(英译汉)学期赏析篇目 共计30篇
翻译理论与实践1(英译汉)学期赏析篇目 共计30篇
1)For my sons there is of course the rural bounty of fresh-grown vegetables, line-caught fish and the shared riches of neighbours’ orchards and gardens. There is the unpaid baby -sitter for whose children my daughter-in-law baby-sits in return, and neighbours who barter their skills and labour. But more than that, how do you measure serenity? I don’t want to idealize life in small places. There are times when the outside world intrudes brutally, as when the cost of gasoline goes up or developers cast their eyes on untouched farmland. There are cruelties, there is intolerance, there are all the many vices and meannesses in small places that exist in large cities. Furthermore, it is harder to ignore them when they cannot be banished psychologically to another part of town or excused as the whims of alien groups --- when they have to be acknowledged as ―part of us.‖Nor do I want to belittle the opportunities for small decencies in cities --- the eruptions of one-stranger-to-another caring that always surprise and delight. But these are,sadly,more exceptions than rules and are often overwhelmed by the awful corruptions and dangers that surround us.
对我的几个儿子来说,乡村当然有充足的新鲜蔬菜,垂钓来的鱼,邻里菜园和果园里可供分享的丰盛瓜果。乡下有不用付报酬便可请来照看孩子的邻居,作为回报,我儿媳也帮着照看其孩子。乡邻之间互相交换技能和劳动。但比之更重要的是,你如何来衡量那静谧与安详?我无意将小地方的生活理想化。因为有时外面的世界会无情地侵入:比如汽油价格上涨,开发商把眼睛盯住尚未开发的农田;那里充斥着凶残和偏狭,大城市的种种卑劣行径,小地方也一应俱全。不仅如此,当人们无法自欺欺人地硬把那些丑恶现象想象成只是小地方的一小部分或将它们解释为异乡人的为所欲为,而又不得不承认这一切是我们的一部分时,就更难以忽视它们。
2)It should have been easy. They were battle-tested veterans with long ties to Reagan and even longer ties to the Republican party, men who understood presidential politics as well as any in the country. The backdrop of the campaign was hospitable, with lots of good news to work with: America was at peace, and the nation’s economy, a key factor in any election, was rebounding vigorously after recession. Furthermore, the campaign itself was lavishly financed, with plenty of money for a top-flight staff, travel, and television commercials. And, most important, their candidate was Ronald Reagan, a president of tremendous personal popularity and dazzling communication skills. Reagan has succeed more than any president since John F. Kennedy in projecting a broad vision of America – a nation of renewed military strength, individual initiative, and smaller federal government.
这应该不是件难事。这都是些跟着里根多年、久经沙场的老将,他们跟共和党则有更深厚的渊源,是这个国家里最熟悉总统政治的人。竞选的背景也很有利,也很多好消息可供炒作。例如,美国上下一片和平,美国经济这一竞选要素也在经过一段时间的衰退之后开始强劲反弹。此外,这次竞选本身得到了慷慨资助,因此有充裕的资用于组织一流的竞选班子、支付巡回演讲和电视广告的费用。而最重要的一点是,他们的候选人是罗纳德〃里根,他可是位极具个人魅力和沟通技巧的总统。自约翰〃F 〃肯尼迪总统以来,里根是最成功地勾勒出美国蓝图的总统:一个军事力量复兴、富有个人进取心、联邦政府得以精简的国家。
3)Opera is expensive: that much is inevitable. But expensive things are inevitably the province(范围) of the rich unless we abdicate(退位、放弃) society’s power of choice. We can choose to make opera and other expensive forms of culture, accessible (易接近的,可达到的) to those who cannot individually pay for it. The question is: why should we? No body denies the imperatives(必要的)of food, shelter, defence, health and education. But even in a prehistoric cave, man-kind stretched out a hand of not just to eat, drink or fight, but also to draw. The impulse(冲动) towards culture, the desire to express and explore the world through imagination and representation(表述、陈述)is fundamental. In Europe, this desire has found fulfillment(完成、成就) in the masterpieces of our music, art, literature and theatre. These masterpieces are the touchstones (标准、试金石) for all our efforts; they are the touchstones for the possibilities to which human thought and imagination may aspire(立志、追求目标、渴望); they carry the most profound (深厚的、深刻的)messages that can be sent from one human to another.
