"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them", quoth William Shakespeare.
“有些人的伟大是天生的，有些人成就伟大，而有些人的伟大则是强加给他们的。”--威廉姆斯·莎士比亚。
Or did he? Some people question whether Shakespeare really wrote the works that bear his name, or whether he even existed at all.
这句话真的是他写的吗？有些人质疑莎士比亚著作署名的真实性，甚至质疑他是否真的存在过。
They speculate that Shakespeare was a pseudonym for another writer, or a group of writers.
他们认为莎士比亚只是某个作者的化名，或者是一组作者的化名而已。
Proposed candidates for the real Shakespeare include other famous playwrights, politicians and even some prominent women.
可能用这个化名的人选包括其他戏剧名人、政治家，甚至是有影响力的女人。
Could it be true that the greatest writer in the English language was as fictional as his plays?
难道英国文学史上最著名的作家和他的作品一样，是凭空创造出来的吗？
Most Shakespeare scholars dismiss these theories based on historical and biographical evidence.
很多莎士比亚的研究人员反对“无莎论”，因为他的生平有迹可循。
But there is another way to test whether Shakespeare's famous lines were actually written by someone else.
但有另外一种方法能论证他的名句是否是其他作家的成果。
Linguistics, the study of language,
语言学，顾名思义，
can tell us a great deal about the way we speak and write by examining syntax, grammar, semantics and vocabulary.
能通过句法、语法、语义、用词解析我们说话写作的程式和习惯。
And in the late 1800s, a Polish philosopher named Wincenty Lutoslawski formalized a method known as stylometry,
在19世纪后期，一位名叫Wincenty Lutoslawski的波兰哲学家，
applying this knowledge to investigate questions of literary authorship.
完善了文体学这一方法，并用此方法排查文学作者的真实性。
So how does stylometry work?
文体学怎么用呢？
The idea is that each writer's style has certain characteristics that remain fairly uniform among individual works.
理论上，每一个作者的风格都有自己的独特性，与其他作家大不相同。
Examples of characteristics include average sentence length,
独特性包括平均句长、
the arrangement of words, and even the number of occurrences of a particular word.
排字甚至是某个单词出现的频率。
Let's look at use of the word thee and visualize it as a dimension, or axis.
让我们以“thee”为例，把它当成一个纵轴。

Each of Shakespeare's works can be placed on that axis, like a data point, based on the number of occurrences of that word.
每篇作品，都可以根据这个词出现的数量在此纵轴上找到位置。
In statistics, the tightness of these points gives us what is known as the variance, an expected range for our data.
在统计学上，这些数据点出现的密度表现了阈值，让我们对这组数据有了一个预期。
But, this is only a single characteristic in a very high-dimensional space.
但是这只是极其多元化的特征中的一项。
With a clustering tool called Principal Component Analysis,
通过运用“主成分分析”这一用于数据集群的方法，
we can reduce the multidimensional space into simple principal components
我们可以将多元化的数据简化为较为单一的成分群，
that collectively measure the variance in Shakespeare's works.
此成分群便表现了莎士比亚作品的特征。
We can then test the works of our candidates against those principal components.
现在我们可以通过对照成分来分析我们的目标人物啦。
For example, if enough works of Francis Bacon fall within the Shakespearean variance,
例如，如果弗朗西斯·培根的大量作品与莎士比亚的成分群相符，
that would be pretty strong evidence that Francis Bacon and Shakespeare are actually the same person.
我们就有明显的证据表明弗朗西斯·培根和莎士比亚是一个人。
What did the results show?
那么，研究结果是怎样的呢？
Well, the stylometrists who carried this out have concluded that Shakespeare is none other than Shakespeare.
进行研究的文体学家们总结莎士比亚就是莎士比亚。
The Bard is the Bard.
独此一家，别无二号。
The pretender's works just don't match up with Shakespeare's signature style.
其他“李鬼”的风格和莎士比亚的文笔并不相符。
However, our intrepid statisticians did find some compelling evidence of collaborations.
但是，我们强悍的数据表明确实有合笔的有力证据。
For instance, one recent study concluded that Shakespeare worked with playwright Christopher Marlowe on "Henry VI," parts one and two.
比如，一项近期研究表明，莎士比亚与戏剧家克里斯托弗·马洛合写了《亨利六世》的第一幕和第二幕。
Shakespeare's identity is only one of the many problems stylometry can resolve.
莎士比亚的身份只是文体学能帮助解决的大量疑案之一。
It can help us determine when a work was written, whether an ancient text is a forgery,
它还能判断作品的创作时期，一篇古文的真伪，
whether a student has committed plagiarism, or if that email you just received is of a high priority or spam.
学生有没有抄袭，甚至收到的email是重要邮件还是垃圾邮件。
And does the timeless poetry of Shakespeare's lines just boil down to numbers and statistics? Not quite.
那么莎士比亚的经典诗句如此一来竟已意境全消，只剩下一堆数据而已吗？不是的。
Stylometric analysis may reveal what makes Shakespeare's works structurally distinct,
文体学也许能让我们明白，是什么让莎翁的遣词造句鹤立鸡群，
but it cannot capture the beauty of the sentiments and emotions they express,
但是它不能抓住文字中流淌的情怀
or why they affect us the way they do. At least, not yet.
也无法理解我们为何受到影响。起码现在不行。