三岛由纪夫金阁寺里的摘抄及中英翻译对比V

　　金阁依然屹立在清风明月的夜空之下，保持着永恒不变的黯郁的均衡。林立的纤细的廊柱承受着月光的时候，看起来像琴弦，金阁有时就像一只巨大的神奇的乐器。月亮时高时低，造成了这样的景观，今夜也一样。但是，风决不震响琴弦，只是白白地打琴弦缝里穿过去。
　　(The temple, filled with its usual gloomy equilibrium, towered into the windy moonlit sky. The slender pillars stood close together; as the moon shone down on them, they looked like harpstrings and the temple itself looked like some huge, peculiar musical instrument. This particular impression depended on the height of the moon. Tonight there was no mistaking it. Yet the wind blew vainly through the spaces between those soundless harpstrings.)
　　＂我＂的内心变得越发残虐了，那就是＂必须烧掉金阁＂！
　　人类总是浮现着永生的幻想，而美丽的金阁却飘荡着灭亡的气息。一般地说，有生命的东西不具有金阁那般严密的一次性。人类只不过承继自然界诸种属性的一部分，运用有效的接替方法传播和繁殖。杀人如果是为着消灭对象的一回性，那么所谓杀人就是永久的误算。我是这样想的。如此说来，金阁和人的存在越发表现出了明显的对比，一方面，人类易于灭亡姿态，却浮现着永生的幻象；而金阁不朽的美丽，却飘荡着灭亡的可能性。人类这种Motal现象，是无法根绝的。金阁这种不灭的东西，反而能够使之消灭。
　　(In general, things that were endowed with life did not, like the Golden Temple, have the rigid quality of existing once and for all. Human beings were merely allotted one part of nature’s various attributes and, by an effective method of substitution, they diffused that part and made it multiply. If the purpose pf a murder was to destroy the once-and-for-all quality of one’s victim, then that murder was based on a permanent miscalculation. Thus my thoughts led me to recognising more and more clearly that there was a complete contrast between the existence of the Golden Temple and that of human beings. On the other hand, a phantasm of immortality emerged from the apparently destructible aspect of human beings; on the other, the apparently indestructible beauty of the Golden Temple gave rise to the possibility of destroying it. Mortal things like human beings cannot be eradicated; indestructible things like the Golden Temple can be destroyed.)
　　美到底是什么？
　　美的东西，你所喜欢的美的东西，只是人的精神中委托于认识的残存部分、剩余部分的幻影，亦即你所说的’忍耐生命的另外方法’的幻影。也可以说，这些东西本来是没有的。话虽这么说，但强化这种幻影，尽可能使之赋予现实性，仍然是认识啊。对于认识来说，美，绝不是慰藉，它是女人，也是妻子，但不是慰藉。然而，这种决非属于慰藉的美，一旦和认识结婚，就能生出一种东西来。哪怕虚无、缥缈、不可捉摸。总是可以生出某种东西来的。世上称作艺术的就是如此。
　　(Well, beauty — beauty that you love so much — is an illusion of the remaining part, the excessive part, which has been consigned to knowledge. It is an illusion of the ＂other way to bear life＂ which you mentioned. One could say that in fact there is no such things as beauty. What makes the illusion so strong, what imparts it with such a power of reality, is precisely knowledge. From the point of view of knowledge, beauty is never a consolation. It may be a woman, it may be one’s wife, but it’s never a consolation. Yet from the marriage between this beautiful thing which is never a consolation, on the one hand, and knowledge, on the other, something is born. It is as evanescent as a bubble and utterly hopeless. Yet something is born. That something is what people call art.)
　　美对于＂我＂来说就是怨敌。
　　为了烧毁它，＂我＂变得兴奋且颤抖，终于将火苗点燃了。看着火苗逐渐窜上金阁，看着它翻滚的浓烟，金阁的上空像是洒满了无尽的金光。＂我＂的愿望终于达成了。
　　是的，美到达了极致就会遭到毁灭，金阁就这样消失了 ......