欣赏歌剧是一种奢侈:你必须为此支付昂贵的票价。然而,享用昂贵的东西并不完全是富人的特权,除非我们放弃社会选择的权利。我们有权利使歌剧和其他昂贵的文化形式面向大众,面向那些个人没有支付能力的人。然而,问题是我们为什么要这么做。没有人会否认食物、居所、防护、健康与教育是不可或缺的。但是,即使在史前的穴居时代,人们伸出手来,也不仅仅是为了吃喝,为了搏杀,而且还有一个目的,那就是动手作画。人们对文化的冲动,即人们希望通过想象和再现来表现并探索这个世界的愿望,才是最根本的。在欧洲,人们通过音乐、美术、文学和戏剧等方面的不朽作品的创作,实现了这一愿望。这些杰作是衡量人类努力程度的试金石,是检验人类思维和想象潜能的标准,它们有着最深厚的寓意,并在人们彼此之间传播。
4)To speak of American literature, then, is not to assert that it is completely unlike that of Europe. Broadly speaking, America and Europe have kept step. At any given moment the traveler could find examples in both of the same
architecture, the same styles in dress, the same books on the shelves. Ideas have crossed the Atlantic as freely as men and merchandise, though sometimes more slowly. When I refer to American habit, thoughts, etc., I intend some sort of
qualification to precede the word, for frequently the difference between America and Europe (especially England) will be one of degree, sometimes only of a small degree. The amount of divergence is a subtle affair, liable to perplex the
Englishman when he looks at America. He is looking at a country which in important senses grew out of his own, which in several ways still resembles his own — and which is yet a foreign country. There are odd overlappings and abrupt
unfamiliarities; kinship yields to a sudden alienation, as when we hail a person across the street, only to discover from his blank response that we have mistaken a stranger for a friend.
因此,我们在说“美国”文学,并不表明我们认为美国文学与欧洲文学截然不同。一般来说,美国和欧洲一直在同步发展。无论何时,旅游者在两地都能看到同一式的建筑,见到同一款式的服饰,读到摆在书架上的同一风格的书籍。在大洋两岸,人们的思想观念,就容易同人员与货物一样,可以自由交流,尽管有时会略显迟缓。谈到美国人的习惯、美国人的思维等概念时,我想在“美国式的”这几个词前面再加上某种修饰,因为欧美之间(尤其是英美之间)的差异往往只是程度上的差异而已,而且在有的时候,是极低程度上的差异而已。差异的程度微乎其微,很可能会使审视美国的英国人感到迷惑不解。重要的是,英国人所审视的这个国家诞生于英国,并在不少方面仍与英国相差无几---然而,实实在在是个异邦。两地有着莫名的共同之处,以及令人深感突兀的陌生感。原先的亲戚已形同陌路,就仿佛隔着马路招呼,等看到对方一脸茫然时,我们才意识到认错人。
5)In addition, one class of family reasons shares a border with the following category, namely, having children in order to maintain or improve a marriage: to hold the husband or occupy the wife; to repair or rejuvenate the marriage; to increase the number of children on the assumption that family happiness lies that way. The point is underlined by its converse: in some societies the failure to bear children (or males) is a threat to the marriage and a ready cause for divorce. Beyond all that is the profound significance of children to the very institution of the family itself. To many people, husband and wife alone do not seem a proper family —they need children to enrich the circle, to validate its family character, to gather the redemptive influence of offspring. Children need the family, but the family seems also to need children, as the social institution uniquely available, at least in principle, for security, comfort, assurance, and direction in a changing, often hostile world. To most people, such a home base, in the literal sense, needs more than one person for sustenance and in generational extension.
