Shakespeare Lives永恒的莎士比亚British Prime Minister David Cameron英国首相大卫·卡梅伦This year’s four hundredth anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare is not just an opportunity to commemorate1 one of thegreatest playwrights2 of all time. It is a moment to celebrate the extraordinary ongoing3 influence of a man who – to borrow from his own description of Julius Caesar –“doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus.”今年是英国戏剧大师威廉·莎士比亚去世400周年。
我们怀念他的伟大作品，也向他永存于世的影响力致敬。
正如名剧《裘力斯·凯撒》中的台词，“他像一位巨人，跨越了这狭隘的世界”。
Shakespeare’s legacy4 is without parallel: his works translated into over 100 languages and studied by half the world’s schoolchildren. As one of his conte mporaries, Ben Jonson, said: “Shakespeare is not of an age, but for all time.” He lives today in our language, our culture and society – and through his enduring influence on education.莎翁的作品被翻译成100多种语言，被全世界一半的学生诵读，其传播之广，前所未有。
同时代的剧作家本·琼森曾说，“莎士比亚超越了时代，他将永世不朽。
”今天，他仍然活在我们的语言、文化和社会中，对教育的影响弥久常新。
Shakespeare played a critical role in shaping modern Englishand helping5to make it the world’s language. The first major dictionary compiled by Samuel Johnson drew on Shakespeare more than any other writer. Three thousand new words and phrases all first appeared in print in Shakespeare’s plays. I remember from my own childhood how many of them are found for the first time in Henry V. Words likedishearten, divest6, addiction7, motionless, leapfrog – and phrases like “once more unto the breach”, “band of brothers” and “heart of gold” – have all passed into our language today with no need to reference their original context. Shakespeare also pioneered innovative8 use of grammatical form and structure – including verse without rhymes, superlatives and the connecting of existing words to make new words, like bloodstained – while the pre-eminence of his plays also did much to standardise spelling and grammar.莎翁在构建现代英语，使之成为全球通用语方面发挥了关键作用。
塞缪尔·约翰逊编纂的《英语大辞典》中引用莎翁的句子，比其他作家都多。
莎翁剧本中创造的英语新词、新短语多达三千。
历史剧《亨利五世》中不少第一次出现的词，如dishearten、divest、addiction、motionless和leapfrog，以及短语，如once more unto the breach、band of brothers 和heart of gold，都沿用至今，成了耳熟能详的词汇。
他在语法形式和结构方面亦有创新，如无韵诗、最高级和组合现有词汇形成新词方面(如bloodstained)，而他的一些杰出剧作也对拼写和语法的标准化发挥了作用。
But Shakespeare’s influence is felt far beyond our language. His words, his plots and his characters continue to inspire much of our culture and wider society. Nelson Mandela, while a prisoner on Robben Island, cherished a quote from Julius Caesar which said “Cowards die many times before their death,the valiant9never taste of death but once.” While Kate Tempest’s poem “My Shakespeare” captures the eternal presence of Shakespeare when she wrote that Shakespeare “…is in every lover who ever stood alone beneath a window…every jealous whispered word and every ghost that will not rest.” Shakespeare’s influence is everywhere, from Dickens and Goethe to Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Brahms; from West Side Story to the Hamlet-inspired title of Agath a Christie’s “The Mousetrap” – the longest-running theatre production in London’s West End today. While his original plays continue to entertain millions – from school halls across the world to the overnight queues as hundreds scrambled10 for last minute tickets to see Benedict Cumberbatch playing Hamlet at London’s Barbican last year.而莎翁的影响远不止语言。
遣词造句、情节构思、人物塑造等，无不为人类文化和社会带来灵感。
尼尔森·曼德拉在罗本岛服刑时曾以《裘力斯·凯撒》中的名句“懦夫一生死多次，勇者一生死一回”激励自己。
凯特·坦皮斯特在诗中写道：“莎翁是孤独的恋人，是爱慕的低语，是无法安息的灵魂”，这是对不朽作品的很好诠释。
无论是狄更斯、歌德，还是柴可夫斯基，威尔第和勃拉姆斯，从西城故事到深受《哈姆雷特》启发的篇名——《捕鼠器》(作者是阿加莎·克里斯蒂，该剧在伦敦西区常演不衰)，我们都能找到莎翁的影子。
他的作品为数百万人带来乐趣，不仅是学校，去年，大家彻夜排队，就为了观看在伦敦芭比肯艺术中心由本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇主演的《哈姆雷特》。
But perhaps one of the most exciting legacies11 of Shakespeare is his capacity to educate. As we see from the outreach work of the Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare’s Glob e and the impact of pioneering British charities like the Shakespeare Schools Festival, studying and performing Shakespeare can help improve literacy, confidence and widereducational attainment12.莎翁财富的精华还体现在教育上。
从皇家莎士比亚剧团和莎士比亚环球剧院一直上演的莎翁作品，到英国先锋慈善活动，如“莎士比亚学院艺术节”的影响力，我们发现，研究、表演莎翁作品有助于提高文学鉴赏力、自信和受教育水平。
Every day throughout 2016, Britain is inviting13 you to join us in celebrating the life and legacy of William Shakespeare. On 5 January, Twelfth Night, we launched “Shakespeare Lives” – an exciting global programme of activity and events to highlight his enduring influence and extend the use of Shakespeare as an educational resource to advance literacy around the world.2016年，英国邀您一起了解莎翁生平，欣赏莎翁名作。