Measure for Measure

Spirits are not finely touched

But to fine issues.

  --- Measure for Measure  I, i, 35

Spirits: mind, soul.  finely touched: excellently endowed.  to fine issues: for high purposes

Thus, what with the war, what with the sweat, what with the gallows, and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.

  --- Measure for Measure  I, ii, 82

因戰爭、因流汗瘟疫(COVID-19)、因絞刑、因貧窮，我就短缺了顧客。 sweat: sweating sickness, a form of the plague.  custom-shrunk: short on customers

; good counsellors lack no clients.

  --- Measure for Measure  I, ii, 106

好律師不會沒有客戶。  counsellor: legal advocate

But it chances

The stealth of our most mutual entertainment

With character too gross is writ on Juliet.

  --- Measure for Measure  I, ii, 153

但是偶然地

我們兩情相悅幽會

在朱麗葉身上留下了很明顯的痕跡。 character: writing, letters.  gross: large, obvious

930

And liberty plucks justice by the nose;

  --- Measure for Measure  I, iii, 29

liberty: improper freedom.  pluck: to remove something from where it is growing by pulling

I hold you as a thing enskied, and sainted,

  --- Measure for Measure  I, iv, 34

enskied: dwelling in heaven

, a man whose blood

Is very snow-broth; one who never feels

The wanton stings and motions of the sense;

  --- Measure for Measure  I, iv, 57

snow-broth: melted snow.  sting: carnal impulse, sexual desire.  motions: urgings

Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft might win,

By fearing to attempt.

  --- Measure for Measure  I, iv, 77

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,

Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape, till custom make it

Their perch, and not their terror.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, i, 1

我們不要把法律當作稻草人，

豎立田裡嚇走猛禽，

讓它保持形狀，鳥兒習以為常把它當作

落腳點，不再害怕。  fear: frighten.  birds of prey: birds that kill other creatures for food

The jury, passing on the prisoner’s life,

May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, i, 19

pass: pass sentence, give judgement.  thief: often used in the more general sense ”criminal,”  try: to examine and decide a case in a lawcourt

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, i, 38

(Sir, she came in) great with child, and longing … for stewed pruines.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, i, 89

great: pregnant  stewed pruins: stewed prunes were a favorite dish in brothels; hence the term became a slang designation for prostitutes

This will last out a night in Russia

When nights are longest there.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, i, 134

(I’ll be supposed upon a book,) his face is the worst thing about him.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, i, 155

supposed: blunder for deposed, i.e. sworn.  book: Bible

For mine own part, I never come into any room in a tap-house, but I am drawn in.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, i, 208

我自己從來沒有自動走進酒家，都是被騙進去的。 tap-house: house where beer drawn from the tap is sold in small quantities, ale-house.  drawn in: attracted to enter, or cheated

940

Condemn the fault, and not the act of it?

  --- Measure for Measure  II, ii, 37

No ceremony that to great ones ‘longs,

Not the king’s crown, not the deputed sword,

The marshal’s truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,

Become them with one half so good a grace

As mercy does.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, ii, 59

ceremony: symbolic appurtenance.  ‘longs: belongs.  deputed sword: i.e. sword of justice, symbolizing an authority deputed by God.  marshal’s truncheon: military commander’s staff of office.  grace: appropriateness

Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once,

And He that might the vantage best have took

Found out the remedy. How would you be

If He, which is the top of judgment, should

But judge you as you are?

  --- Measure for Measure  II, ii, 73

vantage: advantage.  top of judgment: supreme judge

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, ii, 90

法律雖然睡著，並未死亡。

O, it is excellent

To have a giant’s strength; but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, ii, 107

唉，擁有巨人的力量

該多好啊；但是無自制地使用這力量

又太殘忍。  like a giant: i.e. without restraint

That in the captain’s but a choleric word,

Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, ii, 130

captain: general.  choleric: angry.  flat: absolute, downright.  blasphemy: defamation

is this her fault, or mine?

The tempter, or the tempted, who sins most, ha?

  --- Measure for Measure  II, ii, 163

Can it be

That modesty may more betray our sense

Than woman’s lightness?

  --- Measure for Measure  II, ii, 167

難道

淑靜的女郎比放蕩的婦人

更能引起我們的情慾？ betray: lead astray, mislead.  sense: sensual nature. lightness: wantonness

      ; as these black masks

Proclaim an enshield beauty ten times louder

Than beauty could, displayed.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, iv, 79

恰似黑面紗

遮掩妳的美貌要比拋頭露面的美貌

更加十倍動人。 enshield: enshielded, shielded from view

    , it oft falls out,

To have what we would have, we speak not what we mean.

