You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spend that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joly, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day.
亲爱的朋友，你可能还记得？当我们最后在美丽的花园和甜蜜欢乐红磨坊享受美好时光之时，我在我们散步中停顿了片刻，并在一群昆虫后面停留了些许时间。我们曾观赏过了一种叫做蜉蝣的小型昆虫的大量尸骨，并得知它们的后代是朝生暮死的。
I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation.
我曾在一片树叶上看到一群栖息的蜉蝣。由于我理解所有低等生物的语言，它们看起来是在忙于交谈。我对研究它们的过于的专心致志是对于我在你富有魅力语言上的仍然鲜有进步的一个最好的借口。我满怀好奇心的听着关于这些小生物的讲述；但要是它们快活的七嘴八舌的一起说话时，我就几乎不能听清它们的对话了。
I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a cousin, the other a moscheto; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless
of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a month. Happy people! thought I; you are certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the perfections and imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old gray-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony.
然而，我有时会听见一些不同见解的言论。它们正热烈的讨论两位外国音乐家的好与坏。一个是表兄，另外一个是moscheto；它们的争论耗费了很多时间，看起来似乎它们忽视了自己生命的短暂，以为自己肯定已有一个月的光阴呢。我想这是多么欢快的一群朋友啊！由于你没有公开的委屈抱怨什么，除了国外音乐对象完美或瑕疵的争论，也没有任何其他的争论，所以你肯定是生活在政治清明的政府之下的。我把注意力从它们身上转向一个头部是灰色的蜉蝣身上。它一个孤单的在另外一片叶子上正自言自语些什么，正自娱自乐于自己的独白。由于对它的独白感兴趣，我把它记录下来，希望她能够同样自娱自乐，这样让我能够感到一切欢乐中的最为使人愉快的欢乐以及她有趣的种群和天堂般的和谐。
“It was,” said he, “the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold
and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction. I have lived seven of those hours, a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us continue so long!
“这是我们这个种群的一个富有学识的哲学家的观点，他在生活并飞黄腾达于离我生活时代很久远的过去。这广袤的世界，甜蜜欢乐红磨坊自己也不能够生存超过18小时；我也在寻思，那个观点也是有些依据的。由于，通过发光体的显而易见运动从而把生命奉献给了整个大自然，而大自然那时显而易见的在地球的末日之时向海洋急剧消减，所以它一定是在那时结束自己的生命历程的，消逝在我们周围的水中，置世界于寒冷和黑暗之中。这必然带来大片的死亡和毁灭。我度过了其中的7个小时，一个伟大的时代，过了绝不少于420分钟的时间。鲜有人像我们这样能够坚持这么长时间了！”
I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire. My present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth, who are now, also, no more! And I must soon follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labor in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy! What the political struggles I have been engaged in for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the benefit of our race in general! for in politics what can laws do without morals? Our present race of ephemera will in a course of minutes become corrupt, like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched. And in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long, and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name they say I shall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exists?
And what will become of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joly, shall come to its end and be buried in universal ruin?”
我已经目睹了一代的出生，繁荣和消亡。我目前的朋友都是我年轻时朋友的的孩子或是孙子，但是现在都不在是了！我必须很快跟上他们；因为在自然进程方面，尽管我仍然健康，但我不能预料能否再多存活7到8分钟。我花了多少千辛万苦在这叶子上积累的蜂蜜都不能享用了！我为了这片灌木丛的同胞居民争得到的利益所作的政治斗争，以及我为了我们种族的集体利益所学习的哲学知识！因为在政治领域，法律如果没有了道德相伴，还能有什么用？我们现在的蜉蝣种族将在几分钟的历程之后像那些其他种族和老去的灌木丛一样腐败，因此变得很可怜。在哲学领域，我们的进步是多么的渺小！哎哟！艺术之路长远，而生命之路短暂！我的朋友将会以在我死后留名的办法来安慰我；他们告诉我，对于自然和荣耀来说，我已经存活足够长的时间了。但是什么会成为一个出名的很快将要不存在的蜉蝣的因素呢？当世界本身，甚至整个红磨坊将要走向它们的末日，在全世界的毁灭中被埋葬之时，什么将会成为在18个小时中的整个历史呢？
To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain, but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemeræ, and now and then a kind smile and a tune from the ever amiable Brillante.
对于我，在我所有的渴望追求之后，除了在漫长生命旅程中所折射出的美好的意义，与几位美丽蜉蝣女士的合理的对话和时不时从曾经有从美好的布瑞兰特那显出的和蔼微笑和声调之外，没有任何实质兴奋存在了。
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