There is an ancient Greek myth about a man named Tantalus, who committed a crime that offended the gods and in punishment they put him in tartarus (the worst part of the greek underworld). His punishment is that he must forever stand in a pool of water with a fruit tree above his head with low branches. Whenever he reaches up to get some fruit, the branches raise themselves so that the fruit leaves their grasp, and whenever he he reaches down to get some water, the water recedes so that he cannot get any water. Tantalus is therefore eternally thirsty and eternally hungry, but the things he needs are right in front of him, "tantalizing" him (now you know where the word comes from) for eternity.

有一个古典的希腊神话关于一个名叫坦塔罗斯的。坦塔罗斯犯了希腊神视为恶的事，所以他们把坦塔罗斯放在地狱。他的惩罚是他需要在一个池中盛满水的地方永远地站着。在他的头上边还有一棵果树。这棵果树的树杆很低。但是每一次他伸手摘果子时，树枝就向上移动，所以他摘不到果子。并且，每一次他伸手为取水，水就退去，所以他也取不到水。坦塔罗斯直到永远都很渴，很饿，但是果实和水总是在他的面前逗引他。

This is a myth that has a truth in it bearing upon our life in this exile from Eden.

这个神话的寓意跟我们离开伊甸园的生命有关系。

Tantalus is forever tortured with thirsting and hungering for what he can never have. In this life, we often have the same experience, although not necessarily as constantly torturous as the experience of Tantalus. In this life, we also find ourselves wanting things in our life, that we can't have, or even we find ourselves wanting things, then getting them, and then finding that they didn't make us happy, or that the happiness they gave us didn't last, or that it carried other consequences and problems that made life miserable.

坦塔罗斯直到永远遭受痛苦，饱受饥渴，但他不能得到他想要的。我们的生命也有这样的经验，但我们不必遭受坦塔罗斯那么痛苦的命运。在我们的生命当中，我们也发现我们想要的是不能得到的，或者我们得到我们想要的但是我们后来发现我们还是不快乐，或者我们占有我们想要的但是因为我们占有的给我们带来新的痛苦，新的问题，而我们的生命仍不喜乐。

This is a lesson that runs through the bible. The consequence of life in this world, is that we cannot find true satisfaction, but we are like Tantalus, always thirsting and yet never having.

这是贯穿“圣经”的教训。生活在这个世界上的后果，是我们不能找到真正的满意，如果我们追求世界上的事物，我们就如同坦塔罗斯，总是饥渴而不能得到。

Human beings find themselves in this life lacking what they want, and one of the things they lack is that the feel that they need to feel a kind of bliss wherein they and another person are together in love. From the beginning, this has always been part of God's original plan for humanity, starting with Adam and Eve, that people should join together in a loving union to have this kind of experience. However, with original sin and the exit from the garden, it was twisted into something different. There's no shortage of the ways that could be mentioned of how it has been twisted; people having sexual relations without marriage, people having sexual relations with people outside of their marriage, people having sexual relations with people of the same sex, or with animals, or with members of their own family, or people entering into such unions and constantly fighting and ending in divorce, or people entering such unions just as a sexual relationship and caring nothing for the other person, or people entering such unions and one partner (usually the male) dominating the other in an unloving fashion, etc.

人类发现自己的生活缺乏他们想要的东西，他们所缺乏的东西之一是，他们需要感觉到一种幸福，他们想要跟别人有幸福的感情。从创世纪开始，男人和女人的关系是天主的计划的一部分。但是，亚当和夏娃犯了原罪而离开伊甸园以后，天主给人类的礼物损坏了。比如，没有结婚的人发生婚前性行为，或者已婚的人跟别人淫乱，或者同性，或者兽性，或者乱伦，或者结婚的人总是吵架到最后离婚收场，或者结婚的人只为了性而结婚而不是为了真的爱，或者结婚的人想控制他们爱人（经常是男的控制女的），等等。

One way it is corrupted, is in the way that Pamuk's novel seems to be talking about or in the way often experienced by so many people, whereby they look at love between them and another human being as though it were the ultimate fulfillment of their lives, as though nothing else mattered, or as though it was something worth obsessing over. This is not the way that God planned it; when God gave this gift to human beings, he meant people to be made happy by it, but it was never something he gave to people in order so that they could find their ultimate fulfillment in it. A man or a woman can love his/her spouse very much and be very happy together, but the person they love is only a human being in the end, and that person, no matter how much love they give, can never completely fulfill a person.

