Some Meanings of Authentic Love (爱情真谛)

英文作者：佚名，中文译文: 佚名，译文修改、润色: 活龙

Love means that I know the person I love. I’m aware of the many sides of the other person–not just the beautiful side but also the limitations, inconsistencies and flaws.

爱意味着了解对方。我了解对方的很多方面——不仅仅是其中美好的一面，还有不足之处、矛盾之处以及各种缺点。

Love means that I care about the welfare of the person I love. If I care about you, I’m concerned about your growth, and I hope you will become all that you can become.

爱意味着关心对方的幸福。关心你，就关心你的成长，并希望你能完全成就自己。

Love means having respect for the dignity of the person I love. If I love you, I can see you as a separate person, with your own values and thoughts and feelings, and I do not insist that you surrender your identity and conform to an image of what I expect you to be for me.

爱意味着维护对方的尊严。爱你，就把你看成独立的人，你有自己的价值观、思想和情感。我不会要求你为我放弃自己的个性并屈从于我对你的期待。

Love means having a responsibility toward the person I love. If I love you, I’m responsive to most of your major needs as a person.

爱意味着向对方承担责任。爱你，就满足你作为人的多数重要需求。

Love means growth for both myself and the person I love. You are a stimulant for me to become more fully what I might become, and my loving enhances your being as well.

爱意味着我与对方一同成长。你激励着我更圆满地自我实现，而我爱你也让你的人生更加完美。

Love means making a commitment to the person I love. This commitment does not entail surrendering our total selves to each other; nor does it imply that the relationship is necessarily permanent. It does entail a willingness to stay with each other in times of pain, uncertainty, struggle, and despair, as well as in times of calm and enjoyment.

爱意味着向对方做出承诺。承诺并非意味着完全屈从于对方，也不意味着双方的关系一定永恒不变。但相爱会让我们心甘情愿在一起。平静、欢乐也罢，痛苦、迷茫、挣扎、失望也罢，我们都不分离。

Love means trusting the person I love. If I love you, I trust that you will accept my caring and my love and that you won’t deliberately hurt me. I trust the reciprocal nature of our love.

爱意味着信任对方。爱你，就相信你会接受我的关心与爱意，也相信你不会故意伤害我。我相信我，我们爱情的本质是相互给予。

Love can tolerate imperfection. In a love relationship there are times of boredom, times when I may feel like giving up, times of real strain, and times I experience an impasse. Authentic love does not imply enduring happiness. I can stay during rough times, however, because I can remember what we had together in the past, and I can picture what we will have together in our future if we care enough to face our problems and work them through.

爱可以容忍不完美。相爱时，我有时候也会感到厌烦，想放弃，感到难以承受，觉得没有出路。真爱并不一定会意味着持久的幸福。然而，想起我们有过的时光，我就能顶住困难。我也能预见，我们如果努力面对、解决问题，就会有光明的前景。

Love is free. Love is freely given, not doled out on demand. Authentic love is not given with strings attached. There is an unconditional quality about love.

爱是自愿的。爱是自愿的给予，而不是要求时的施舍。真爱的付出没有前提。爱是没有条件的。

Love is expansive. If I love you, I encourage you to reach out and develop other relationships. The honest evidence of our love is our commitment to encouraging another’s full development.

爱的天地是广阔的。爱你，就鼓励你与别人建立人际关系。鼓励你去充分发展自己是我们相爱的明证。

Love means having a want for the person I love without having a need for that person in order to be complete. If I am nothing without you, then I’m not really free to love you.

爱意味着渴望对方，但没有对方，我依然完整。如果无你则无我，那么我就无法自由自在地爱你。

Love means identifying with the person I love. If I love you, I can empathize with you and see the world through your eyes. I can identify with you because I’m able to see myself in you and you in me. This closeness does not imply a continual “togetherness”, for distance and separation are sometimes essential in a loving relationship. Distance can intensify a loving bond, and it can help us rediscover ourselves, so that we are able to meet each other in a new way.

爱意味着理解对方。爱你，就会与你产生情感共鸣，并能用你的眼睛看世界。这是因为你身上能看见我的影子，而我身上也能看见你的影子。这种亲密并不意味着我们一刻也不分离；有时候，爱情中的距离和离别是必要的。距离能加强爱的纽带，能使我们重新发现自己，从而以全新的方式认识对方。

Love is selfish. I can only love you if I genuinely love, value, appreciate, and respect myself. If I am empty, the all I can give you is my emptiness. If I feel that I’m complete and worthwhile in myself, then I’m able to give you out of my fullness. One of the best ways for me to give you love is by fully enjoying myself with you.

爱是自私的。我只有真正地爱、珍惜、欣赏并尊重自己，才能爱你。如果我空虚，那么我给你的也只有空虚。如果我充实、完整，活得有价值，那么我给你的也是充实和完整。跟你在一起时，我尽享快乐，这是爱你的一个最好方式。

Love involves seeing the potential within the person we love. In my love for another, I view her or him as the person she or he can become, while still accepting who and what the person is now.

爱意味着看到对方的潜力。爱你，就会把你当作有潜力成为的那个人，同时接受你的现状。

Mature love is union under the condition of preserving one’s integrity, one’s individuality. In love this paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

成熟的爱是保持个人完整、独立的同时合成整体。合二为一，却又一分为二，这就是相爱的悖论。

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修改历史：

• 原帖发布时间：2004 年 5 月 18 日
• 第一次修改：2010 年 12 月 10 日（修改原因：六年，弹指一挥间，有了太多的改变…… ）
• 第二次修改：2014 年 2 月 26 日 （又三年多过去了，再次修改）
• 第三次修改：2014 年 8 月 5 日（边给大家讲译文边修改）

修改感言：

• 英文罗嗦，中文简练，是各自的语法和风格使然。英文需要交代几乎所有的语法关系，而中文则可略去。英文如同编织精美的刺绣，巧夺天工，而中文则是珠玉满盘，璀璨夺目。
• 《爱情真谛》的原译者遇到了所有英译中翻译都要面对的问题：不懂原文，写不好译文（这也是在说我自己）。希望我修改后的译文解决了这两大问题。其中一定还有改进提高的余地，希望大家不吝赐教，我好在下次修改时接着完善。另，按字数记，这次修改删掉了原译的五分之一。其中改动的部分请见此文件。
• 第二次修改的部分请见此文件，有些地方改回原译者的译法了。（2014 年 2 月 26 日）