美国纽约客网站于2024年7月21日发表题为《拜登退场》的文章。以下观点不代表任何译者立场，现将全文翻译如下：
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Joe Biden Leaves the Stage
拜登退场
The Shakespearean end to a distinguished reign.
卓越统治的莎士比亚式终幕
The painful but essential self-removal of Joe Biden from the race for President—one that he has run so hard and, in many ways, in so distinguished a manner—holds some of the shape of a Shakespearean tragedy. So obvious is the seeming connection that it was already a pregnant comparison before there was even a likelihood, much less a certainty, that Biden would cede the stage. The Times has been full of talk of “Shakespearean” falls, its pages touched by leavenings of Julius Caesar and mutterings of King Lear. Indeed, a few weeks ago at the Aspen Ideas Festival, the paper’s own Bard-obsessive columnist, Maureen Dowd, asked two eminent Shakespeareans, Stephen Greenblatt and Simon Schama, just whom in the canon Trump and Biden reminded them of. Neither, tellingly, at that moment, had a strong analogue for the President—though, for Trump, Schama chose Dogberry, the clownish sheriff with the incompetent posse, in “Much Ado About Nothing,” albeit a Dogberry with a darker heart.
乔·拜登痛苦却必要的主动退出总统竞选——一场他曾如此努力且在许多方面表现卓越的角逐——具有几分莎士比亚悲剧的韵味。这种关联如此显而易见，以至于在拜登让出舞台的可能性甚至确定性出现之前，就已成为一个意味深长的比喻。《纽约时报》上充斥着“莎士比亚式”陨落的讨论，版面上满是《凯撒大帝》和《李尔王》的味道。事实上，几周前在阿斯彭思想节上，该报痴迷莎翁的专栏作家莫琳·道德向两位著名的莎士比亚研究学者斯蒂芬·格林布拉特和西蒙·沙马提问：在莎翁的剧作中，特朗普和拜登让他们想到了谁。有趣的是，当时两人都没有为总统找到一个贴切的对应人物——尽管沙马为特朗普选择了《无事生非》中那个带着无能之徒的小丑警长多贝里，但只是因为多贝里心思更为阴暗。
An analogue that immediately comes to mind for Biden at this dramatic moment in his and the nation’s life is John of Gaunt, in “Richard II,” the deeply patriotic, yet superannuated and out-of-touch grand old man who, on his deathbed, delivers a matchlessly beautiful speech in praise of the England he has known and of the values he fears are passing. “This earth, this realm, this England,” he chants, warning with desperate alarm that his opponents’ “rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last”—meaning, of course, that he thinks it might. Gaunt resonates because of the depth of Biden’s patriotism and the self-evidence, post-debate, of his own superannuation—of the pathos of his devotion to his country and of the increasing impotence of his rhetoric, however deeply felt and however right the warnings that he offered were. Anyone who admires Biden’s accomplishments as President—real, far-reaching, and always well intended even when arguably wrong—had to respond with pain to the past few weeks’ pitiful, and often infuriating, show of bafflement. What is wrong with you? he kept demanding, in effect. I’ve kept my promises. I’ve achieved my ends. I have been a good and honest king! Turn on me and stab me in the back because I lost my way in a duel where one man lied as he breathed—and all anyone talked about was how unsteady was my gait (F.D.R. couldn’t walk at all) and how husky was my voice (Reagan’s was husky, too).
在拜登及国家生活的这一戏剧性时刻，马上联想到的类比是《理查二世》的冈特的约翰。这位深爱祖国却已年迈力衰、与时代脱节的老人在临终前发表了一篇无与伦比的美文，赞颂他所熟悉的英格兰和他担心正在消逝的价值观。“这片土地，这个王国，这个英格兰，”他吟诵道，绝望地警告说他的对手们“狂暴肆虐的烈火不能持久”——当然，这意味着他认为它可能会持续下去。冈特之所以引起共鸣，是因为拜登对祖国的深厚热爱，以及在辩论后明显自身的老态——他对国家的忠诚令人动容，但他的言辞却日渐无力，尽管他发出的警告深思熟虑且正确。任何赞赏拜登总统成就的人——那些真实的、影响深远的，即便有争议但总是出于善意的成就——都会对过去几周他那令人痛心、常常令人恼火的困惑表现感到不适。你们怎么了？他似乎一直在质问。我信守了承诺。我实现了目标。我一直是个好国王，一个诚实的国王！就因为我在一场对决中迷失方向——而对手像呼吸一样撒谎——你们就背叛我，只因我步伐不稳（小罗斯福走都走不了）、嗓音沙哑（里根也嗓音沙哑）。
But, of course, it was apparent to all who admired Biden, if not soon enough to the court circle around him, that his fall was irrecoverable. The man we saw in the debate last month on CNN was not simply an aging politician having “a bad night”; Biden was lost and wandering on a heath of his own devising, and the attempts by his supporters and his friends to rally around him recalled not so much a character out of Shakespeare as the medieval epic hero El Cid, who is mounted on his horse in the desperate hope that the memory of his courage might still be enough to frighten the enemy.
