傳奇阿里 狂暴雷霆與雷霆之後的那道彩虹
Muhammad Ali, the three-time world heavyweight boxing champion who helped define his turbulent times as the most charismatic and controversial sports figure of the 20th century, died on Friday in a Phoenix-area hospital. He was 74.
三次世界重量級拳擊冠軍得主穆罕默德·阿里(Muhammad Ali)是20世紀最有人格魅力，也最具爭議的體育人物，是那個動盪時代的代表性人物之一。當地時間週五他於鳳凰城附近某醫院逝世，享年74歲。
His death was confirmed by Bob Gunnell, a family spokesman.
家庭發言人鮑勃·岡內爾(Bob Gunnell)宣佈了他的死訊。
Ali was the most thrilling if not the best heavyweight ever, carrying into the ring a physically lyrical, unorthodox boxing style that fused speed, agility and power more seamlessly than that of any fighter before him.
阿里即便不是有史以來最好的重量級拳擊手，也是最激動人心的一位，他把一種與衆不同的拳擊風格帶上拳臺，賦予形體以詩意，將速度、機敏與力量融爲一體，比他之前的任何拳手都要完美。
But he was more than the sum of his athletic gifts. An agile mind, a buoyant personality, a brash self-confidence and an evolving set of personal convictions fostered a magnetism that the ring alone could not contain. He entertained as much with his mouth as with his fists, narrating his life with a patter of inventive doggerel. (“Me! Wheeeeee!”)
但他的魅力不僅僅在於體育方面的天賦，他還擁有聰敏的頭腦、樂觀的性格、高傲的自信，以及一套不斷髮展的個人信念，令他在拳臺之外也煥發出磁石般的魅力。他喜歡用一連串自創的打油詩來描述自己的生活 （比如他的短詩“Me! Wheeeeee!”），和他的拳頭一樣，他的語言同樣饒有趣味。
Ali was as polarizing a superstar as the sports world has ever produced — both admired and vilified in the 1960s and ’70s for his religious, political and social stances. His refusal to be drafted during the Vietnam War, his rejection of racial integration at the height of the civil rights movement, his conversion from Christianity to Islam and the changing of his “slave” name, Cassius Clay, to one bestowed by the separatist black sect he joined, the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, were perceived as serious threats by the conservative establishment and noble acts of defiance by the liberal opposition.
阿里是體育界最譭譽參半的超級巨星——20世紀六七十年代，因爲自己的信仰、政治與社會態度，他既受到讚美，也受到詆譭。越南戰爭時期，他拒絕被徵召入伍，在民權運動如火如荼之際，他卻拒絕種族融合，他從基督教皈依伊斯蘭教，把自己作爲“奴隸”後裔的名字卡修斯·克萊(Cassius Clay)改爲穆罕默德·阿里，這個名字是由黑人分離主義團體“重新發現的伊斯蘭民族”(Lost-Found Nation of Islam)授予他的，他亦是該組織的一員。這些舉動令他被保守勢力視爲威脅，而開明反對派則視之爲高貴的反抗行動。
Loved or hated, he remained for 50 years one of the most recognizable people on the planet.
不管是被愛還是被恨，在長達50年的時間，他一直是世界上最著名的人物之一。
In later life Ali became something of a secular saint, a legend in soft focus. He was respected for having sacrificed more than three years of his boxing prime and untold millions of dollars for his antiwar principles after being banished from the ring; he was extolled for his un-self-conscious gallantry in the face of incurable illness, and he was beloved for his accommodating sweetness in public.
在某種意義上，阿里在人生的晚年成了塵世中的聖徒，一個被蒙上柔焦的傳奇。他因爲反戰而遭禁賽，從而損失了作爲拳擊手三年的全盛時光，更損失了成百上千萬難以估量的金錢，但也獲得了人們的尊敬；在難以治癒的疾病面前，他不自覺地展現出非凡的勇氣，因此備受讚美；而他在公開場合的平易近人、親切友善更是令他受到愛戴。
In 1996, he was trembling and nearly mute as he lit the Olympic caldron in Atlanta.
