SECRETARY RUBIO In Defense of Western Civilization
2026年10月7日 · 官方英文讲稿 + 中文翻译 · 按段落对照
鲁比奥国务卿：”世界各地都有伟大的遗迹。在很多情况下，那些地方仿佛是历史已经耗尽了自身的地方：是遥远文化的残迹，早已消失在鲜活的记忆之外。
SECRETARY RUBIO: “There are great ruins all across the world. In many cases, they are places where history seems to have exhausted itself: remnants of distant cultures that have long passed beyond living memory.
但卫城不一样。
But the Acropolis is different.
几千年来，在我身后建造起这一切的文明，一直令整个西方世界心驰神往。一代又一代的政治家、艺术家和哲学家仰望它——怀着惊奇仰望它，怀着敬畏仰望它。
For thousands of years, the civilization that built what stands behind me has captivated the imagination of the Western world. Generations of our statesmen, artists, and philosophers have looked to it – they’ve looked to it with wonder and they’ve looked to it with awe.
时间总有一种让感官迟钝的倾向：伟大的胜利和惨烈的失败，似乎都萎缩成了教科书里的一个注脚，成为学生们记住又忘掉的又一个知识点。但古希腊人，却仿佛对我们的记忆有一种近乎神秘的牵引力。他们一次又一次地把我们召唤回去。
Now time has a tendency to dull the senses: great victories and catastrophic defeats, they seem to shrink to becoming like a footnote in a textbook, another fact for our schoolchildren to memorize and forget. But the Greeks of antiquity, they seem to have an almost mystical hold on our memory. They call us back to them, again and again.
公元前480年，薛西斯的大军抵达这座城市，放火焚烧了它的圣所。当时大多数雅典人已经乘船撤离到附近的岛屿。但有一小群人不肯离开自己的家园。于是他们退守到卫城这座岩石堡垒，打了一场非同寻常的最后之战，把巨石从悬崖上推下去砸向波斯入侵者，以一隅之地挡住了那个时代最强大的帝国，一挡就是数日。他们最终寡不敌众。波斯人洗劫了神庙，焚烧了圣所，把卫城夷为平地。但当雅典人归来，他们收集起旧卫城破碎的残件，就地埋在它曾经矗立的山丘之下。几十年后，在伯里克利时代，他们建起了帕特农神庙。
480 years before Christ, the armies of Xerxes arrived in this city and they put its sanctuaries to the torch. Most Athenians had by then evacuated by ship to a nearby island. But there was a handful of them that refused to leave their home. So instead, they barricaded themselves in the rocky fortress of the Acropolis to fight an extraordinary last stand, heaving massive stones down the cliffs onto the Persian invaders and holding the greatest empire of the age at bay for days. They were eventually overwhelmed. The Persians plundered the temples, burned the shrines, and razed the Acropolis to the ground but when the Athenians returned, they gathered the broken remains of the old Acropolis and buried them in the hill where it had stood. And decades later, under Pericles, they raised the Parthenon.
此后的二十五个世纪，帕特农神庙一直矗立在那里。帝国在它的阴影下崛起又倾颓。而建造它的那些人的后裔——雅典与罗马之子——把他们的文明带到了天涯海角。
For 25 centuries since, the Parthenon has stood. Empires have risen and fallen beneath its shadow. And the progeny of the men who built it – the sons of Athens and Rome – have carried their civilization with them to the ends of the Earth.
在我此刻站立之地万里之外的美利坚合众国建国两个半世纪之后——今天，我以这个共和国国务卿的身份站在这里，也以一个从西班牙来到新大陆的移民的玄孙的身份站在这里——我站在这里，要见证一笔债务，一笔无论时光流逝、无论空间遥远都永远无法偿清的债务。
Two and a half centuries after the founding of the American republic halfway across the world from where I stand now – I stand here today as the Secretary of State of that republic, and a great-grandson of settlers who arrived in the new world from Spain – I stand here to testify to a debt that no lapse of time, no distance of space can ever extinguish.
