做学问是一种痛苦还是一种快乐呢？不同的人有不同的回答。莎士比亚曾说：“恋爱的人去赴他情人的约会，像一个放学归来的儿童；可是当他和情人分别的时候，就像去上学一般满脸懊丧。”2806385从这个角度看，读书做研究是痛苦的。中国圣贤曾说：“书山有路勤为径，学海无涯苦作舟。”古代甚至有悬梁刺股的读书故事。这些都说明读书极为痛苦。但也有相反的观点。扬雄曾说：“女有色，书亦有色”2806386。在扬雄看来，书籍的吸引力甚至可以和美色相提并论。柏拉图在《斐莱布篇》中也讨论了做学问的快乐。他提出，人的身体有三种状态：“快乐的生活、痛苦的生活、既不痛苦又不快乐的生活。”2806387例如，口渴是痛苦的，而喝水是快乐的，当水喝够了，就不痛苦了，但也不快乐，处于第三种状态中。可见肉体的快乐与痛苦混合在一起，痛苦消灭了，快乐就不存在，只能达到非苦非乐的状况。一般的人错误地把这种状况看作快乐，实际上却未进入真正的快乐王国。与身体活动不一样的是建立在理性之上的对知识的追求。人们学习知识与口渴不一样，不是出于痛苦，就算知识遗忘了，也不会带来明显的痛苦。柏拉图因此说：“所以我们必须断定这些学习的快乐不与痛苦混杂，这种快乐不属于一般人，而只属于极少数人。”2806388在他看来追求学问是最为纯粹的快乐，只有哲学家才有这个福分。就笔者而言，偏向于认为读书是快乐的。这并不是说，我在读书过程中没有烦恼，可以进入柏拉图的纯粹的快乐王国，而是说笔者更适合于在书斋里读书写作，不太喜欢到社会中去打拼。

戏剧是文学与文化的重要组成部分。莎士比亚曾说：演员是“我们时代的缩影和简史”，2806389“演戏的目的……都是仿佛要给自然照一面镜子”。2806390叔本华则把这句话反过来说：“从来不去剧院，就像不看镜子穿衣服。”2806391有了戏剧这面镜子，就能够深入地了解外国人的内心和社会。新中国成立以来，外国戏剧的翻译与研究取得了可喜的成就，但遗憾的是，还没有人专门为此竖起一面学术史的镜子，梳理这段历史，告诉大家我们已经取得了多大的成就，还留下了什么问题。笔者虽然才疏学浅，但还算比较刻苦，经过4年的努力，终于完成了这部著作。这本专著的出版，并不意味着这段历史的学术问题都已经研究清楚。德雷尔曾说：“真理是女人，所以是一个谜。”2806392笔者的书只是把这个谜呈现出来了，至于怎么解开谜底，还需要同人不断地努力。

英国政治家小说家迪斯雷利曾指出：“一个作者谈论自己的著作，就像一位母亲谈论自己的孩子一样，是非常糟糕的事情。”2806393母亲谈论自己的孩子，肯定夸大其词并且滔滔不绝。要感谢迪斯雷利的提醒，我得赶快在把读者赶走之前停止自夸了。

Is learning a pain or a joy? Different people have different answers. Shakespeare once said, "A man in love goes to his lover's date, like a child returning from school; But when he parted with his lover, his face was as sad as going to school. "2806385 from this point of view, reading books and doing research is painful. Chinese sages once said: "There is a road to the mountain of books, and there is no end to learning the sea." "In ancient times, there were even reading stories of hanging beams and thorny strands. All this shows that reading is extremely painful. But there are also opposing views. Yang Xiong once said: "Women are colored, and books are also colored" 2806386. In Yangxiong's view, the appeal of books can even be compared with beauty. Plato also discusses the joy of learning in Phileb. He proposed that there are three states of the human body: "a happy life, a painful life, a life that is neither painful nor happy." "2806387 For example, thirst is painful, while drinking water is happy, and when enough water is drunk, it is not painful, but it is also not happy, in the third state. It can be seen that the happiness of the flesh is mixed with pain, and when the pain is eliminated, happiness does not exist, and can only achieve the state of non-bitterness and non-happiness. The average person mistakenly sees this condition as happiness, but in fact does not enter the realm of true happiness. Unlike physical activity is the pursuit of knowledge based on reason. People learn knowledge differently from thirst, not out of pain, even if knowledge is forgotten, it will not bring obvious pain. Plato thus said: "So we must conclude that these pleasures of learning are not mixed with suffering, and that this pleasure does not belong to the general man, but to only a very few." 2806388 in his view, the pursuit of learning is the purest pleasure, a blessing that only a philosopher possesses. As far as the author is concerned, I tend to think that reading is joyful. This is not to say that I have no troubles in the process of reading and can enter Plato's pure happy kingdom, but that the author is more suitable for reading and writing in the book fast, and does not like to work in society. Theatre is an important part of literature and culture. Shakespeare once said that actors are "a microcosm and a brief history of our time" and 2806389 "the purpose of acting... It's like looking in a mirror to nature." 2806390 Schopenhauer put this sentence in reverse: "Never going to the theater is like not looking in the mirror and dressing." "2806391 with the mirror of drama, we can deeply understand the hearts and society of foreigners. Since the founding of New China, the translation and research of foreign dramas have made gratifying achievements, but unfortunately, no one has yet erected a mirror of academic history specifically for this, combing through this history, telling everyone how much we have achieved and what problems have been left. Although the author is only a shallow student, he is still quite hard, and after 4 years of hard work, he finally completed this work. The publication of this monograph does not mean that all the academic issues of this history have been clearly studied. Dreher once said, "Truth is a woman, so it is a mystery." "2806392 author's book just presents this mystery, and as for how to solve the mystery, it still takes continuous efforts from fandom. The British politician novelist Disraeli once pointed out: "It is very bad for an author to talk about her own writings as much as a mother to talk about her children." "2806393 mothers talking about their children must be exaggerating and gushing. Thanks to Disraeli's reminder, I have to stop boasting before I drive readers away.（AI翻译）