然而，对所有欣赏拜登的人来说，虽然他周围的朝臣们意识到得不够及时，但显而易见的是：他的陨落已无法挽回。上个月我们在CNN辩论中看到的那个人，不仅仅是一位年迈政治家经历了“糟糕的一夜”；拜登迷失在自己营造的荒原上，支持者和朋友试图团结在他周围的一幕，与其说让人想起莎士比亚笔下的某个角色，不如说更像中世纪史诗英雄熙德。人们将他扶上马背，绝望地希望他的余威仍足以震慑敌人。
So, yes, let us go there: of all the Shakespearean figures whom Biden’s fall recalls, it is Lear. Lear in his sense of self-loss; Lear in his inability to understand, at least at first, the nature of his precipitous descent; and, yes, Lear in the wild rage, as people sometimes forget, that he directs at his circumstances. “Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain / Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters. . . . Then let fall / Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave, / A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.” This was all too evidently Biden’s emotional tone in these past weeks. When he announced to George Stephanopoulos, in an interview meant to recover his position, that he’s “not only campaigning” but “running the world,” the forced grandiosity of the wounded King was all too apparent. (For his daughters, read passim, his one-time supporters, with Nancy Pelosi cast as Goneril, and Barack Obama as an improbable Regan, a double betrayal by those whom he had trusted.)
在所有让人联想到拜登陨落的莎士比亚角色中，李尔王无疑最为贴切。国王李尔的自我迷失、难以理解，至少初期不能理解自身的骤然衰落，以及人们常常忽视的、他对处境的狂怒，都与拜登如出一辙。“雷电啊，尽情地轰鸣吧！火焰啊，喷射吧！暴雨啊，倾泻吧！雷电、风雨、雷霆、烈火都不是我的女儿……尽情释放你们可怕的威力吧：我站在这里，作为你们的奴隶，一个可怜、衰弱、无力、备受蔑视的老人。”这些话仿佛就是拜登近几周的情绪写照。当他在一次本意是挽回局面的采访中向乔治·斯特凡诺普洛斯宣称自己“不仅在竞选”，还在”治理世界”时，这位受伤国王刻意的夸大之词昭然若揭。（在这出戏中，他曾经的支持者们便是李尔王的女儿们，南希·佩洛西扮演高纳里尔，而巴拉克·奥巴马则成了不那么贴切的里根，这是来自信任之人的双重背叛。）
But the President stands, or sits, in relation to Lear with this significant addendum. Until his decision to stand aside for a new Democratic Party nominee, Biden seemed to be solving an ancient literary question: What would have happened if the King had not given up the throne? And that answer was plain; it would have been even worse than what happened when he did. Lear, let us recall, begins the play by giving up his office in exchange for the gratification of the praise of his children, all of whom ostentatiously flatter him—except for Cordelia, the only one who genuinely loves him, who fears seeming insincere. The loss of office and the betrayal of his daughters leaves him soon alone and friendless, save for his loyal fool, out in a wild storm.
然而，拜登与李尔王的关联还有一个重要补充。在决定让位给新的民主党提名人之前，拜登似乎正在解答一个古老的文学问题：如果国王没有放弃王位，会发生什么？答案显而易见：情况会比他放弃时更糟。让我们回想一下，《李尔王》的开场是李尔为换取子女的赞美而放弃王位，所有人都夸张地奉承他——除了真心爱他却担心显得不真诚的寇蒂莉亚。王位的丧失和女儿们的背叛很快让他孤立无援，只剩下忠诚的弄臣相伴，流落在狂风暴雨中。
With Biden, though, unlike Lear on the heath, raging in the company of only his fool, we were out there on the heath with him, being rained on and blown about, too. The final chapter of the Biden campaign was not pleasant or pretty, with the rage of the President lacking the dignity of age and the instinctive patriotism of service that he had shown for so long, replacing it with sheer frustration and echoes of another, forgotten Joe Biden. That was the Biden whom chroniclers had long seen as profoundly ambitious, easily frustrated, and in his way already unduly embittered by the neglect of the élite for whom so much, including political elevation, seemed so much easier. The Biden whom Richard Ben Cramer portrayed in “What It Takes,” a chronicle of the 1988 Presidential race—awkward, amiable, and angry—seemed uncomfortably reanimated. On a daily basis, we were watching a man who might well have mulishly pushed aside the evidence of his cratering support. For weeks, there was the very real chance of civic catastrophe, with the fierce blaze of riot likely to set the whole country on fire.