美国的历史，我的国家的历史，处处留着古文明的指纹。希腊就字面意义上刻进了我们政府的建筑里：首都华盛顿那高耸的石柱、穹顶和纪念碑。我们宪法诞生的那座城市——费城——本身就是一个希腊名字。
The history of America, the history of my country, is covered with the fingerprints of antiquity. Greece is literally carved into the architecture of our government: in the towering columns, in the domes and the monuments across our capital city. The city where our Constitution was born – Philadelphia – is itself a Greek name.
我们国家的缔造者们，深深着迷于从你们这里继承来的遗产。他们饱读历史——对自己在历史中的独特位置有着鲜活的自觉——但过去的任何时代，都不曾像古典时代那样攫住他们的注意力、点燃他们的想象。很多人听到会惊讶：《联邦党人文集》中引用最多的作者，不是某位启蒙哲学家或政治理论家。不，《联邦党人文集》中引用最多的作者，是普鲁塔克——那位为希腊罗马伟人立传的希腊传记作家。
The men who founded my country were fascinated by the heritage we inherited from yours. They were exceptionally well-read in history – they were vividly aware of their unique place in it – but no other age of the past held their attention or their imagination quite like that of antiquity. Many, many people are surprised to learn that the most commonly cited author in the Federalist Papers was not an Enlightenment philosopher or political theorist. No, the most commonly cited author in the Federalist Papers was Plutarch, the Greek biographer of Greece and Rome’s great men.
关于古希腊对美国国父们思想的影响——进而对所有先于他们的西方哲学家和政治家的影响——已经有汗牛充栋的著述。大体脉络我们都很熟悉：雅典给了我们民主；柏拉图和亚里士多德给了我们西方哲学。我们关于法律、美德、公民身份和共和政体的观念，都是在希腊城邦中成形的。就连我们的大部分政治词汇——民主、僭政，”政治”这个词本身——都源于这里。
Now, much has been written and said about the influence of ancient Greece on the ideas of the American Founders – and, for that matter, on all of the Western philosophers and statesmen that preceded them. Most of us are familiar with the basic history. Athens gave us democracy. Plato and Aristotle gave us Western philosophy. Our ideas of law, of virtue, of citizenship, and republican government were shaped in the Greek city-states. Even much of our political vocabulary – words like democracy, tyranny, the word “politics” itself – found its origins here.
这些都没错。但作为美国人、作为西方人，我们欠这片土地的，远比这深得多。这些制度和思想——这些制度和思想，只是古希腊人身上更根本特质的外在表达——那些特质无法被还原为任何一种政治制度或理论。
Now, all of that is true. But the things we owe to this place – as Americans, and as Westerners – are actually far far deeper. These institutions and ideas – these institutions and ideas were the outward expression of more fundamental qualities we see in the ancient Greeks – qualities that can’t be reduced to any particular political system or theory.
在这里，在雅典，我们第一次看到了后来定义西方的一切本质特质的完整呈现：桀骜不驯的个性与不懈的雄心；大胆的探索与发明；对发现、对冒险、对风险与荣耀的渴望。对世界及其运行法则永不餍足的好奇，对参透自然奥秘、把握宇宙秘密的饥渴。对”不可能”这个概念的不耐烦，对一切边界和极限的挣脱，奋力向未知的深处张望。
Here, in Athens, we found the first full realization of all the essential traits that would come to define the West: fierce individuality and relentless ambition; daring exploration and invention; a yearning for discovery, for adventure, risk and glory. An insatiable curiosity about the world and the principles by which it operates, a hunger to know the mysteries of nature and grasp the secrets of the cosmos. An impatience with the notion of impossibility, chafing at all boundaries and limits, straining to peer into the depths of the unknown.
这些不只是某个哲学学派的公式或箴言。它们是一个民族的品格——体现在他们的传统、故事和想象中；体现在他们对公民的要求中；体现在他们为之生、为之战、为之死的事物中。
These were not just the formulas or precepts of a particular school of philosophy. They were the characteristic of a people – expressed in their traditions, their stories, their imagination; in the qualities they demanded of their citizens; in the things they lived and fought and died for.
认识他们，就是认识我们自己。
To know them is to know ourselves.
