林肯總統的蓋茨堡演說

林肯總統於1863年11月19日到賓州的蓋茨堡演說,由於講稿實在太短,連攝影師的相機架子都還沒有架好,演講即已結束.據信蓋茨堡演說當天林肯僅有一張照片存世(下第一圖).

其實當天主辦單位邀請的主要演講者是Edward Everett(最下圖)此君講了足足兩小時,講稿有13,607字,今天甚少人去唸此文,而林肯總統的蓋茨堡演說僅272字,兩三分鐘即講完了.

南北戰爭(1861年4月15日-1865年4月9日)賓州蓋茨堡之役是發生在1863年的7月1,2,3日三天,三天南北雙方共打死了五萬一千人,適逢夏天,蓋茨堡小鎮屍臭邇漫達數月之久,一直到了11月中旬林肯總統才到蓋茨堡悼祭戰死的亡靈並發表演說.

林肯總統是一位苦學自修而成功的總統,他一輩子上過的學校加起來不超過一年,但他的英語的造詣,用字遣詞,廣為後人所讚賞.

唸高中時蓋茨堡演說是英文課本中的一課,當時一切為考試,那能欣賞課文美不美,等對美國史,特別是南北戰爭的歷史有較深入的瞭解之後,重讀林肯總統的蓋茨堡演說,豈能用激動來形容.

 Gettysburg Address

November 19, 1863 , Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, USA


Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon 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.