in the curious custom of this venerable institution, i find myself standing before you expected to impart words of lasting wisdom. here i am in a pulpit, dressed like a puritan minister — an apparition that would have horrified many of my distinguished forebears and perhaps rededicated some of them to the extirpation of witches. this moment would have propelled increase and cotton into a true “mather lather.” but here i am and there you are and it is the moment of and for veritas.
在這所久負盛名的大學的別具一格的儀式上，我站在了你們的面前，被期待著給予一些蘊含著恆久智慧的言論。站在這個講壇上，我穿得像個清教徒教長——一個可能會嚇到我的傑出前輩們的怪物，或許使他們中的一些人重新致力於剷除巫婆的事業上。這個時刻也許曾激勵了很多清教徒成為教長。但現在，我在上面，你們在下面，此時此刻，屬於真理，為了真理。
you have been undergraduates for four years. i have been president for not quite one. you have known three presidents; i one senior class. where then lies the voice of experience? maybe you should be offering the wisdom. perhaps our roles could be reversed and i could, in harvard law school style, do cold calls for the next hour or so.
你們已經在哈佛做了四年的大學生，而我當哈佛校長還不到一年。你們認識了三個校長，而我只認識了你們這一屆大四的。算起來我哪有資格說什麼經驗之談？或許應該由你們上來展示一下智慧。要不我們換換位置？然後我就可以像哈佛法學院的學生那樣，在接下來的一個小時內不時地冷不防地提出問題。
we all do seem to have made it to this point — more or less in one piece. though i recently learned that we have not provided you with dinner since may 22. i know we need to wean you from harvard in a figurative sense. i never knew we took it quite so literally.
學校和學生們似乎都在努力讓時間來到這一時刻，而且還差不多是步調一致的。我這兩天才得知哈佛從5月22日開始就不向你們提供一伙食了。雖然有比喻說“我們早晚得給你們斷奶”，但沒想到我們的後勤還真的早早就把“奶”給斷了。
but let's return to that notion of cold calls for a moment. let's imagine this were a baccalaureate service in the form of q & a, and you were asking the questions. “what is the meaning of life, president faust? what were these four years at harvard for? president faust, you must have learned something since you graduated from college exactly 40 years ago?”
現在還是讓我們回到我剛才提到的提問題的事上吧。讓我們構想下這是個哈佛大學給本科生的畢業服務，是以問答的形式。你們將問些問題，比如：“福校長啊，人生的價值是什麼呢？我們上這大學四年是為了什麼呢？福校長，你大學畢業到現在的40年裡一定學到些什麼東西可以教給我們吧？”
in a way, you have been engaging me in this q & a for the past year. on just these questions, although you have phrased them a bit more narrowly. and i have been trying to figure out how i might answer and, perhaps more intriguingly, why you were asking.
在某種程度上，在過去的一年裡你們一直都在讓我從事這種問答。從僅僅這些問題上，即使你們措辭問題都傾向於狹義，而我除了思考怎么做出回答外，更激發我去思考的，是你們為什麼問這些問題。