在这里绽放的，是西方要揭开一切被无知、黑暗和距离遮蔽之物的渴望。希腊人不只是塑造了历史；希腊人给了我们历史本身。我们关于许多古代文明所知的大部分，几乎全部来自希腊探险家和史学家的记录——这些探险家和史学家不只书写自己民族的历史，还向外远行，观察并记录下世界各地异族异域的传奇。
What blossomed here in this place was the Western desire to uncover all that ignorance, darkness, and distance had kept hidden from the mind of man. The Greeks did not just shape history; the Greeks gave us history itself. Much of what we know about many ancient civilizations comes almost entirely from the records of Greek explorers and historians, explorers and historians who didn’t just chronicle the histories of their own people, but ventured outwards to observe and record the sagas of foreign peoples and cultures all across the world.
当别人向内看时，希腊人第一个把目光投向外面，去追逐看见一切新奇陌生之物的刺激与荣耀。正是这种特质——正是这种特质——推动西方创造和建造出别人造不出的东西，把我们和许许多多把”稳定”与”温饱”视为人生最高目标的文化与文明区别开来。
Where others looked inward, the Greeks were the first to direct their focus outward, to chase the thrill and glory of seeing all that was strange and new. It was this trait – it was this trait that would push the West to create and build things that others could not, marking us out from so many other cultures and civilizations where stability and subsistence were the highest ends of life.
但我们从希腊人那里继承的，不只是探索未知的雄心；更是”未知可以被认知”的信念。是世界可以被测绘、被度量、被绘制、被理解的信心——是宇宙存在理性秩序的信心，它受某些基本法则支配，人可以观察这些法则，心智可以理解它们。
But it is not just the ambition to explore the unknown that we inherit from the Greeks; it is the conviction that the unknown can be known. The confidence that the world can be charted and measured and mapped and understood – and that there is a rational order to the cosmos, governed by certain fundamental laws, laws that men can observe and the mind can come to understand.
这就是西方心智的根基：我们的数学、科学、医学。我们的哲学、伦理和宗教。它为耶稣基督的福音在欧洲找到沃土、茁壮成长为基督教世界帝国铺平了道路。它是基督教神学丰盛宝藏的根基——奥古斯丁、阿奎那，以及整个自然法传统。
This was the foundation of the Western mind: our math, our science, our medicine. Our philosophy, ethics, and religion. It paved the way for the gospel of Jesus Christ to find fertile soil in Europe and flourish into the empire of Christendom. It was the foundation of the riches of Christian theology – of Augustine and Aquinas and the whole tradition of natural law.
它孕育了一种文明，这种文明的标志不只是一种共同的文化，更是一种共同的人性观——一种关于人与人在宇宙中位置的共同看法。它的后裔们共享的不只是一种自然秩序的观念，还有一种独特的美德观；一种关于命运的理解；一种关于真、善、美的理解；一种规定人应当如何生活的准则；一种有待企及的客观标准和理想。
It gave birth to a civilization marked not just by a common culture, it was marked by a common anthropology – a common view of man and his place in the universe. Its descendants would share not just the idea of a natural order, but a distinctive understanding of virtue; of destiny and fate; of truth, goodness, and beauty; of a code that dictates how men ought to live; of objective standards and ideals to strive towards.
对古希腊人来说，追求卓越就是人生存在的根本原则。他们把全部公民生活组织在竞技、雄心和竞争周围：在哲学和诗歌中，在雕塑和戏剧中，在体育和艺术中，在战争和治国术中。古典希腊城邦是一个竞技场，伟人在其中检验和证明自己，在永恒的奋斗中磨砺潜能——做最优秀、最强大、最美好的人，向着完美一寸一寸地逼近。
For the Greeks of antiquity, the pursuit of excellence was the very principle of man’s existence. They organized all of civic life around contest, ambition, competition: in philosophy and poetry, in sculpture and drama, in athletics and art, in war and statecraft. The classical Greek city was an arena for great men to test and prove themselves, to hone their potential through perpetual struggle – to be the best, the strongest, the most beautiful, straining to inch ever closer to perfection.
