Of Conscience
This story is in every child's mouth: Bessus the Paeonian, being reproached for wantonly pulling down a nest of young sparrows and killing them, replied, that he had reason to do so, seeing that those little birds never ceased falsely to accuse him of the murder of his father. Tis parricide had till then been concealed and unknown, but the revenging fury of conscience caused it to be discovered by him himself, who was to suffer for it. Hesiod corrects the ssying of Plato, that punishment closely follows sin, it being, as he says, born at the same time with it. Whoever expects punishment already suffers it, and whoever has deserved it expects it. Wickedness contrives torments against itself.
Ill designs are worst to the contriver.
---Apud Aul. Gellium
As the wasp stings and hurts another, but most of all itself, for it there loses its sting and its use for ever.
And leave their own lives in the wound.
---Virgil
论良心
这是一个人尽皆知的故事:一个名叫贝苏斯的帕奥尼人，因其故意打落一个鸟窝,并杀死了里面所有的小鸟,而受到了人们的严厉指责。他说他这样做是有理由的,因为这些小鸟没完没了地无端指责他害死了自己的父亲。当时,这宗弑父案隐瞒得天衣无继,根本无人知晓,但他本人的良心却使他背上了沉重的思想包袱,最终暴露了事情的真相。柏拉图认为惩罚紧随罪恶之后，但赫西奥德纠正了柏拉图的说法,他认为,惩罚是与罪恶同时产生的。等待惩罚的人已经在遭受着惩罚,而应该受惩罚的人也在等待惩罚到来的过程中承受着痛苦的煎熬。邪恶本身就会给心存恶意的人带来痛苦。
心怀叵测之人往往受害最深。
——西方古代格言
就像胡蜂一样,它刺伤别人的同时,自己也深受其害,因为它失去了自己的刺,再也无法保护自己。
它们在伤人的同时也丢掉了自己的性命。
一一维吉尔
Cantharides have somewhere about them, by a contrariety of nature, a counterpoison against their poison. In like manner, at the same time that men take delight in vice, there springs in the conscience a displeasure that afflicts us sleeping and waking with various tormenting imaginations:
Apollodorus dreamed that he saw himself flayed by the Scythians and afterwards boiled in a cauldron, and that his heart muttered these words "I am the cause of all these mischiefs that have befallen thee." Epicurus said that no hiding-hole could conceal the wicked, since they could never assure themselves of being hid whilst their conscience discovered them to themselves.
This is the highest revenge, that by its judgment no offender is absolved.
---Juvenal
由于自然界的相生相克规律,斑蝥的体内能够分泌一种自身毒液的解毒素;同理,人在享受作恶所带来的快乐的同时,也会遭到自己良心的谴责,从而会产生许多痛苦的联想,无论睡梦中还是清醒时都饱受折磨。
阿波罗多鲁斯D曾在梦中见到自己被斯基台人剥掉了皮，然后放在一只大锅里煮;他的心在喃哺地说着“你承受的这一切痛苦都因我而起”。伊壁鸠鲁说，恶人永远也没有藏身之地,因为无论躲在哪里,他们的良心都会使自己暴露出来。
任何罪人都得不到自己良心的赦免,这是最恶重的惩罚。
——尤维纳利斯
As an ill conscience fills us with fear, so a good one gives us greater confidence and assurance; and I can truly say that I have gone through several hazards with a more steady pace in consideration of the secret knowledge I had of my own will and the innocence of my intentions:
As a man's conscience is, so within hope or fear prevails, suiting to his design.
---Ovid
就像有愧的良心会使我们感到恐惧一样,无愧的良心也会使我们变得更加坚定和自信。老实说,我之所以在人生的道路上经历过许多艰难险阻而始终步伐坚定,就是因为我十分清楚自己的目标,而且我的意图也是光明正大的。
一个人的内心充满希望还是恐惧，完全取决于自己的良心。
一一奥维德
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