《瓦尔登湖·第七章·豆田·The Bean-Field》第12节
We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction. They all reflect and absorb his rays alike, and the former make but a small part of the glorious picture which he beholds in his daily course. In his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light and heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. What though I value the seed of these beans, and harvest that in the fall of the year? This broad field which I have looked at so long looks not to me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to influences more genial to it, which water and make it green. These beans have results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat (in Latin spica, obsoletely speca, from spe, hope) should not be the only hope of the husbandman; its kernel or grain (granum from gerendo, bearing) is not all that it bears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds? It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer’s barns. The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also.
注释摘要
梭罗在这一段里把豆田劳动引向了一个更大的问题：我们究竟为谁耕种，耕种的目的又是什么。前文他一直在讲自己怎么锄地、怎么跟土拨鼠和杂草搏斗、怎么算账，但到了这里，整章的调子忽然抬高，视角从“我和我的两亩半豆子”拉到了太阳俯瞰大地的高度。这个转折是精心安排的，因为前面那些细账和劳动，如果只停留在账簿上，整个夏天就只是一笔赚了八块七毛一分半的小生意，而他要做的，是…