我知道，在现代人听来，我刚才描述的这种生活方式可能听起来古怪，甚至可能听起来残酷。坦率说，我们这个时代许多意识形态的理想，已经变成了一个绝对安全的世界：没有风险，没有失败，既无胜利的荣耀，也无失败的耻辱。如今我们常常向下建造。我们设计标准，确保没有人会输；我们更操心最差者的舒适，而非最优者的潜能。我们把我们中间最卓越的事物，当作平庸、平常、平凡的人质。
Now I know that to modern ears, what I just described, this way of life, may sound odd; it may even sound cruel. The ideal of many ideologies in our time has, frankly, become a world of perfect safety, devoid of risk or failure, with neither the glory of victory nor the shame of defeat. Too often these days, we build downwards. We design our standards to ensure no one will lose; we preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre.
建造帕特农神庙的人，是向上建造的。他们认为，人生最高尚的志向就是超越众人，在一切事上力争第一。古希腊城邦充满——充满了炽烈的激情、纷争、派系和冲突。但正是从这种对卓越的恒久争夺中——从中绽放出艺术、哲学、政治和思想的巨大能量，把地中海沿岸的一群城邦，变成了世界上最伟大文明的诞生地。
The men who made the Parthenon, they built upwards. They held that the highest and most noble aspiration in life was to surpass all others, to strive to be the best in all things. The ancient Greek city-states were filled. They were filled with intense passion and rivalry and faction and conflict. But from that constant struggle for distinction – from that came the great flowering of art and philosophy and political and intellectual energy that would transform a collective of Mediterranean cities into the birthplace of the greatest civilization in the world.
古希腊人称之为 thumos（血气）——激情、力量、勇气与骄傲之火——那是伟大文明的心脏。没有它？没有它，国家就会失去战斗的意志、奋斗的意志、生存的意志。
The thumos, as the ancient Greeks called it – the fire of passion, strength, courage, pride – is the heart of great civilization. And without it? Without it, nations lose their will to fight, the will to strive, the will to survive.
今天，西方的太多地方已经忘记了这种品质。岁月流转，我们西方人开始为那些让我们卓越的东西感到羞耻。我们为自己的成就把我们和世界其他地方区别开来而难为情。我们的繁荣莫名其妙地成了负罪感的来源。我们不再相信自己的伟大是应得的、是挣来的。
Today, too much of the West has forgotten this quality. Over time, we in the West came to feel ashamed of the very things that made us exceptional. We felt embarrassed that our achievements set us apart from the rest of the world. Our prosperity somehow became a source of guilt. We no longer believed we deserved and had earned our greatness.
“民族主义”成了一个肮脏的词。于是我们推倒自己的纪念碑；谴责自己的历史。在太多地方，我们教孩子们为他们将要继承的国家感到羞耻。在这个过程中，我们打开了边境，把产业外包出去，任凭我们的军队萎缩、朽坏。
The word “nationalism” became a dirty word. And so we tore down our monuments; we condemned our own history. And in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit. In the process, we opened our borders and outsourced our industry, and allowed our militaries to wither and to decay.
年复一年，我们似乎把更多的主权外包出去，把决策权移交给远在我们掌控之外的全球官僚机构。
And with every passing year, we seemed to outsource more of our sovereignty, transferring our decisions to global bureaucracies far beyond the reach of our control.
但别人很乐意填补我们留下的真空——填补我们软弱留下的真空。当西方的信心动摇，它的对手和敌手们只会更加咄咄逼人，在我们腾出的位置上积累起他们自己的财富和权力。
But others were all too happy to fill the vacuum that we left – the vacuum left behind by our weakness. And as the West’s confidence faltered, its adversaries and its rivals only grew more assertive, building up their own wealth and their own power in our stead.
而今天，我们发现自己站在十字路口。因为未来十年和我们做出的决定，将书写下一个世纪的故事。我们选择的道路，将决定西方是保持它在世界前列的位置，还是听任自己滑向萎缩、奴役和衰落的未来。我们要么现在就选择行动，要么连选择行动的机会都会失去。
And now, today, we find ourselves at a crossroads. Because the next decade and the decisions we make will write the story of the next century. The course we take will determine whether the West maintains its place at the head of the world or resigns itself to a future of atrophy and servitude and decline. We will either choose to act now or lose the choice to act at all.
