Chinese Practice
白駒過隙
a white colt flits past a fissure
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
照片：維基共享資源
(bai2 ju1 guo4 xi4)
一位修女在臨終前，神父去探望她。修女看著神父說：「That went fast」（這輩子過得真快）。
時間不只是過得快，它是飛快逝去，一去不復返。古羅馬詩人維吉爾在西元前二九年出版的《Georgics》（農事詩）第三冊中寫道：「Fugit inreparabile tempus」（它逃離了，那無法挽回的時間）。
你可能聽過這句話「time flies when you’re having fun」（你玩得開心的時候，時間總是過得很快）。但這話只有部分是正確的。無論是樂是苦，時間都是飛快地流逝，你不過是在享樂時，特別容易注意到時間過得很快。西方許多墓碑、紀念碑和鐘錶上，都可以看到「tempus fugit」──光陰似箭──這句拉丁文銘飾。
在維吉爾之前，早在公元前四世紀晚期，中國哲學家莊子便在道家經典《莊子》的〈知北遊〉一章中寫道：「人生天地之間，若白駒之過郤，忽然而已。注然勃然，莫不出焉；油然漻然，莫不入焉。已化而生，又化而死......」（在這世上，人的生命就像一匹白色駿馬穿過一個縫隙，然後忽然消失。自然而然地，全都蓬勃而生；自然而然地，全都順應變化而死。業已變化而生長於世間，又會變化而死離人世）。
後世借用了「若白駒之過郤」中，白色駿馬掠過縫隙的這個比喻，來說明時間流逝的速度，以及人生命的短暫。司馬遷的《史記》（成書於西元前九四年）中對魏豹的記載，以及《漢書》（約完成於西元一一一年），都有「人生一世間，如白駒過隙」這句話；上週的「活用成語」單元，也提到《大宋宣和遺事》〈亨集〉一章有這句：「人生如白駒過隙，倘否及時行樂，則老大徒傷悲也」（生命就像一匹白色駿馬跑過岩石間的裂隙，如果你不抓住現在，以後老了就會後悔）。而稍晚，在十四世紀的《三國演義》中，我們也可讀到：「人生如白駒過隙，似此遷延歲月，何日恢復中原乎」（人生就像一匹白色駿馬掠過岩石間縫隙，歲月便是如此流逝，我們要何時才能光復中原呢？）。
成語「白駒過隙」，現今便是用來表示時間過得很快。
（台北時報林俐凱譯）
你們剛入學青澀的樣子還歷歷在目，時光如白駒過隙，轉眼間幾年過去了，又到了各奔東西的時候。
(I still recall your first day at school. Well, time flies and the years have passed, and now it’s time for us to go our separate ways.)
人生如白駒過隙一樣短暫，我們有緣能夠相遇，應該要好好珍惜。
(Life is short; time passes so quickly. That fate has brought us together in this way is something to be treasured.)
英文練習
time flies; tempus fugit
A priest visits a nun on her deathbed. The nun looks at the priest and says, “That went fast.”
Time doesn’t just go fast; time flees, and it doesn’t return. Fugit inreparabile tempus, wrote the Latin poet Virgil in Book 3 of his Georgics, published in 29BC: “it flees, irretrievable time.”
You may have heard the phrase “time flies when you’re having fun.” That is only partially true. Time flies, regardless; you just notice the speed its passing more readily when enjoying its company. The phrase tempus fugit — time flies — adorns many gravestones, monuments and timepieces in the West.
Before Virgil, even, the late 4th century BC Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi wrote, in the Knowledge Rambling in the North chapter of the Taoist classic Zhuangzi, 人生天地之間，若白駒之過郤，忽然而已。注然勃然，莫不出焉；油然漻然，莫不入焉。已化而生，又化而死... (On this Earth, human life is like a white colt’s passing a crevice, and suddenly disappearing. As with a plunge and an effort it comes forth; easily and quietly it enters again. By a transformation we live, and by another transformation we die).
Subsequent references to the phrase 若白駒之過郤 borrowed the metaphor of the white colt flitting past the crevice to speak of the speed at which time passes, and of the brevity of human life. In chapters relating the biographies of Wei Bao in Sima Qian’s shiji (Records of the Grand Historian, completed c. 94BC) and the hanshu (Book of Han, completed c. 111AD) there is the line 人生一世間，如白駒過隙 (In this world, human life is like the white colt flitting past a fissure in the rock); as mentioned in last week’s Using Idioms, the hengji section of dasong xuanhe yishi (Old Incidents in the Xuanhe period of the Great Song Dynasty) includes the line 人生如白駒過隙，倘不及時行樂，則老大徒傷悲也 (Life is like a white colt flitting past a fissure in the rock; if you do not seize the present, you will regret it in old age); and in the slightly later 14th century sanguo yanyi (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) we read 人生如白駒過隙，似此遷延歲月，何日恢復中原乎 (Life is like a white colt flitting past a fissure in the rock. So much time has passed already; whenever shall we retake the Central Plains?).
The idiom 白駒過隙 is now used to refer to how quickly time passes.
(Paul Cooper, Taipei times)
The best advice I can give you is to not put off for tomorrow what can be done today. Time has a nasty habit of flying off.
(我所能給你最好的建議是今日事今日畢，不要拖到明天。時光飛逝，毫不留情。)
And so we come to the end of the meeting. Time flies when you’re having fun, but now the fun’s over and it’s time to get back to work.
(歡樂的時光總是過得飛快，我們的會議到此結束，歡樂時光散會，該回去工作了。)
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