人类认为男女爱情是他们生命最重要的一部分，他们的生命的最终实现，正如没有其他事业比得上这更让人倾心的。他们以为他们有爱情他们就有最伟大的满意，或者他们有爱情他们的生命就是完美的。他们以为缠住爱情是对的。但是天主的旨意不是这样的；祂给我们人类爱情的礼物，祂要人类高兴，但是祂的旨意不是让人类缠住爱情，以为他们的生命的最重要的一部分是他们有没有男女爱情。男女可以结婚，但是他们爱的人给不了他们想要完美的满意，因为他（她）只是人，而不是神，无论他（她）给多少爱，他给不了完美的满意。

The only person who can give that kind of love is God. Our being twisted by the effects of original sin, however, leads many to place a person that they love in place of God and obsess over them as though this person was able to give them the kind of perfect fulfillment that no human being is able to give.

唯一能给我们完美的爱的是天主。但是原罪的影响让我们想要不应该想要的，而让天主给我们的礼物损坏了。因为原罪的影响，我们人类就把某个爱的对像放在天主的位置上，对待那人如同神。这样，我们人类就会缠住我们爱的人，因为原罪损坏我们的欲望。

People upon coming together with this person that they obsess with so much, then inevitably come to discover that even if they find happiness, this other person simply does not have the power to give them the kind of fulfillment that they had dreamed about and spent so much time obsessing over. The desires that God gave us which He intended for us to have towards Him, that is the obsessive longing desire for ultimate fulfillment, by the effects of original sin has now become the thing that so many songs, movies and people everyday talk about in their longing for someone else. Because of original sin, human beings have become like Tantalus, thirsting and hungering after what we cannot grab hold of.

人占有他们缠住的爱人以后，他们不可避免地发现他们爱的人没有能力给他们渴望的满意。天主原来给我们那样的渴望是为了祂，祂的旨意是让我们渴望祂，他能给我们想要的完美爱情，但是因为原罪我们渴望天主的欲望变成了渴望人，所以我们的世界天天有许多歌，电影，人类的事都是关于爱情的，被爱情缠住的人满怀惧怕——怕孤独，怕自己不可爱和没价值，怕被冷落，被抛弃或毁掉。所以他们正如坦塔罗斯那样，渴了，饿了，但总是不能占有，永远不明白他们是在渴望着天主。

You can just think about a popular song about love, and think about the lyrics. Now change the lyrics, wheverever necessary, in order so that the song is no longer about love to another person but about love for God. The truth is that this longing that the person is singing about is actually a longing for God, it is just been warped so that the singer or person with this longing doesn't understand that the thing they are longing for is God and isn't actually another person.

你可以想一首关于爱情的流行歌曲，想想歌词。然后，在你脑子里，把歌词改变一下，那首歌的内容不再是爱某一个人，而是对天主的爱。事实是，歌手唱的其实是一种对天主的向往，只是歌手不明白他们向往的是天主，而以为是某一个人

In the bible there is a part that many people don't understand in the old testament called the Song of Songs (also known as the Song of Solomon).

在圣经中的旧约的一部分，被称为雅歌。

Song of Solomon 1:1-7

1 The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.

2 “May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine.

3 “Your oils have a pleasing fragrance, Your name is like purified oil; Therefore the maidens love you.

4 “Draw me after you and let us run together! The king has brought me into his chambers.”

“We will rejoice in you and be glad; We will extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you.”

5 “I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, Like the curtains of Solomon.

6 “Do not stare at me because I am swarthy, For the sun has burned me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; They made me caretaker of the vineyards, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard.

7 “Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, Where do you pasture your flock, Where do you make it lie down at noon? For why should I be like one who veils herself Beside the flocks of your companions?”