在特朗普总统领导下，美国已经做出了选择。我们选择毫不掩饰地追求国家实力：夺回关键供应链的控制权，重振我们的经济，重建我们的国防，为未来技术和产业的主导权而战。
Under President Trump, the United States has made its choice. We choose the unapologetic pursuit of national power: to take back control of our critical supply chains, to reindustrialize our economy, to rebuild our defense, to fight for dominance of the technologies and industries of the future.
我们选择向新疆域进发：在先进制造和超级智能领域；在无人机、武器和战争领域；在芯片、矿产、网络空间，以及人类可能性的每一个其他疆域。释放我们的能量，重建我们的工厂，把宇航员送回月球，在太空开启一个新的探索时代。
We choose to reach for new frontiers: in advanced manufacturing and super intelligence; in drones, weapons, and warfare; in chips, minerals, cyber, and every other domain of human possibility. To unleash our energy, to rebuild our factories, to return our astronauts to the moon and launch a new age of exploration in space.
古希腊人纵有崇高的理想，却并不天真。他们懂得国家有利益。他们懂得治国需要审慎和外交，但他们也懂得，当审慎和外交失效时，需要有动用武力的能力。他们懂得，实力不只需要有自卫的手段，还需要让对方相信你敢用它的可信度。
Now for all their lofty ideals, the ancient Greeks were not naive. They understood that nations have interests. They understood that statecraft requires prudence and diplomacy, but they also understood that it requires the ability to wield force when prudence and diplomacy fail. They understood that power requires not only having the means to defend yourself, it requires the credibility that you are willing to use it.
这就是特朗普政府希望重拾的政治与治国术的古典理解——不只为我们的国家重拾，更为我们整个文明重拾。
This is the classical understanding of politics and of statecraft that the Trump Administration hopes to reclaim – reclaim not just for our country, but for the whole of our civilization.
我们相信，欧洲能从漫长的沉睡中醒来，重新点燃几千年前在这里点起的火焰。
We believe that Europe can awaken from its long slumber and rekindle the fire that was lit here millennia ago.
已经有迹象了。
There are already signs.
在这片大陆上，我们正在见证我们希望是一场代际转变的开端：国防开支飙升，新伙伴关系和新项目如雨后春笋，制造业和生产扩张——延续去年在海牙做出的历史性防务承诺。
Across this continent, we are witnessing what we hope will be the beginnings of a generational shift: skyrocketing defense spending, a flurry of new partnerships and programs, expanded manufacturing and production, following on the historic defense commitments made last year in The Hague.
希腊一直处在这场转变的中心。这个国家的人民一次又一次证明自己是欧洲和美国都不可或缺的朋友，从能源到移民到国防——在国防上，希腊堪称盟友的典范。
Greece has been at the center of this shift. The people of this nation have proved themselves once again to be an indispensable friend to Europe and to the United States alike, on everything from energy to migration to defense, where Greece has been a model ally.
我们由衷希望，全欧洲都向你们看齐。
And it’s our sincerest hope that all of Europe will follow your example.
尽管激情有时会让美欧之间的情谊经受考验，但绝不能让它断裂。我们必须一起加强一个足以应对我们这个时代威胁的同盟。
Though passions may, at times, have strained the bonds of affection between the United States and Europe, it must not be allowed to break them. Together, we must strengthen an alliance capable of confronting threats of our age.
我们能做到。因为我们不认为跨大西洋友谊应该是零和游戏。恰恰相反：我们的愿景是一个整体大于部分之和的同盟。就在上个月，我们已经看到了这个愿景的现实版：美国、丹麦和格陵兰达成了一项前所未有的新协议——这项协议将重塑北极，加强整个北约的安全。协议的三方都是赢家。整个欧洲——北约和美国——都因它变得更安全、更强大、更有保障。
And we can. Because we do not believe the transatlantic friendship should be zero sum. Quite the opposite: our vision is of an alliance whose strength is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a vision we saw in action just last month, in an unprecedented new agreement between the United States, Denmark, and Greenland – an agreement that will reshape the Arctic and bolster the security of all of NATO. All three partners in that deal emerged victorious. All of Europe – and NATO and the United States emerged safer, stronger, and more secure because of it.
