and the entire assembly showed great indignation, he arose, and asked and received permission to speak. Silence being obtained, he stated that only one of them—his man—was a poet, and that the rest had recited things not their own; furthermore, that judges ought to give their approval, not to thefts, but to original compositions. The people were amazed, and the king hesitated, but Aristophanes, trusting to his memory, had a vast number of volumes brought out from bookcases which he specified, and, by comparing them with what had been recited, obliged the thieves themselves to make confession. So, the king gave orders that they should be accused of theft, and after condemnation sent them off in disgrace; but he honoured Aristophanes with the most generous gifts, and put him in charge of the library.

7. 国王和全场的人都表现出极大的愤慨，他站起身来，请求发言并得到了允许。全场安静下来以后，他说，他们当中只有一位——他推举的那位——是诗人，其余的人朗诵的都不是自己的东西；而且，评判应当赞许的不是剽窃，而是原创的作品。众人都很惊讶，国王也犹豫起来；阿里斯托芬凭着自己的记忆，让人从他指定的书柜里取出大量的书卷，把它们和刚才朗诵的内容对照，迫使那些窃贼自己招认。于是国王下令以盗窃罪起诉他们，判罪之后把他们羞辱地赶走了；而对阿里斯托芬，国王给予了最丰厚的赏赐，并让他主管图书馆。

11. Hence, as I saw that such beginnings on their part formed an introduction suited to the nature of my own purpose, I set out to draw from them, and to go somewhat further.

11. 因此，我看到他们的这些开端，正好可以作为适合我自己写作目的的引导，便着手从中汲取，并且再往前走一些。