米利都的泰勒斯

水井

The Well

米利都是小亚细亚沿海一座繁忙的小镇。船只来来往往。集市上满是鱼、橄榄油和羊毛的气味。

Miletus was a busy town on the coast of Asia Minor. Ships came and went. The market smelled of fish, olive oil and wool.

大约两千五百年前，一个叫泰勒斯的人住在那里。

About two and a half thousand years ago, a man called Thales lived there.

泰勒斯不富有，也不是士兵。他什么都不卖。他做的事情就是观察。他看大海，看星星，还记下月亮运行的位置。

Thales was not rich, and he was not a soldier. He did not sell anything. What he did was look. He looked at the sea. He looked at the stars, and he wrote down where the moon moved.

一天傍晚，他抬头望着天空走回家。他看着星星一颗一颗地升起来。他想得太入神了，以至于忘了脚下的路。在他面前的黑暗中有一口井：一个深而圆的洞，底下有水。

One evening he was walking home with his head in the sky. He was watching the stars come out one by one. He was thinking about them so hard that he forgot his feet. In front of him, in the dark, there was a well: a deep, round hole with water at the bottom.

他掉了进去。

He fell in.

一个来自色雷斯的年轻女仆来井边打水。她听到了落水声，往下一看。只见米利都的智者站在冰冷的水中，水没到了胸口，而他仍旧抬头望着天空。

A young servant from Thrace had come to the well for water. She heard the splash and looked down. There was the wise man of Miletus, standing in the cold water up to his chest, still looking up.

她笑话他：“您想弄明白天上发生了什么，”她说，“却连自己脚下的东西都看不见。”

She laughed at him. “You are trying to find out what happens in the sky,” she said, “but you cannot even see what is in front of your own feet.”

这是关于思想家最古老的笑话，就始于泰勒斯。这个姑娘说得对。但她也错了，因为水里的这个人正在思考一个从没有人问过的问题。

That is the oldest joke about thinkers, and it starts with Thales. The girl was right. But she was also wrong, because the man in the water was busy with a question that no one had asked before.

这个问题就是：万物是由什么做成的？

The question was this: what is everything made of?