雅歌 1:1-7

1:1 雅歌，撒罗满作。

1:2 愿君以热吻与我接吻! 因为你的爱抚甜于美酒。

1:3 你的香气芳怡人，你的令名香液四射，为此少女都爱慕你。

1:4 愿你拉着我随你奔跑! 君王，愿你引我进你的内室；我们都要因你欢乐踊跃，赞叹你那甜于酒的爱抚；怪不得众少女都爱慕你!

1:5 耶路撒冷女郎! 我虽黑，却秀丽，有如刻达尔的帐棚，又似撒耳玛的营幕。

1:6 你们不要怪我黑，是太阳晒黑了我。我母亲的儿子向我发怒，派我去看守葡萄园；而我自己的葡萄园，我却没有去看守。

1:7 我心爱的! 请告诉我：你在那儿放羊？中午又在那儿卧羊？别令我在你伴侣的羊群间，独自徘徊!

In the Middle Ages, there was a saint named St Bernard who wrote a lot and influenced many people. One of his greatest books was about this Song, and his interpretation was that it was referring to the marriage between the bride (the church) and the bridegroom (Jesus), and that it was using the most appropriate language understood by human beings in order to make them understand what kind of an event this was. Read this, and read the other parts of the song in the bible, and think in these terms, look upon the lovers not as two human beings but as God and human beings, as God and you, and then you will understand what it's true meaning is, as well as the true underlying meaning of all songs like it in cultures throughout the world.

在中世纪，有一个天主教圣人名叫圣伯纳德的，他写了许多作品而影响很多人。他最杰出的作品是他注解的雅歌，他的注解是:雅歌所载的未婚妻和未婚夫是指新娘（教会）和的新郎（耶稣）之间的婚姻，而且它是使用最合适的词说明天主和人类的关系: 天主是爱，祂怜悯我们的痛苦和悲惨。祂倾听我们的啼哭和哀号。祂关心我们、照顾我们、祂是一位为我们的生命操心费力的天主。祂是在我们人生的历程中插手的天主。祂他照顾我们一生，并赠送给我们光明的前途！雅歌所描述的恋人不是你和某个人，而是你和天主，你细细体会它的真实的含义，你就会了解世界各地的文化及所有歌曲背后的真正含义。         

When Jesus met the woman at the well, he said that she had had five husbands and that the man he was with now was not her husband. Like Tantalus, they also had a connection with thirsting for water, and Jesus asked the woman to give him some water. It was to this woman, who was searching for happiness in the wrong way, that he said:

当耶稣在井旁遇见女人的时候，耶稣向她说：「请给我点水喝！」。那妇女就回答说：“你既是个犹太人，怎么向我一个撒玛黎雅妇人要水喝呢？”耶稣回答她说：“若是妳知道天主的恩赐，并知道向妳说：给我水喝的人是谁，妳或许早求了他，而他也早赐给了妳活水。”。妇人说：“先生，请给我这水罢！免得我再渴，也免得我再来这里汲水。”耶稣向她说：“去，叫妳的丈夫，再回这里来。”那妇人回答说：“我没有丈夫。”耶稣说：“妳说：我没有丈夫，正对；因为妳曾有过五个丈夫，而妳现在所有的，也不是妳的丈夫：妳说的这话真对。”他对这个如同坦塔罗斯一样用错误的方式寻找满意的女人说:

John 4:13 “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

若望福音4:13 耶稣回答说：「凡喝这水的，还要再渴；

4:14 但谁若喝了我赐与他的水，他将永远不渴；并且我赐给他的水，将在他内成为涌到永生的水泉。」

if you are willing, you can say this prayer with me,

如果你愿意，可以跟我祈祷，

Lord, we pray that you give us living water so that we may not thirst again. We pray we may thirst for you and recognize that in you is our ultimate fulfillment, and not in anything else. We pray that people of the world may escape the fate of tantalus, and find the joy that they long for in You. We ask for these things, if it is your will, in Jesus' name, Amen

主，我们求你给我们生命的活水,让我们永远不再渴。愿你所赐的活水在我们里面成为泉源涌流出来。我们祈祷，所有的人都能逃脱坦塔罗斯的命运，我们祈祷全世界所有的人都来认识你；我们祈祷，帮助我们能从你那活水中，汲取那永不渴的活水。阿门。