4 Chapter 11 THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS

THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work

葛底斯堡演说八十七年前，我们的先辈们在这个大陆上创立了一个新国家，它孕育于自由之中，奉行一切人生来平等的原则。 现在我们正在进行一场伟大的内战，以考验这个国家，或者任何一个孕育于上述原则和奉行上述原则的国家能否长久存在下去。 我们在这场战争的一个伟大战场上集会。 我们来到这里，是为了把这个战场的一部分奉献给那些为这个国家的生存而献出生命的人，作为他们最后的安息之所。 我们这样做是完全合适和适当的。 但从更广泛的意义上说，这块土地我们不能奉献，不能圣化，不能神化。 那些在这里战斗过的勇敢的人们，活着的和死去的，已经使这块土地神圣化了，远远不是我们微薄的力量所能增减的。 世界不会注意到，也不会长久地记住我们今天在这里所说的话，但人们却永远不会忘记他们在这里所做的一切。 倒是我们这些活着的人应该在这里献身于未完成的工作

which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

在这里战斗过的战士们已经如此高尚地前进了。 相反，我们应该在这里把自己奉献给仍然留在我们面前的伟大任务——我们要从这些光荣的死者身上汲取更多的献身精神，来完成他们已完全为之献身的事业——我们要在这里下定最大的决心，不让这些死者白白牺牲，要让这个国家在上帝的庇佑下获得自由的新生，要让这个民有、民治、民享的政府永世长存。