<Love> by Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1/10

ESSAY V Love

 

 

Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfilments; each of its joys ripens into a new want. Nature, uncontainable, flowing, forelooking, in the first sentiment of kindness anticipates already a benevolence which shall lose all particular regards in its general light. The introduction to this felicity is in a private and tender relation of one to one, which is the enchantment of human life; which, like a certain divine rage and enthusiasm, seizes on man at one period, and works a revolution in his mind and body; unites him to his race, pledges him to the domestic and civic relations, carries him with new sympathy into nature, enhances the power of the senses, opens the imagination, adds to his character heroic and sacred attributes, establishes marriage, and gives permanence to human society.

 

innumerable : 셀 수 없는, 무수한 (= countless)

fulfilment : 실천, 실행, 완성, 달성, 성취

forelooking : 미리 보기 (= preview)

benevolence : 자비심, 박애 / 자선, 선행

felicity : 더할 나위없는 행복 / 절묘하게 어울림

enchantment : 황홀감 / 마법에 걸린 상태

pledge : 약속하다, 맹세하다, 서약하다

 

 

The natural association of the sentiment of love with the heyday of the blood seems to require, that in order to portray it in vivid tints, which every youth and maid should confess to be true to their throbbing experience, one must not be too old. The delicious fancies of youth reject the least savour of a mature philosophy, as chilling with age and pedantry their purple bloom. And, therefore, I know I incur the imputation of unnecessary hardness and stoicism from those who compose the Court and Parliament of Love. But from these formidable censors I shall appeal to my seniors. For it is to be considered that this passion of which we speak, though it begin with the young, yet forsakes not the old, or rather suffers no one who is truly its servant to grow old, but makes the aged participators of it, not less than the tender maiden, though in a different and nobler sort. For it is a fire that, kindling its first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught from a wandering spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges until it warms and beams upon multitudes of men and women, upon the universal heart of all, and so lights up the whole world and all nature with its generous flames. It matters not, therefore, whether we attempt to describe the passion at twenty, at thirty, or at eighty years. He who paints it at the first period will lose some of its later, he who paints it at the last, some of its earlier traits. Only it is to be hoped that, by patience and the Muses' aid, we may attain to that inward view of the law, which shall describe a truth ever young and beautiful, so central that it shall commend itself to the eye, at whatever angle beholden.

 

heyday : 전성기, 한장 때 (= prime)

throbbing : 두근거리는, 고동치는, 약동하는

pedantry : 지나치게 규칙을 찾음

incur : (좋지 못한 것을) 초래하다, 발생시키다

imputation : (죄 등을) 돌림, 전가 (= accusation) / 비난, 비방, 오명

stoicism : 극기(심), 금욕 / 스토아 철학

kindling : 불쏘시개

ember : (장작·숯이 타다 남은) 잉걸불

nook : (아늑하고 조용한) 곳, 구석

bosom : 가슴

inward : 마음 속의 / 안쪽(내부)으로 향한

 

 

And the first condition is, that we must leave a too close and lingering adherence to facts, and study the sentiment as it appeared in hope and not in history. For each man sees his own life defaced and disfigured, as the life of man is not, to his imagination. Each man sees over his own experience a certain stain of error, whilst that of other men looks fair and ideal. Let any man go back to those delicious relations which make the beauty of his life, which have given him sincerest instruction and nourishment, he will shrink and moan. Alas! I know not why, but infinite compunctions embitter in mature life the remembrances of budding joy, and cover every beloved name. Every thing is beautiful seen from the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all is sour, if seen as experience. Details are melancholy; the plan is seemly and noble. In the actual world — the painful kingdom of time and place — dwell care, and canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the rose of joy. Round it all the Muses sing. But grief cleaves to names, and persons, and the partial interests of today and yesterday.

 

lingering : (쉬 끝나거나 사라지지 않고) 오래 가는

adherence : 고수(충실하게 지키는 것)

deface : (특히 무엇의 표면에 글을 쓰거나 그림을 그리거나 하여) 외관을 훼손하다

compunction : 죄책감, 거리낌

embitter : (오랜 시간 동안) 원통하게(쓰라리게) 만들다 

canker : (사회의) 병폐 / (동물의) 궤양

hilarity : 아주 우스움, 재미있음

cleave to : 부착(점착)하다 / 고수하다, ~에 집착하다

 

 

 

※ 출처 : Essays, First Series (1841) 중 5장 LOVE by Ralph Waldo Emerson ※ 랄프 왈도 에머슨 (Ralph Waldo Emerson) : 미국 사상가 겸 시인. 자연과의 접촉에서 고독과 희열을 발견하고 자연의 효용으로서 실리(實利)·미(美)·언어(言語)·훈련(訓練)의 4종을 제시했다. 정신을 물질보다도 중시하고 직관에 의하여 진리를 알고, 자아의 소리와 진리를 깨달으며, 논리적인 모순을 관대히 보는 신비적 이상주의였다. 주요 저서에는《자연론》,《대표적 위인론》등이 있다.