玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
Few Americans stay put for a lifetime.在美国，很少有人终身呆在一个地方。We move from town to city to suburb, from high school to college in a different state, from a job in one region to a better job elsewhere, from the home where we raise our children to the home where we plan to live in retirement.我们从小镇来到城市，又从城市迁往郊区；上高中在一个州，上大学又到另一个州；另觅更好的工作时也会换格地方；养儿育女在这儿，安度晚年在那儿。With each move we are forever making new friends, who become part of our new life at that time.每换一个地方，我们总会结交新朋友，他们将成为我们新生活的一部分。
For many of us the summer is a special time for forming new friendships. 在我们许多人看来，夏天是交朋结友的特别季节。Today millions of Americans vacation abroad, and they go not only to see new sights but also—in those places where they do not feel too strange—with the hope of meeting new people. 如今，有数百万的美国人出国度假，他们并不只为看风景（有些地方未必全然陌生）， 他们还希望能结识新朋友。No one really expects a vacation trip to produce a close friend.当然，没人指望在假日旅行中缔结深厚友谊， But surely the beginning of a friendship is possible. 但交个朋友肯定还是可以的。Surely in every country people value friendship. 不管怎么说，
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Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
每个国家的人都珍视友谊。
They do.情况确实如此。The difficulty when strangers from two countries meet is not a lack of appreciation of friendship, but different expectations about what constitutes friendship and how it comes into being. 但是当不同国度的人走到一起时，交往障碍并不是缺少对友谊的珍视，而是对友谊内涵及缔造方式的不同期望。In those European countries that Americans are most likely to visit, friendship is quite sharply distinguished from other, more casual relations, and is differently related to family life. 在那些美国人最可能去的欧洲国家，友谊全然不同于一般人际关系，它与家庭生活有着特殊联系。For a Frenchman, a German or an Englishman friendship is usually more particularized and carries a heavier burden of commitment. 在法国、德国或英国，友谊通常有着更具体的要求，并意味着更多的责任与义务。But we use the word, “friend” can be applied to a wide range of
relationships—to someone has known for a few weeks in a new place, to a close business associate, to a childhood playmate, to a man or woman, to a trusted confidant. 可是当我们用到“朋友”一词时，所指的是许多种人际关系：可能是出门在外刚认识几个星期的人；也可能是一位亲密的工作伙伴；可能是儿时玩伴；也可能是知己密友；他们可能是男，也可能是女。There are real
2/12
Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
differences among these relations for Americans—a friendship may be superficial, casual, situational or deep and enduring. 对美国人而言，这些关系之间有着本质差异，因而友谊也有深有浅，有长有短。But to a European, who sees only our surface behavior, the differences are not clear.但对欧洲人来说，他们看到的是我们的表面行为，对这些差异并不清楚。
As they see it, people known and accepted temporarily, casually, flow in and out of Americans’ homes with little ceremony and often with little personal commitment. 欧洲人发现，既便是相交不久的一般朋友，也能在美国人家中随意进出无需太多礼节，通常也不要求有多少人际责任。They may be parents of the children’s friends, house guests of neighbors, members of a committee, business associates from another town or even another country. 他们可能是子女朋友的父母、在邻居家小住的宾客、某委员会的成员、或是外地甚至外国来的生意伙伴。Coming as a guest into an American home, the European visitor finds no visible landmarks. The atmosphere is relaxed. Most people, old and young, are called by their first names. 如果欧洲人在美国家庭做客，会觉得没什么宾主之分，气氛非常轻松，不论长幼，彼此之间大多直呼其名。Who, then, is a friend? 那么，到底什么样的人是朋友呢？
Even a simple translation from one language to another is difficult. 即便是单
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Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
纯的翻译也不太容易。 ”You see,” a Frenchman explains, ”if I were to say to you in France, ’This is my good friend,’ that person would not be as close to me as some about whom I only said, ’This is my friend.’ Anyone about whom I have to say more is really less.”对此法国人自有他们的解释： “在法国，如果我介绍说‘这是我的好朋友’或‘这是我的朋友’，前者同我就没有后者同我那样亲密，但不管是谁，如果需要更多的介绍，关系就更加疏远。”
In France, as in many European countries, friends generally are of the same sex, and friendship is seen as basically a relationship between men. 与许多欧洲人一样，法国人认为朋友一般是同一性别，而且从根本上说，友谊是男人之间的事。French women laugh at the idea that women can’t be friends, 对“女人之间不会成为朋友”这一说法，法国妇女嗤之以鼻。but they also admit sometimes that for women it is a different thing. 但她们也承认，女性的友谊是“另一回事儿”。And many French people doubt the possibility of a
friendship between a man and a woman. There is also the kind of relationship within a group许多法国人都不相信有异性友谊。—men and women who have worked together for a long time, who may be very close, sharing great loyalty and warmth of feeling. 此外还有种交情是群体当中的－长期在一起工作的男女关系密切，他们互相支持信任，颇有好感。They may call one
