18 July 2020

And beauty synthesized the struggles and the contradictions and the disharmonies in every part of this building-and, furthermore, it was beauty that ruled over them all! The Golden Temple had been built with gold dust in the long, lightless night, just like a sutra that is painstakingly inscribed with gold dust onto the dark-blue pages of a book. Yet I did not know whether beauty was, on the one hand, identical with the Golden Temple itself or, on the other, consubstantial with the night of nothingness that surrounded the temple. Perhaps beauty was both these things. It was both the individual parts and the whole structure, both the Golden Temple and the night that wrapped itself about the Golden Temple.
From The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (『金閣寺』)
by Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫)
Translated by Ivan Morris

于是，美概括了各部分的争执、矛盾和一切不协调，并且君临其上！它如同用泥金一字一字准确地抄录在深藏青色册页上的纳经一样，是一幢在无明的长夜里用泥金修建的建筑物。然而，我不知道美究竟是金阁本身还是与笼罩着金阁的虚无之夜同一性质的东西！或者两者都是美。美既是细部，也是整体；既是金阁，也是笼罩金阁之夜。
摘自三岛由纪夫『金阁寺』
唐月梅 译