劳心尽力是什么意思(劳人劳心)

人“劳心/劳力”，我“尽心尽力”

某日闲来无事，随手翻开《大学英语综合教程 学生用书》（全新版）一书。不知咋的，如下这句让作者的目光不愿移开：

When I get back, I’ll work hard and send my boy to college so he can live by his brains instead of his back.

一见那两处黑体字，再结合标题略加思考，细心的读者也许能猜到笔者在想什么！就是孔子说过的那句话：

劳心者治人，劳力者治于人！

此言可谓如雷贯耳，如今之人虽倡导“人人生而平等，职业不分贵贱”，但古今无数有“识”之士得以金榜题名，最终功成名就，总不能说丝毫未受其影响吧！如何将其处理为英语，从而惠及更多人，继而更好地服务于社会呢？国内的汉英词典均能查到，尽管其表述大同小异！某大型词典便给出了如下三例：

1) Those who toil with their minds make others work for them while those who toil

with their hands work for others and serve those who use their minds.;

2) Those who do mental labour rule and those who do manual labour are ruled.;

3) Those who work with their brains rule and those who work with their brawn are

ruled.

上述译文显然不错，但若从翻译角度上看，原文简洁明了，三个译文均略有冗长或拖沓之嫌；若再以“劳心/劳力”所含修辞（头韵）来判，后两个（尤其是译文三）似乎更为贴切；若为喜闻乐见的谚语结构（He that/who…）之故，我们倾向于译文“综合”压缩如下：

1) He rules who uses his brains and he is ruled who uses his brawn.

2) He who uses his brains rules one who uses his brawn.

3) He who is brainy rules he who is brawny.

4) The brainy rules the brawny.

说明：以上措辞以及个人考虑未必周全，仅供读者参考。当然，不同的译者，其行文自然各异，只要尽心尽力，似也无可厚非！此外，鉴于上面那句名言有11个汉字，外加出自英美人士措辞（brains/back）给人留下的深刻印象，本文“别出心裁”，欲以11个音节回应之，恳请读者指教：

He who works with his brains rules one with his brawn. 或：

He who lives by his brains rules one by his back.

或仅明示前者（劳心），“暗示/淡化”后者（劳力）为：

He rules who lives by his brains not by his back.

说明：仍以11个音节对应11个汉字；大意为：治人者，靠其心而不靠力矣！

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