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Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
another copains—a word that in English becomes “friends” but has more feeling of “pals” or “buddies”. 他们称彼此为“copains”－在英语中相当于 “朋友”，但更准确的意思是“伙伴”或“哥们儿”。In French eyes this is not friendship, although two members of such a group may well be friends.在法国人看来，这不叫友谊，尽管同事之间很可能就是朋友关系。
For the French, friendship is one-to-one relationship that demands a keen awareness of the other person’s intellect, temperament and particular interests. A friend is someone who draws out your own best qualities, with whom you sparkle and become more of whatever the friendship draws upon. 对法国人而言，友谊是两个人之间的事。一方应对另一方的心智、脾气及爱好了如指掌，朋友应该能挖掘出你的美德，和他在一起，你显得精神焕发，友谊也将得到升华。Your political philosophy assumes more depth, appreciation of a play becomes sharper, taste in food or wine is accentuated, and enjoyment of a sport is intensified.你的政治见解会更有深度，欣赏戏剧演出更加到位，品尝美酒佳肴更加有滋有味，欣赏体育比赛也会更加兴致勃勃。And French friendships are compartmentalized. 法国人的友谊还呈现一种分工的格局。A man may play chess with a friend for thirty years without knowing his political opinions, or he may talk politics with him for as long a
5/12
Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
time without knowing about his personal life. 你可能和一位朋友下了30年象棋却不知他的政治立场，或者是和他长谈政治也那么长时间但对其个人生活却一无所知。Different friends fill different niches in each person’s life. 可以说，每个朋友都填充着你生活中不同的空白，他们并不会影响到你的家庭生活。These friendships are not made part of family life. A friend is not expected to spend evenings being nice to children or courteous to a deaf grandmother. These duties, also serious and enjoined, are primary for relatives. 你不会指望朋友晚上去陪伴你的子女或耳背的老祖母，这些主要是亲戚们的职责，也是要认真履行和必须履行的职责。Men who are friends may meet in a café. Intellectual friends may meet in larger groups for evenings of conversation. Working people may meet at the little bistro where they drink and talk, far from the family. 通常来说，男性朋友会在咖啡店相聚；重在交流思想的朋友会多人聚在一起夜谈；打工族则会选个远离家庭的小酒馆喝酒聊天。Marriage does not affect such friendships; wives do not have to be taken into account.这些友谊不受婚姻影响，也不需将妻子牵扯在内。
In the past in France, friendships of this kind seldom were open to any but intellectual women. 过去在法国，几乎只有知识女性才能享有这种友谊。Since most women’s lives centered on their homes, their warmest relations
6/12
Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
with other women often went back to their girlhood. 由于大多数妇女以家庭生活为中心，她们最好的女性朋友往往是少女时代的闺中密友。The special relationship of friendships is based on what the French value most-on the mind, on compatibility of outlook, on vivid awareness of some chosen area of life.这种特殊友谊的基础是法国人推崇的东西－它来自于思想、来自于世界观的投合或有关某个生活领域的真切感悟。
Friendship heightens the sense of each person’s individuality. Other relationships commanding great loyalty and devotion have a different meaning. In World War Ⅱ the first resistance groups formed in Paris were built on the foundation of les copains. 友谊推崇的是个性张扬，而有些强调绝对忠诚及奉献觉得关系则不然，比如二战期间巴黎的首批反抗组织就是在伙伴关系的基础上组建的。But significantly, as time went on these little groups of people, whose lives rested in one another’s hands called themselves
“families”. 值得注意的是，随着时间的推移，那些小团体的成员之间息息相关，甚至开始称自己为“家庭”。Where each had a total responsibility for all, it was kinship ties that provided the model. 每个成员都对其余人负有完全的责任，那模式就像有亲缘关系一样。And even today such ties, crossing every line of class and personal interest, remain binding on the survivors of these small,
7/12
Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
secret bands.即使在今天，这种纽带仍能超越阶级和个人利益，牢牢地将那些秘密小团体的幸存者结合在一起。
In Germany, in contrast with France, friendship is much more articulately a matter of feeling. 德国与法国截然不同，那儿的友谊是更纯粹的情感联系。 Adolescents, boys and girls, form deeply sentimental attachments, walk and talk together—not so much to polish their wits as to share their hopes and fears and dreams, to form a common front against the world of school and family and to join in a kind of mutual discovery of each other’s and their own inner life. 少男少女互有好感，情意绵绵。他们散步、交谈，其目的未必是磨砺智慧。他们更看重交流梦想与希望，分担忧愁与恐惧。面对学校与家庭，他们筑起共同的防线，并一起探索彼此和自己的内心世界。Within the family, the closest relationship over a lifetime is between brothers and sisters.在家里，能延续一生的最紧密的是兄弟姐妹之间的关系；Outside the family, men and women find in their closest friends of the same sex the devotion of a sister, the loyalty of a brother. 走出家门，人们仍在同性密友中寻找贴心的“姐妹”和忠诚的“兄弟”。 Appropriately, in Germany friends usually are brought into the family. Children call their father’s and their mother’s friends “uncles” and “aunts”. 顺理成章地，德国人常将朋友带回家中，孩子们会称他们父母的朋友