另外,有一类家庭原因与下列类别不无共同之处,那就是:生儿育女要么是为了维系现有婚姻,提高婚姻质量,要么是为了拴住丈夫,使妻子有所事事,要么是为了修复婚姻,给婚姻注入新的活力,亦或是出于多子多福的观念而多生儿女。当然,我们也可以从问题的反面得到昭示:在某些社会,无法生育子嗣(或不能生育男孩)对婚姻而言是最大的威胁,也可作为夫妻分手的现成理由。后代对家庭这一体制本身所具有的深远意义远非如此。在许多人看来,丁克家庭算不上真正的家庭。夫妻需要孩子来拓宽自己的生活圈子,实现家庭在传宗接代中的作用,并从子孙后代身上获取某种回报。在这个变幻莫测,常常不尽友善的世界上,家庭作为社会的基本单位,至少可在原则上,以其独特方式为家人提供安全保障,抚慰家人受伤的心灵,为家人指出生活方向,因此,孩子需要家庭,但与此同时,家庭也需要孩子。
6)If people mean anything at all by the expression ―untimely death‖, they must believe that some deaths run on a better schedule than others. Death in old age is rarely called untimely —a long life is thought to be a full one. But with the passing of a young person, one assumes that the best years lay ahead and the measure of that life was still to be taken. History denies this, of course. Among prominent summer deaths, one recalls those of Marilyn Monroe and James Deans, whose lives seemed equally brief and complete. Writers cannot bear the fact that poet John Keats died at 26, and only half playfully judge their own lives as failures when they pass that year. The idea that the life cut short is unfulfilled is illogical because lives are measured by the impressions they leave on the world and by their intensity and virtue.
如果人们使用“死不逢时”的时候有所指的话,那肯定认为一些人的逝世是寿终正寝,而另外一些人的辞世则是英年早逝。很少有人会说因年老而死亡是“死不逢时”---人们总是把老年人的寿终正寝看作是一种圆满。但是对于一个英年早逝的人,人们常常认为他的好日子还在后头,对他短暂的一生作出评价还为时尚早。然而,历史对此观点持否定态度。谈到英年早逝的人物,人们常常回想起马丽莲•梦露和詹姆士•迪恩斯。二人生命虽短,却功成名就。作家们难以接受英国诗人约翰•济慈26岁便匆匆辞世的残酷现实,然而,当他们26岁时,只有自嘲虚度年华碌碌无为的份了。那种认为生命短暂就不圆满的观点是不合逻辑的,因为评价一个人的一生应当看他给世人留下的印象,他所取得的成就,以及他的个人品质。
7)Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfaction we get from a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of ―The pleasure of taking pains‖. The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless. We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When someone ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.
努力是问题的关键。如果不经历艰难困苦,就没有幸福可言。正如爱尔兰诗人叶芝所言,除了极少数不大可能出现的情况外,我们一生中得到的满意程度取决于我们愿意克服的困难有多大。美国诗人罗伯特费罗斯特谈到“苦中求乐”时,也表达了相同的看法。出现在广告中的幸福都有一个致命的错误,那就是,不费吹灰之力即可获得幸福。即使在体育比赛中,我们也需要克服困难。我们需要克服困难,因为没有困难就没有比赛。比赛就是使某件事情变得更加困难,以便难中取乐。制定比赛规则就是故意制造困难。违反竞赛规则也就丧失了比赛乐趣。下棋时,如果不受规则的约束,高兴怎么走就怎么走,你很容易取胜。然而,乐趣源于胜利而又遵守规则。没有困难,也就没有乐趣。
8)In his classic novel, ―The Pioneers‖, James Fenimore Cooper has his hero, a land developer, with his cousin on a tour of the city he is building. He describes the broad streets, rows of houses, a bustling metropolis. But his cousin looks around bewildered. All she sees is a forest. ―Where are the beauties and improvements which you were to show me?‖ she asks. He’s astonished she can’t see them. ―Where! Why everywhere,‖ he replies. For though they are not yet built on earth, he has built them in his mind, and they are as concrete to him as if they were already constructed and finished. Cooper was illustrating (讲述、描述、阐述)a distinctly American trait, future-mindedness: the ability to see the present from the vantage point of the future; the freedom to feel unencumbered by the past and more emotionally attached to things to come. As Albert Einstein once said, ―Life for the American is always becoming, never being.‖
