简介

The Alchemist　中文译名《牧羊少年奇幻之旅》，作者保罗·科尔贺（Paulo Coelho），wiki介绍

Foreword前言

When I sat down to write The Alchemist, all I knew is that I wanted to write about my soul. I wanted to write about my quest to find my treasure. I wanted to follow the omens, because I knew even then that the omens are the language of God.

Prologue开场白

The alchemist picked up a book that someone in the caravan(商队) had brought. Leafing through(翻阅) the pages, he found a story about Narcissus(水仙花).

The alchemist knew the legend of Narcissus, a youth who knelt daily beside a lake to contemplate(注视，沉思) his own beauty. He was so fascinated by himself that, one morning, he fell into the lake and drowned(溺死). At the spot where he fell, a flower was born, which was called the narcissus.

But this was not how the author of the book ended the story.

He said that when Narcissus died, the goddesses of the forest appeared and found the lake, which had been fresh water, transformed into a lake of salty tears.

“Why do you weep?” the goddesses asked.

“I weep for Narcissus,” the lake replied.

“Ah, it is no surprise that you weep for Narcissus,” they said, “for though we always pursued him in the forest, you alone could contemplate his beauty close at hand.”

“But…was Narcissus beautiful?” the lake asked.

“Who better than you to know that?” the goddesses said in wonder. “After all, it was by your banks that he knelt each day to contemplate himself!”

The lake was silent for some time. Finally, is said:

“I weep for Narcissus, but I never noticed that Narcissus was beautiful. I weep because, each time he knelt beside my banks, I could see, in the depths of his eyes, my own beauty reflected.”

“What a lovely story,” the alchemist thought.

Part one

DUSK was falling as the boy arrived with his herd(牲畜) at an abandoned church. The roof had fallen in long ago, and and enormous sycamore(圣经中的桑树) had grown on the spot where the sacristy(圣器室) had once stood.

Thinking about that for a moment, the realized that it could be the other way around: that it was he who had become accustomed to their schedule.

But ever since he had been a child, he had wanted to know the world, and this was much more important to him than knowing God and learning about man’s sins.

The boy could see in his father’s gaze a desire to be able, himself, to travel The world–a desire that was still alive, despite his father’s having had to bury it, over dozens of years, under the burden of struggling for water to drink, foot to eat, and the same place to sleep every night of his life.

It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.

And dreams are the language of God. When he speaks in our language, I can interpret what he has said. But if he speaks in the language of the soul, it is only you who can understand.

A shepherd always takes his chances with wolves and with drought, and that’s what makes a shepherd’s life exciting.

I only interpret dreams. I don’t know how to turn them into reality. That’s why I have to live off what my daughters provide me with.

Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.

“What’s the world’s greatest lie?” the boy asked, completely surprised.

It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.

Sometimes it’s better to be with the sheep, who don’t say anything. And better still to be alone with one’s books. They tell their incredible stories at the time when you want to hear them.

Personal Legend(天命)

At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend.

It’s a force that appears to be negative, but actually shows you how to realize your Personal Legend. It prepares your spirit and your will, because there is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth.

When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

If you start out by promising what you don’t even have yet, you’ll lose your desire to work toward getting it.

Here I am, between my flock and my treasure, the boy thought. He had to choose between something he had become accustomed to and something he wanted to have.

Because there is a force that wants you to realize your Personal Legend; it whets your appetite with a taste of success.

In order to find the treasure, you will have to follow the omens. God has prepared a path for everyone to follow. You just have to read the omens that he left for you.

The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.

I’m like everyone else － I see the world in terms of what I would like to see happen, not what actually does.

If I can learn to understand this language without words, I can learn to understand the world.

Part Two

You and I aren’t like Hassan, that rich merchant. If he makes a buying mistake, it doesn’t affect him much. But we two have to live with our mistakes.

We have to take advantage when luck is on our side, and do as much to help it as it’s doing to help us. It’s called the principle of favor-ability. Or beginner’s lucky.

We are obliged, at least once in our lives, to visit the holy city of Mecca.