我们要一起赢。我们必须一起赢。
We want to win together. We must win together.
如今，”开明的对外政策就意味着把全球共同体置于本国人民之上”，这种想法成了时髦。我想，在这里，我们同样大可向古希腊人学习，因为他们懂得：忠于自己的国家没有什么自私可言，为捍卫本国利益而战更没有什么错。
Now it has become fashionable today to believe that enlightened foreign policy means prioritizing the global community over one’s own people. And I think here, too, we have much to learn from the men of ancient Greece because they knew that there was nothing selfish or wrong about loyalty to your nation, nor anything selfish or wrong about fighting to defend its interests above all else.
他们——炽烈地——信奉”伟人”的理想：以自己的功业赢得不朽的非凡个体。但他们相信，荣耀和声名，是靠为比自己更大的事业奋斗、牺牲、建功立业赢来的。古希腊世界反复出现的英雄形象，是那个愿意为值得他忠诚的事业付出任何代价的人。
They believed – fiercely – in the ideal of the great man: the exceptional individual who obtains immortality through his own deeds. But they believed that glory and fame, those things were won through striving, sacrificing and achieving greatly for something larger than yourself. The recurring hero of the ancient Greek world was the man who was willing to pay any cost for a cause worthy of his loyalty.
我们在苏格拉底身上看到这一点——他至死不肯放弃对真理的追问。我们在三百斯巴达人的传奇一战中看到这一点——被波斯大军重重包围、寡不敌众，他们拒绝了自救的机会，选择战至最后一人，也不抛弃自己的岗位、抛弃自己的职责。我们在阿喀琉斯的史诗神话中看到这一点——他本可以选择回乡，安度长寿平静的一生——却选择留在特洛伊，在追逐不朽荣耀中殒命。
We see this in Socrates, who refused to abandon the inquiry into truth even at the cost of his own life. We see it in the legendary stand of 300 Spartans – surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by the vast armies of Persia – who refused the chance to save themselves, choosing to fight to the last man rather than abandon their post or abandon their duty. And we see it in the epic myth of Achilles, who is offered the choice to return home and live a long and peaceful life – but chooses instead to remain at Troy and perish in pursuit of eternal glory.
这些——这些品质塑造了西方的道德想象。从拒绝背叛信仰的基督教殉道者，到为国捐躯的爱国者；从圣托马斯·莫尔到阿拉莫之战，贯穿其中的还有美国《独立宣言》那不朽的结尾：”我们以我们的生命、我们的财产和我们神圣的荣誉，彼此郑重立誓。”
These – these are the qualities that would shape the Western moral imagination. From the Christian martyr who refused to betray his faith to the patriot who gave his life for his country; from Saint Thomas More to the Battle of the Alamo, running through the immortal closing words of the Declaration of Independence of the United States which says, “We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
西方人的责任感正源于希腊人——对自己的准则、自己的事业、自己的国家不可动摇的忠诚。西方的英雄，我们的英雄，是那些在最艰难、最痛苦的时刻依然选择忠于职责的人：信守诺言的人，不抛弃岗位的士兵，与船同沉的船长——那句老话里的船长。
It is from the Greeks that the West inherited its sense of duty – an unbreakable loyalty to one’s code, one’s cause, one’s country. Our heroes, the heroes of the West are those who choose to remain faithful to their duty precisely when it is most difficult and painful to do so: the man who is bound by his word, the soldier who will not abandon his post, the captain, the proverbial captain, who goes down with his ship.
这和我们今天看到的某些东西截然不同，比如伊朗那些激进毛拉那样的狂热分子，他们的死亡崇拜把儿童自杀式袭击者捧为民族英雄，把殉道本身当成目的。
This is wholly different from what we see, even now, for example from fanatics like the radical mullahs of Iran, whose cult of death hails child suicide bombers as national heroes, and portrays martyrdom as an end to itself.