1996年，他渾身顫抖，近乎緘默地點燃了亞特蘭大奧運會的聖火。
That passive image was far removed from the exuberant, talkative, vainglorious 22-year-old who bounded out of Louisville, Ky., and onto the world stage in 1964 with an upset victory over Sonny Liston to become the world champion. The press called him the Louisville Lip. He called himself the Greatest.
這個順服隱忍的形象與當年那個熱情健談，喜好自誇的小夥相去甚遠——那是在1964年，22歲的他意外擊敗桑尼·利斯頓(Sonny Liston)成爲世界冠軍。肯塔基州路易斯維爾走出來的小夥子從此一舉登上世界舞臺。媒體叫他“路易斯維爾的大嘴巴”，他則稱自己爲“最棒的人”。
Ali also proved to be a shape-shifter — a public figure who kept reinventing his persona.
後來阿里也被證明是個變化多端的人，是個不斷重新塑造自身角色的公衆人物。
As a bubbly teenage gold medalist at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, he parroted America’s Cold War line, lecturing a Soviet reporter about the superiority of the United States. But he became a critic of his country and a government target in 1966 with his declaration “I ain’t got nothing against them Vietcong.”
1960年的羅馬奧運會上，少年得志的阿里奪得金牌。他鸚鵡學舌般重複着美國在“冷戰”中的說辭，向一個蘇聯記者宣揚美國的優越性。但是到了1966年，他成了自己祖國的批評者，他的宣言“我沒有任何理由反對越共”卻令他成爲政府的靶子。
“He lived a lot of lives for a lot of people,” said the comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory. “He was able to tell white folks for us to go to hell.”
“他代表無數人活出了無數種人生，”喜劇演員與民權活動人士迪克·格里高利(Dick Gregory)說。“他可以代表我們告訴白人：滾到一邊去。”
But Ali had his hypocrisies, or at least inconsistencies. How could he consider himself a “race man” yet mock the skin color, hair and features of other African-Americans, most notably Joe Frazier, his rival and opponent in three classic matches? Ali called him “the gorilla,” and long afterward Frazier continued to express hurt and bitterness. If there was a supertitle to Ali’s operatic life, it was this: “I don’t have to be who you want me to be; I’m free to be who I want.” He made that statement the morning after he won his first heavyweight title. It informed every aspect of his life, including the way he boxed.
但是阿里也有虛僞的一面，至少是前後矛盾的一面。他說自己“爲自己的種族而驕傲”，但卻嘲笑其他非裔美國人的膚色、頭髮和體徵，特別是嘲笑他的競爭對手與三次經典比賽中的對手喬·弗雷澤(Joe Frazier)，說他是“大猩猩”。很久以後，弗雷澤還常常表示自己受到了傷害，心懷怨恨。如果要給阿里歌劇般的一生加一行字幕，那一定會是“我用不着成爲你們希望我成爲的那個人，我想做什麼樣的人是我的自由”——這正是他第一次贏得重量級拳王稱號之後的那個早上做出的宣言。一句話道出了他人生的方方面面，也包括他打拳的方式。
The traditionalist fight crowd was appalled by his style; he kept his hands too low, the critics said, and instead of allowing punches to “slip” past his head by bobbing and weaving, he leaned back from them.
他的拳擊風格令傳統拳擊觀衆們震驚；評論家們說，他雙拳舉得太低，而且他也不靠上下左右晃動身體，讓對方的拳頭“滑過”自己的頭部，而是靠身體後傾來躲避拳頭。
Eventually his approach prevailed. Over 21 years, he won 56 fights and lost five. His Ali Shuffle may have been pure showboating, but the “rope-a-dope” — in which he rested on the ring’s ropes and let an opponent punch himself out — was the stratagem that won the Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman in 1974, the fight in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in which he regained his title.