Because it’s the thought of Mecca that keeps me alive. That’s what helps me face these days that are all the same, these mute crystals on the shelves, and lunch and dinner at that same horrible cafe. I’m afraid that if my dream is realized, I’ll have no reason to go on living.

I have been told that beauty is the great seducer(诱惑者) of men.

every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don’t want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known.

That there was a language in the world that everyone understood, a language the boy had used throughout the time that he was trying to improve things at the shop. It was the language of enthusiasm, of things accomplished with love and purpose, and as part of a search for something believed in and desired.

When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it.

He had worked for an entire year to make a dream come true, and that dream, minute by minute, was becoming less important. Maybe because that wasn’t really his dream.

The Englishman was sitting on a bench(长凳) in a structure that smelled of animals, sweat, and dust; it was part warehouse(仓库), part corral(畜栏).

Making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.

the mysterious chain that links one thing to another, the same chain that had caused him to become a shepherd, that had caused him recurring dream, that had brought him to a city near Africa, to find a king, and to be robbed in order to meet a crystal merchant, and …

Although the boy had developed a superstition that each time he opened the book he would learn something important, he decided it was an unnecessary burden.

People need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want.

We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.

When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closest to the Soul of the World. It’s always a positive force.

Because I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. You’ll see that there is life in the desert, that there are stars in the heavens, and that tribesmen fight because they are part of the human race. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living right now.

The closer he got to the realization of his dream, the more difficult things became. It seemed as if what the old king had called “beginner’s luck” were no longer functioning. In his pursuit of the dream, he was being constantly subjected to tests of his persistence and courage. So he could not be hasty, nor impatient. If he pushed forward impulsively, he would fail to see the signs and omens left by God along his path.

At that moment, it seemed to him that time stood still, and the Soul of the World surged within him. When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all world spoke—- the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certainly an omen —- the omen he had been awaiting, without even knowing he was, for all his life.

But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.

I’m going to wait here for you every day. I have crossed the desert in search of a treasure that is somewhere near the Pyramids, and for me, the war seemed a curse. But now it’s a blessing, because it brought me to you.

“If good thins are coming, they will be a pleasant surprise.” said the seer. “If bad things are, and you know in advance, you will suffer greatly before they even occur.”

Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World.

“It’s not what enters men’s mouths that’s evil,” said the alchemist. “ It’s what comes out of their mouths that is.”

Camels are traitorous(背信弃义的): they walk thousands of paces and never seem to tire. Then suddenly, they kneel and die. But horses tire bit by bit. You always know how much you can ask of them, and when it is that they are about to die.

From that day on, it was the desert that would be important. She would look to it every day, and would try to guess which star the boy was following in search of his treasure. She would have to send her kisses on the wind, hoping that the wind would touch the boy’s face, and would tell him that she was alive. That she was waiting for him, a woman awaiting a courageous man in search of his treasure. From that day on, the desert would represent only one thing to her: the hope for his return.

It’s because I’m the heart of a person, and people’s hearts are that way. People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don’t deserve them, or that they’ll be unable to achieve them. We, their hearts, become fearful just thinking of loved ones who go away forever, or of moment that could have been good but weren’t, or of treasures that might have been found but were forever hidden in the sands. Because, when these things happen, we suffer terribly.

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.

Every search begins with beginner’s luck. And every search ends with the victor’s being severely(严厉地) tested.

It said that the darkest hour of the night came just before the dawn.

When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.

Men have never understood the words of the wise. So gold, instead of being seen as a symbol of evolution, became the basic for conflict.

If a person is living out his Personal Legend, he knows everything he needs to know. There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.

Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives.

Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.

But here he was ,at the point of finding his treasure, and he reminded himself that no project is completed until its objective has been achieved. The boy looked at the sands around him, and saw that, where his tears had fallen, a scarab beetle was scuttling through the sand. During his time in the desert, he had learned that, in Egypt, the scarab beetles are a symbol of God.

Epilogue(尾声，后记)

Life really is generous to those who pursue their Personal Legend.

An inspirational companion to The Alchemist that invites us to live out our dreams, to embrace the uncertainly of life, and to rise to meet our own unique destiny.