我们的英雄——我们的英雄或许愿为事业而死；但我们的英雄不崇拜死亡。恰恰因为我们珍视生命，我们才懂得赏识那些宁可牺牲生命也不背叛原则的人的英勇。而现在，我们把西方人对这些东西——英勇、荣誉、责任——的理解视为理所当然。我们以为这些是古今中外、人人皆有的普世之物。不是。它们是一种独特品格的产物，这种品格在这里诞生，塑造了此后整个文明的故事。今天，我们必须以和先辈同样的热忱，为捍卫这个文明而战。
Our heroes – our heroes may be willing to die for their cause; but our heroes do not worship death. It is precisely because we value life that we come to recognize the heroism in those who would sooner sacrifice it than to betray their principles. Now, we take the West’s conception of these things – heroism, honor, duty – we take these things for granted. We assume that these somehow are universal to all people in all times and in all places. They are not. They are the product of a distinct character, a distinct character which arose here and shaped the whole story of the civilization that came after it. A civilization that we must fight to defend today with the same passion as our forefathers did.
建造帕特农神庙的人之后，是欧洲基督教世界的建筑师，他们建起了米兰、科隆和佛罗伦萨的大教堂。驱动古希腊雕塑家完善人体之美的渴求，在米开朗基罗身上找到了新的表达。希腊哲学家对宇宙结构的求索，由哥白尼继承，再到伽利略，再到开普勒，再到牛顿。
The men who built the Parthenon were succeeded by the architects of European Christendom, who raised the cathedrals of Milan, Cologne, and Florence. The quest to perfect the human form that moved the ancient Greek sculptors found a new expression in Michelangelo. The Greek philosophers’ search for the structure of the universe was inherited by Copernicus, and then Galileo, then Kepler, and in Newton.
对新知的饥渴，催生了麦哲伦的首次环球航行、哥伦布发现美洲大陆，最终催生了阿波罗11号的登月之旅。让亚历山大征服整个已知世界的那些品质，在凯撒身上重现，在查理曼身上重现，在科尔特斯身上重现。
The hunger for new knowledge, that’s what gave birth to Magellan’s first expedition around the world, to Columbus’ discovery of the Americas, and ultimately to Apollo 11’s journey to the moon. And the qualities that led Alexander to conquer the entire known world reappeared in Caesar, then Charlemagne, and Cortes.
在美国，同样的传统获得了新生。一片辽阔而蛮荒的土地，成了西方想象力和雄心伟大复兴的舞台。希腊人对新地平线的渴望，变成了美国的边疆精神。雅典与罗马的文明，把一个初生的滨海共和国变成了横贯大陆的帝国。
And in America, that same tradition rediscovered itself anew. An open and wild land became the site of a great revival of Western imagination and ambition. The Greek aspiration for new horizons became the American frontier spirit. The civilization of Athens and Rome transformed an infant seaboard republic into a continental empire.
每一代最伟大的美国人身上，都有先辈鲜明的特征——生于雅典，成于罗马，受洗于基督教世界，在中世纪欧洲的熔炉中淬炼，禀赋了英国人对自由的天才，再漂洋过海，在新大陆的海岸获得重生。
The greatest Americans of every generation have carried the unmistakable features of their forefathers – born in Athens, formed by Rome, baptized in Christendom, hardened in the furnace of medieval Europe, endowed with the English genius for liberty, and then carried across the Atlantic to be reborn on the shores of a new world.
现在，我们必须一起重新找回这种精神。我们正处在一个转折点——不只是我们国家历史的转折点，更是我们整个文明的转折点。
Together, we must now rediscover that spirit. We are at an inflection point – an inflection point not only in the history of my nation, but an inflection point in the whole of our civilization.
今天我们面对的威胁，和当年在古代那戏剧性舞台上的一样真实。
The threats we face today are every bit as real as they were on the dramatic stage of antiquity.