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Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
“叔叔”或“阿姨”。Between French friends, who have chosen each other for the congeniality of their point of view, lively disagreement and sharpness of argument are the breath of life. 法国式的友谊以观点投合为基础，但尖锐的争论和异议在生活中同样不可或缺。But for Germans, whose friendship are based on mutuality of feeling, deep disagreement on any subject that matters to both is regarded as a tragedy. 而在德国，由于友谊的基础是情投意合，任何触及对方要害的深刻分歧都被认为是悲剧。 Like ties of kinship, ties of friendship are meant to be irrevocably binding. 就像亲缘纽带一样，人们认为友谊纽带具有绝对的凝聚力。 Young Germans who come to the United States have great difficulty in establishing such friendships with Americans. We view friendship more tentatively, subject to changes in intensity as people move, change their jobs, marry, or discover new interests. 来到美国的德国年轻人很难与当地人建立这样的友谊，因为在我们看来，友谊是暂时的关系，随着人们搬迁居所、变换工作、结婚或志趣改变，友谊的深浅也随之改变。English friendships follow still a different pattern. 英国人的友谊又是另一种模式。Their basis is shared activity. Activities at different stages of life may be of very different kinds—discovering a common interest in school, serving together in the armed forces, taking part in a foreign mission, staying in the
9/12
Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
same country house during a crisis. 它产生于共同的经历，而在不同的人生阶段经历又各有不同：可能是当学生时兴趣相同；也可能是在军队里一起服役; 可能是一起在国外执行一项使命;也可能是在同一所农舍避难。In the midst of the activity, whatever it maybe, people fall into step不管是何种经历，身处其中的人都会有合拍之感。—sometimes two men or two women, sometimes two couples, sometimes three people—这有时发生在男人之间；有时发生在女人之间；有时是两对夫妻之间；有时是三个人之间。and find that they walk or play a game or tell stories or serve on a tiresome and exacting committee with the same easy anticipation of what each will do day by day or in some critical situation. 他们或一起散步，或共同戏耍，或一起讲故事，或为同一个既令人厌烦又要求苛刻的委员会工作。他们都怀着平和的心态，共同迎接平淡的日子或者危急时刻。 Americans who have made English friends comment that, even years later, “You can take up just where you left off.” 那些拥有英国朋友的美国人是这样评论的；即便多年后重聚。“友情毫不褪色”。 Meeting after a long interval, friends are like a couple who begin to dance again when the orchestra strikes up after a pause. 久别重逢的朋友就像是一对舞拌，当乐队暂停后重新奏乐时又翩翩起舞。English friendships are formed outside the family circle, but they are not, as in Germany, contrapuntal to the family nor
10/12
Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
are they, as in France, separated from the family. 英国式友谊产生于家庭之外，朋友不会像在德国那样与家庭紧密相关， 也不会像在法国那样与你的家庭全然不沾边。And a break in an English friendship comes not necessarily as a result of some irreconcilable difference of viewpoint or feeling but instead as a result of misjudgment, where one friend seriously misjudges how the other will think or feel or act, so that suddenly they are out of step. 如果英国式的友谊破裂，原因未必是情感或观点上不可弥补的裂痕，更多的时候是因为判断错误。朋友间严重误解彼此的思想、情感或行为，一旦不再合拍，友谊也就嘎然而止了。
What, then, is friendship? 那么，什么是友谊呢？Looking at these different styles, including our own, each of which is related to a whole way of life, are there common elements? 在这么多风格迥异的友谊（当然也包括我们美国人的）友谊中，每一种友谊都对应着某种生活方式。那么他们有没有共同点呢？There is the recognition that friendship, in contrast with kinship, invokes freedom of choice. 有一点共识是：友谊是不同于亲情，友谊是自由选择的产物。A friend is someone who chooses and is chosen. 既选择别人、也被别人选择。Related to this is the sense each friend gives the other of being a special individual, on whatever grounds, this recognition is based. 正因为这
11/12
玛格丽特﹒米德 罗达﹒梅特劳克斯
bridge between societies possible, and the American’s characteristic
openness to different styles of relationship makes it possible for him to find
new friends abroad with whom he feels at home. 有了这些共性的东西，不同
friends there is inevitably a kind of equality of give-and-take. 朋友间必定是平
样，不管共识的基础是什么，朋友都会给对方一种特殊的感觉。And between
等的，他们能够彼此宽容，既有奉献，也有索取。These similarities make the
包容性，即便在异国他乡，也能交上称心如意的新朋友。
Unit 4 Different Lands, Different Friendships 论友谊
社会之间才可能架起沟通的桥梁。而美国人凭着自己特有的对不同类型关系的
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