卷七05

7.17 About fame: Look at the minds of those who seek fame, observe what they are, and what kind of things they avoid, and what kind of things they pursue. And consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide the former sands, so in life the events which go before are soon covered by those which come after.

7.18 From Plato: The man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, dost thou suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great? it is not possible, he said.- Such a man then will think that death also is no evil.- Certainly not.

7.19 From Plato: But I would make this man a sufficient answer, which is this: Thou sayest not well, if thou thinkest that a man who is good for anything at all ought to compute the hazard of life or death, and should not rather look to this only in all that he does, whether he is doing what is just or unjust, and the works of a good or a bad man.

7.20 For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself thinking it the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the baseness of deserting his post.

 先尝试自己翻译一下吧，参考译文见下：

中文翻译：
7.17 关于名声：注意那些追求名声的人的同内心，观察他们是什么人，他们避开什么事物，他们追求什么事物。想想那积聚起来的沙堆掩埋了以前的沙，所以在生命中也是先去的事物迅速被后来的事物掩盖。

7.18 引自柏拉图：那种有崇高心灵并观照全部时间和整体的人，你想他会认为人的生命是一种伟大的东西吗？那是不可能的，他说。－那么这样一个心灵也不会把死看做是恶，肯定不会。

7.19 引自柏拉图：但是我将给这个人一个满意的回答，这就是：你说得不好，如果你认为一个对所有事情都擅长的人应当计算生或死的可能性，而不是宁愿在他所有做的事情中仅仅注意他是否做得正当，是否做的是一个善良人的工作。

7.20 雅典人啊，因为这确实是这样：一个人无论置身于什么地方，都认为那是对他最好的地方，或者是由一个主宰者将他放置的地方。在我看来，他应当逗留在那儿，顺从这偶然，面对他应得的卑贱的职分，不盘算死或任何别的事情。