最後，還是他的拳法佔了上風。21年來，他在56場比賽中獲勝，僅負五場。他的“阿里滑步”( Ali Shuffle)可能是純粹的賣弄，但他的“倚繩”(rope-a-dope)策略——倚靠在拳臺周圍的繩索上，讓對手自耗體力——讓他1974年在扎伊爾（今剛果民主共和國）的“叢林之戰”(Rumble in the Jungle)中戰勝了喬治·福爾曼(George Foreman)，重獲拳王稱號。
His personal life was paradoxical. Ali belonged to a sect that emphasized strong families, a subject on which he lectured, yet he had dalliances as casual as autograph sessions. A brief first marriage to Sonji Roi ended in divorce after she refused to dress and behave as a proper Nation wife. (She died in 2005.) While married to Belinda Boyd, his second wife, Ali traveled openly with Veronica Porche, whom he later married. That marriage, too, ended in divorce.
他的個人生活充滿矛盾之處。阿里屬於一個重視強烈家庭紐帶的教派，本人也喜歡做重視家庭的說教；但是他的感情生活就像簽名活動那麼隨便。他的第一任妻子是宋吉·羅伊(Sonji Roi)， 由於她拒絕像一個標準的“國民好太太”那樣穿衣和行事，兩人很快離婚了（她於2005年逝世）。他的第二任妻子是布林達·波依德(Belinda Boyd)，但兩人婚姻期間，阿里公開與維羅妮卡·波爾謝(Veronica Porche)一同旅行，後來他與波爾謝結婚，但那段婚姻同樣以離婚告終。
Ali was politically and socially idiosyncratic as well. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the television interviewer David Frost asked him if he considered Al Qaeda and the Taliban evil. He replied that terrorism was wrong but that he had to “dodge questions like that” because “I have people who love me.” He said he had “businesses around the country” and an image to consider.
在政治與社會問題上，阿里同樣特立獨行。2001年9·11襲擊之後，電視記者大衛·弗羅斯特(David Frost)問他，是否認爲基地組織與塔利班是邪惡的。他回答，恐怖主義是錯的，但是爲了“那些愛我的人”，他必須“迴避這樣的問題”。他說自己“在全國都有生意”，並且要考慮形象問題。
As a spokesman for the Muhammad Ali Center, a museum dedicated to “respect, hope and understanding,” which opened in his hometown, Louisville, in 2005, he was known to interrupt a fund-raising meeting with an ethnic joke. In one he said: “If a black man, a Mexican and a Puerto Rican are sitting in the back of a car, who’s driving? Give up? The po-lice.”
2005年，穆罕默德·阿里中心在他的家鄉路易斯維爾剪綵，這座博物館的宗旨是“尊敬、希望與理解”。但作爲該中心的發言人，他卻在一次籌款會上大講種族主義笑話。他的一個笑話是這麼說的：“如果一個黑人、一個墨西哥人和一個波多黎各人並排坐在汽車後座，那麼開車的是誰？猜不着？是警察。”
But Ali had generated so much good will by then that there was little he could say or do that would change the public’s perception of him.
但那時，阿里已經贏得了那麼多好感，無論他說什麼、做什麼，都無法改變公衆對他的看法。
“We forgive Muhammad Ali his excesses,” an Ali biographer, Dave Kindred, wrote, “because we see in him the child in us, and if he is foolish or cruel, if he is arrogant, if he is outrageously in love with his reflection, we forgive him because we no more can condemn him than condemn a Rainbow for dissolving into the dark. Rainbows are born of thunderstorms, and Muhammad Ali is both.”
“我們原諒穆罕默德·阿里的過分言行，”阿里的一位傳記作者戴夫·金德里德(Dave Kindred)寫道，“因爲我們在他身上看到了我們自己內心的孩子。如果他是愚蠢或殘忍的，如果他是傲慢的，如果他狂熱地自戀，我們也會原諒他。我們不能因爲彩虹會消散在黑暗之中，就去責備彩虹；我們同樣也不能責備他。彩虹誕生於雷雨，而穆罕默德·阿里既是那場狂暴的雷雨，又是雷雨之後的那道彩虹。”