  --- Measure for Measure  II, iv, 117

falls out: comes out

The miserable have no other medicine

But only hope:

  --- Measure for Measure  III, i, 2

可憐的人除了希望

別無藥物：

    A breath thou art,

Servile to all the skyey influences,

  --- Measure for Measure  III, i, 8

你只是一口氣，

受天上星辰的支配，  Servile to: the slave of.  skyey influences: influence of the stars

950

        Thou hast nor youth nor age,

But, as it were, an after-dinner’s sleep,

Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth

Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms

Of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,

Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,

To make thy riches pleasant.

  --- Measure for Measure  III, i, 32

nor youth: neither youth.  an after-dinner’s … both: our life … resembles our dreams after dinner [i.e. the noonday meal], when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening.  as aged: as if aged, i.e. no different from age.  alms: clothing, food, or money that is given to poor people.  palsied: affected with palsy.  eld: old age.  heat: vigor, vitality.  It was thought that in old age the blood became cold and thick.  affection: passion.  limb: i.e. proper use of any bodily member

The sense of death is most in apprehension,

And the poor beetle that we tread upon

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

  --- Measure for Measure  III, i, 77

apprehension: i.e. the idea of it.  the poor … dies: i.e. as for the physical pain of death, a giant feels proportionately no greater pain than a beetle feels

    If I must die,

I will encounter darkness as a bride,

And hug it in my arms.

  --- Measure for Measure  III, i, 82

如果我必須死，

我會找黑暗當新娘，

把它擁抱在我懷裡。  encounter: go to meet

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature, is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

  --- Measure for Measure  III, i, 128

最令人厭倦的塵世生活

衰老、病痛、貧窮、監禁

這些自然折磨，比起我們害怕的死亡

也算是天堂了。  loathed: loathsome

The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good;

  --- Measure for Measure  III, i, 180

Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful.

  --- Measure for Measure  III, i, 208

美德是勇敢的，善良不膽小。  fearful: timid

; there, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana.

  --- Measure for Measure  III, i, 279

‘Twas never merry world since of two usuries the merriest was put down,

  --- Measure for Measure  III, ii, 5

自從高利貸和賣淫兩種重利事業被取締 這個世界就不再令人滿意，  ‘Twas … world: things have never gone well.  two usuries: i.e. lending money at interest and fornication, both of which produce increase

This news is old enough, yet it is every day’s news.

  --- Measure for Measure  III, ii, 229

這新聞很陳舊了，卻是每天的新聞。

He who the sword of heaven will bear

Should be as holy as severe;

  --- Measure for Measure  III, ii, 261

sword of heaven: i.e. authority to execute justice

O, what may man within him hide,

Though angel on the outward side!

  --- Measure for Measure  III, ii, 271

Take, O, take those lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn,

And those eyes, the break of day,

Lights that do mislead the morn;

But my kisses bring again, bring again,

Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.

  --- Measure for Measure  IV, i, 1

were forsworn: swore falsely.  mislead the morn: i.e. make morning think that the sun has risen

960

(‘Tis good; though) music oft hath such a charm

To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.

  --- Measure for Measure  IV, i, 14

charm: magic spell.  make bad good: make evil attractive

Every true man’s apparel fits your thief.

  --- Measure for Measure  IV, ii, 43

每個良民的服裝讓你們幹小偷的穿上都合身。true man: honest man (regularly used in antithesis to thief)

（Nay, friar,）I am a kind of bur, I shall stick.

  --- Measure for Measure  IV, iii, 179

(Nothing goes right--) we would, and we would not.

  --- Measure for Measure  IV, iv, 34

We want something and we don’t want it at the same time.

A forted residence ‘gainst the tooth of time

And razure of oblivion.

  --- Measure for Measure  V, i, 12

        , for truth is truth

To the end of reckoning.

  --- Measure for Measure  V, i, 45

到地老天荒

事實終究是事實。 Truth is truth until the end of time.

(Why, you are nothing then:) neither maid, widow, nor wife?

  --- Measure for Measure  V, i, 177

既不是閨女、寡婦，也不是人妻？

Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure;

Like doth quit like, and Measure still for Measure.

  --- Measure for Measure  V, i, 410

Haste … haste: haste is always repaid with haste.  quit: requite, retaliate with.  Measure … Measure.  Cf. Matthew 7:2: “with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you again”.

Measure: treatment meted out

They say best men are moulded out of faults,

And for the most, become much more the better

For being a little bad;

  --- Measure for Measure  V, i, 439

moulded: shaped

Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death, whipping, and hanging.

  --- Measure for Measure  V, i, 522

殿下，娶一個娼妓，那簡直是被大石塊壓死、被鞭刑、被絞死。 punk: prostitute, harlot.  pressing to death: one accused of felony who refused to plead guilty or not guilty was secured on his back and weights were piled on him in increasing number until he pleaded or died.

968

What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.

  --- Measure for Measure  V, i, 537

我的一切屬於你，你的一切屬於我。