然而，与只有弄臣相伴、在荒原上怒吼的李尔不同，我们与拜登一同置身于风雨交加的荒原之中。拜登竞选的终章既不愉快也不美好，总统的愤怒缺少了他长期以来表现出的年长者的尊严和服务国家的本能爱国精神，取而代之的是纯粹的挫败感和被人遗忘的双重失意。那是记录者长期以来所见的拜登：野心勃勃、易于沮丧，并且因精英阶层的忽视而心生苦涩，对他们来说，包括政治晋升在内的许多事情似乎都来得更容易。理查德·本·克雷默在《成功之道》中描绘的那个1988年总统竞选中的拜登——笨拙、和蔼但愤怒——似乎不舒服地重现了。我们每天都在目睹一个很可能顽固地无视支持率暴跌证据的人。数周以来，公民灾难的可能性真实存在，暴乱的烈火随时可能席卷全国。
Today, Biden, just as Lear does at the end, seems to have made his peace with the necessity of accepting the sheer injustice of his condition and his predicament, while seeking comfort in the saner corners of his life. Now, with the knowledge that he has finally made the right call for the general good, we can look back in sympathy with his personal predicament. It is unjust; he did a good job. The injustice extends to the reality that, while Biden is old and frail, his opponent is, and sounds, old and nuts. To reflect on Trump’s speech to the Republican National Convention is to see true madness: a disjointed sequence of grievance, self-reference, and unmoored stream of consciousness, offered in a disturbing flow of disjointed imagery, bleeding ears backing into Hannibal Lecter. The whole sounded less like poor Lear and more like poor Tom, the lunatic on the heath whom the disguised Edgar impersonates. Who gives anything to poor Trump?, the ex-President said, in effect. Whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, and through ford and whirlipool, o’er bog and quagmire . . . to course his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five wits! Trump’s a-cold!
今天，就像李尔最终所做的那样，拜登似乎已经接受了自身处境和困境的不公，并在生活的理性角落中寻求慰藉。现在，我们知道他最终为了大局做出了正确的决定，可以同情地回顾他的个人困境。这不公平；他干得很好。这种不公延伸到现实：虽然拜登年迈体弱，但他的对手又老又疯。回想特朗普在共和党全国代表大会上的演讲，我们看到的是真正的疯狂：一连串不连贯的怨言、自我指涉和漫无边际的意识流，伴随着令人不安的断续意象，从流血的耳朵联想到食人魔汉尼拔·莱克特。整个演讲听起来与其说像可怜的李尔，不如说像可怜的汤姆，那个埃德加假扮的荒原疯子。特朗普实际上是在说，有谁给可怜的特朗普什么东西？他被恶魔引领穿过火海，越过河流和漩涡，跋涉沼泽和泥潭……追逐自己的影子，被人当作叛徒。祝福你的五感！特朗普好冷啊！
Biden, by comparison, deserves to be ennobled, not ejected. But if there is one theme that runs through Shakespeare it is that the search for justice is almost always doomed, and that the best we can hope for is self-insight and compassion. And so, unjust or not, Biden’s act is also essential—the good job he had done was over. He has, unlike Lear, who ends his life in the midst of a civil war, the gratitude of his country, too, or at least that of part of it not already despairing.
相比之下，拜登应该被尊崇，而不是被逐出。但如果说莎士比亚作品中有一个贯穿始终的主题，那就是对正义的追求几乎总是注定失败，我们能希望的最好结果是自我洞察和同情。因此，无论公平与否，拜登的行为都是必要的——他已完成了自己的使命。与李尔不同，后者在内战中结束一生，拜登赢得了国家的感激，至少是那些尚未绝望的人民的感激。
The great lesson of “King Lear” is not that it is wise, or unwise, to give up power, but that power is always insufficient balm to the human condition. Shakespeare’s point is that we should seek comfort neither in empty flattery nor in the exercise of office but in the presence of those who genuinely care for us. Biden has all that which, as poor Macbeth, who has none of it, says, “should accompany old age, / As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends.”
《李尔王》的伟大教训不在于放弃权力是否明智，而在于权力永远无法抚慰人性。莎士比亚的观点是，我们既不应在空洞的奉承中寻求慰藉，也不应在职位的行使中寻求安慰，而应从那些真正关心我们的人那里获得慰藉。拜登拥有所有那些可怜的麦克白所没有的，正如后者所说的，“那应伴随老年的荣誉、爱、服从和众多的朋友”。
Biden has known terrible loss. But he also has the love of his family and the gratitude of so many citizens who thank him not only for his achievements but also for having found wisdom enough at the end.
拜登经历过可怕的损失。但他也拥有家人的爱和众多公民的感激，他们不仅感谢他的成就，还感谢他最终找到了足够的智慧。♦
