Oliver Holmes

In this symposium my part is only to sit in silence. To express one’s feelings as the end draws near is too intimate a task.

在这次座谈会上，我的职责只是安静地坐着。要在生命即将完结之时表达个人感受并非易事。

But I may mention one thought that comes to me as a listener. The riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voices of friends and to say to oneself: The work is done. But just as one says that, the answer comes: “The race is over, but the work never is done while the power to work remains. The canter that brings you to a standstill need not be only coming to rest. It cannot be, while you still live. For to live is to function. That is all there is to living.”

但我只是想谈谈作为一名倾听者的看法。在比赛中，骑手在到达目的地后并不会突然止步，在完全停下以前他还要进行一阵小跑，他还有时间听听朋友们亲切的话语，还有时间对自己说：大功告成了，然后话音刚落，他就听到了应答：“比赛虽已结束，但只要还有力气去做，工作就永无止境，使你止步的那阵小跑未必只以休息告终，只要你还活着，就要发挥作用，那才是活着的全部意义。”

And so I end with a line from a Latin poet who uttered the message more than fifteen hundred years ago, “Death plucks my ear and says: Live — I am coming.”

所以，我用一位拉丁诗人的一行诗句作为结束语，这是他在1500多年前所说的：“死神拉着我的耳朵说，活着吧—-我来了。”