国家利益并没有因为国际机构的出现而消失。战争并没有因为我们爱好和平就消失。其他国家继续武装，继续谋求影响力，继续为领土、技术、资源、市场、能源和权力而竞争。
National interests did not vanish in the face of international institutions. War did not disappear simply because we preferred peace. Other states continued to arm, to seek influence, to compete for territory, and technology, and resources, and markets, and energy, and power.
于是战火重燃。大国竞争重现。脆弱、侵略、恐怖主义，层出不穷的新威胁、新攻击又回来了。
And now, there is war again. There is new competition between great powers again. There is vulnerability, aggression, terrorism, a whole universe of new threats and attacks again.
所以我们必须重建我们的制度和同盟，共同面对这些威胁——要明白，这些东西的目的不是取消构成它们的国家的主权，而是捍卫它们。各国不必抛弃各自鲜明的身份，也能认清彼此的共同利益。
And so we must rebuild our institutions and our alliances to face these threats together – understanding that the purpose of these things is not to abolish the sovereignty of the nations that constitute them; it is to defend them. And that nations need not abandon their distinct identities in order to recognize their common interests.
我们已经和这里的伙伴——希腊——建起了这样的典范。在防务伙伴关系上，在能源和技术上，在我们守护欧洲边境、抵御大规模移民威胁的共同雄心上。
We have built a model of that with our partners here in Greece. In our defense partnerships, in energy and technology, in our shared ambition to secure Europe’s borders from the threats of mass migration.
我们的友谊可以追溯到我国建国之初。1821年希腊奋起摆脱奥斯曼帝国数百年统治、重获独立时，美国人在那场斗争中认出了某种熟悉的东西。三年后，伟大的美国政治家丹尼尔·韦伯斯特在国会发表著名演说，把希腊革命的事业呈现在年轻共和国的代表们面前。
Our friendship dates back to the earliest years of my nation. When Greece rose in 1821 to recover its independence after centuries of Ottoman rule, Americans recognized something familiar in that struggle. Three years later, the great American statesman Daniel Webster, he delivered a famous address to Congress, helping bring the cause of the Greek Revolution before the representatives of the young American republic.
他开篇就请大家环顾四周。他在演说中说：”这种自由的政体，这种人民的集会……这种自由辩论、公开讨论的实践，这种思想与思想的交锋……甚至我们集会的这座建筑，这些匀称的石柱，这些华美的建筑，都在提醒我们希腊曾经存在，提醒我们——我们和全人类一样——深深欠她的债。”
And he began by calling their attention to everything around them. This is what he said in his speech; he said: “This free form of government, this popular assembly… this practice of free debate, and public discussion, the contest of mind with mind… even the edifice in which we assemble, these proportioned columns, this ornamented architecture, all remind us that Greece has existed, and that we, like the rest of mankind, are greatly her debtors.”
这些话，今天和当年说出时一样真实。我们所有人——不只是美国人，还有欧洲人和西方各地的朋友们——都必须重新学习先辈们从这片土地、从这段历史中学到的功课。
Those words are as true today as they were when he said them. And all of us – not just Americans, but Europeans and our friends across the West – must relearn the lessons our forefathers took from this place and from its history.
希腊的历史——希腊的历史不只是让我们瞥见我们制度的最初形态。它给我们看的是一面镜子，照见我们自己。
The history of Greece – the history of Greece does not just offer us a glimpse – it does not offer a glimpse of our institutions in their earliest forms. The history of Greece shows us an image of ourselves.
它告诉我们，我们继承的是伟大英雄的遗产，我们应当骄傲——应当无比骄傲——我们来自何方。我们应当赞叹先辈们在这片乡土上雕刻出的伟业。我们文明的故事是人类所知最伟大的故事。而它始于这里，始于西方的第一代男男女女。从他们——从他们身上——我们能重新找回美德、勇气和力量，去直面我们这个时代的危险。
It shows us that ours is the inheritance of great heroes, and that we should be proud – that we should be intensely proud – of where we come from. We should marvel at what our forefathers carved out of this countryside. The story of our civilization is the greatest story ever known to man. And it began here, with the first men and women of the West. From them – from them – we can rediscover the virtues, the courage, and the strength to confront the dangers that we face in our time.
谢谢。”
Thank you.”