卷五·序言　向至高之神与日月星辰祈祷

BOOK V

卷五

PREFACE.

序言

[1] We have laid, Mavortius, the greatest foundations of our promise, and our discourse, growing step by step, has advanced to maturity. For everything that seemed to some difficult to explain and wrapped in the windings of obscurity we have shown by an explanation in a discourse easy to learn. If, then, a capable mind, stirred by the longing of an ardent soul, has drunk in the preceding books, and if it was conceived under a suitable aspect of the stars, it will attain the divine secrets of this science, and, initiated into all the disciplines of this science, it will receive the whole order of divine interpretation, so that it may be able both to find and to explain the fates of men alike.

〔一〕马沃尔提乌斯，我们已经为我们的许诺奠下了最大的根基，我们的论述一步步增长，已经进到成熟。因为凡是在一些人看来难以解释、裹在晦涩迂曲之中的一切，我们都以易学的论述解释、显示出来了。所以，倘若一个有才具的心智，被炽热灵魂的渴望所激动，汲取了前面几卷，而它又是在星辰合宜的相位之下受孕的，它就会到达这门学问的神圣秘奥；它被引入这门学问的一切学科，就会领受神圣解释的全部次序，好能同样地找出并解释人们的命运。

[2] But the hearer expects something more from us; for the beginnings of the preceding books were so shaped that from what we have written the substance of a still greater work is called for. So that I may not, then, deceive the desire of a longing soul with a false promise, I shall lay aside all the spite of envy, cast off all the torpor of idleness, and come to the accumulated secrets of mathesis, lest your eagerness be left behind at the very beginnings through the fault of an envious and malicious silence. We therefore render the full work we promised, making everything known in detail to your wisdom.

〔二〕但听者期待我们还有更多；因为前面几卷的开端是这样塑成的：从我们所写的东西里，还要求一部更大著作的实质。所以，为了不以虚假的许诺欺骗渴求之心的愿望，我要放下嫉妒的一切怨气，抛开懒散的一切迟钝，来到数学积聚的秘奥，免得你的热切因嫉妒而恶意的沉默之过，在起头处就被撇下。所以我们交出所许诺的完整著作，把一切逐一告知你的智慧。

[3] But lest our bare discourse be left without divine protection, and lest the spite of some malevolent man who opposes us assail it in its very undertakings: whoever you are, God, who day by day sustain the course of the heavens with swift haste; who keep the waves of the sea in perpetual, restless motion; who have strengthened the solidity of the earth with the unmoved strength of its foundations; who have refreshed the toil of earthly bodies with the sleep of night; who, when their strength has been restored, give back again the grace of the sweetest light; who sustain the frailty of the body by the divine inspiration of the mind; who quicken the whole substance of your work with the healthful breaths of the winds; who pour forth the waters of springs and rivers with unwearying necessity; who bring round the variety of the seasons by the fixed courses of the days; alone the governor and prince of all things, alone emperor and lord, whom the whole power of the divinities serves, whose will is the substance of the finished work, by whose incorruptible laws nature, gathered together, has adorned all things with the substance of perpetuity; you, father and mother of all alike, you who are bound to yourself as father and son by a single bond of kinship: to you we stretch out suppliant hands, you we worship with trembling supplication:

〔三〕但为了我们赤裸的论述不至于失去神圣的护佑，也为了某个与我们为敌的恶意之人的怨气不在它起步之时攻击它：无论你是哪一位神——你日复一日以迅疾的速度维持诸天的运行；你使海浪永远不停地动荡；你以根基不可动摇的力量巩固了大地的坚实；你以夜间的睡眠使地上身体的劳累得以恢复；在它们的力气复原之后，你又把最甜美的光的恩惠交还；你以心智的神圣灵感维持身体的脆弱；你以风的有益吹拂使你造物的全部实质生机勃勃；你以不倦的必然倾泻出泉水与河流；你以日子的固定运行带回季节的变化；你是万物唯一的舵手与君王，唯一的皇帝与主，众神的全部权能都侍奉你，你的意志就是完成之作的实质，自然被你不朽的法则聚合起来，以永存的实质装饰了万物；你是万物共同的父亲，也是母亲，你以唯一的亲缘纽带把自己与自己结合，既是父，又是子——我们向你伸出祈求的手，以战栗的恳求敬拜你：

[4] grant pardon that we attempt to explain the courses of your stars and their efficacies; let it be yours that some divine power has driven us to this interpretation. With a pure mind, set apart from all earthly dealings and cleansed of the stain of every wickedness, we have written these books for your Romans, so that, when the art of every discipline has been carried over, this alone might not appear to remain as a work to which the Roman genius had not aspired.

〔四〕请宽恕我们试图解释你的星辰的运行及其效力；愿这是你所为：是某种神圣的力量驱使我们作这番解释。我们以纯洁的心智，远离一切尘世的交往，洗净一切恶行的污点，为你的罗马人写下这几卷书，好让一切学科的技艺都已转译过来之后，不至于唯独这一项仍像是罗马的才智未曾企及的著作。

[5] And you, courses of the everlasting stars; you too, Moon, mother of human bodies; and you, O prince of all the stars, who in the Moon's monthly courses take away her light and give it back alike, Sun, best and greatest, who day by day order all things above all things by the moderation of your majesty, through whom the immortal soul is apportioned to all living beings by divine disposition, who alone open the gates of the supernal seat, at whose judgment the order of the fates is arranged:

〔五〕还有你们，永恒星辰的运行；还有你，月亮，人类身体之母；还有你，啊，众星的君王，你在月亮每月的运行中夺去她的光、又同样交还给她；太阳，至善至大者，你日复一日以你威严的节度把万物安排在万物之上，借着你，不朽的灵魂依神圣的安排分配给一切生灵，唯有你打开天上居所的门，命运的次序依你的裁断安排：

[6] grant pardon that our slender discourse has come to the secrets of your divinity; it was no sacrilegious greed or ardor of a profane mind that drove us to this study, but a soul shaped by divine inspiration has attempted to explain the whole of what it had learned, so that whatever the divine ancients brought forth from the Egyptian sanctuaries it might carry over to the temples of the Tarpeian rock. Grant me, then, the protection of your decree, and strengthen the trembling of my soul by your majesty, lest, deprived of the protection of your divinity, I be unable to find the order of the promised work.

〔六〕请宽恕我们微薄的论述来到了你们神性的秘奥；驱使我们从事这项研究的，不是亵渎的贪欲，也不是不洁心智的狂热，而是一个由神圣灵感塑成的灵魂，试图把它所学的全部解释出来，好让神圣的古人从埃及圣所里带出来的一切，它都能运到塔尔佩亚岩的神庙。所以，请赐给我你们裁定的护佑，以你们的威严坚定我灵魂的战栗，免得我失去你们神性的护佑，找不到所许诺之作的次序。