詹姆斯〃费尼莫〃库珀在其经典小说《拓荒者》中,讲述了主人公,一个土地开发商人,带着他的表妹参观他正在开发承建的一座城市。他说,这是一个熙熙攘攘的大都市,街道宽阔,房屋林立。而他的表妹却环顾四周,大惑不解。她所看见的只是一片树林。她不禁问道:“你要给我看的美景在哪,被你改造了的地方又在哪? ”。开发商没料到他的表妹竟看不到他所讲的一切,惊讶地回答说,“哪儿? 到处都是啊! ”虽然这一切还未在大地上建成,但他已经在脑海里建好了,对他来说,这一切都像已经建成竣工了那样真实具体。在这里库珀揭示了美国人的一个典型特点:那就是着眼未来,也就是说,他们能够从未来的角度看待现在的一切,可以不为过去所羁绊看待现
在,在情感上更多地依附于未来的事物。正如阿尔伯特〃爱因斯坦曾经说过的那样:“对美国人来说,生活总是在发展变化中,从来不会静止不变。”
9)I’m lonely only when I am overtired, when I have worked too long without a break, when from the time being I feel empty and need filling up. And I am lonely sometimes when I come back home after a lecture trip, when I have seen a lot of people and talked a lot, and am full to the brim with experience that needs to be sorted out. Then for a little while the house feels huge and empty, and I wonder where my self is hiding. It has to be recaptured slowly by watering the plants and perhaps, by looking again at each one as though it were a person. It takes a while, as I watch the surf blowing up in fountains, but the moment comes when the worlds falls away, and the self emerges again from the deep unconscious, bringing back all I have recently experienced to be explored and slowly understood.
只有当长时间不停工作而疲惫不堪或是感到空虚而需要充实的时候,我才会感到孤独。有时讲学归来,孤寂之感也会袭上心头,因为与众人交谈甚多需好好整理自己的思路。于是那一刹那,我觉得整个屋子空空荡荡,苦苦寻思自己到底躲匿在屋子的哪个角落。当我给花木浇水,仔细端详它们,想象他们跟我一样也是人的时候,自我感觉便一点一点恢复过来。待到喷泉喷射而出,需小等片刻。此刻,现实的繁芜复杂悄然隐去,慢慢恢复自我,细细咂味近日的所见所闻。
10)Yet few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning. Do not dictate to your author; try to become him. Be his fellow worker and accomplice. If you hang back, and reserve and criticize at first, you are preventing yourself from getting the fullest possible value from what you read. But if you open your mind as widely as possible, then signs and hints of almost imperceptible fineness, from the twist and turn of the first sentences, will bring you into the presence of a human being unlike any other. Steep yourself in this, acquaint yourself with this, and soon you will find that your author is giving you, or attempting to give you, something far more definite.
然而很少有人愿意接受书上的告诉我们的东西。我们通常是带着一种不明确的不专一的目的去读书,我们要求小说是真实的,诗歌应该是虚构的,传记应该是奉承人的,历史则应该是能加深我们自己的偏见的。如果我们读书的时候能够屏弃这些成见,那将会是一个绝妙的开端。不要试图对作者发号施令,而是要设身处地把作者的思路,把自己当作作者的合作伙伴。假如你开始就犹豫不决,不愿接受作者观点,甚至对作者观点评头论足,你就是给自己设臵障碍,使自己不可能最大限度地利用书本。然而,如果你尽量敞开心扉,那么文章开头就能给你一些暗示,由此一个与众不同的人物形象将跃然呈现于你面前。
11) I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word, it is victory. Victory at all costs victory in spite of all terrors---victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival. Let that be realized, no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that British Empire has stood for , no survival for the urge, the impulse of the ages, that mankind shall more forward toward his goal. I take up my task in buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. I feel entitled at this juncture, at this time, to claim the aid of all and to say, ―Come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.‖ 我能奉献的唯有热血、辛劳、泪水和汗水。我们所面临的将是一场极为残酷的考验,我们面临的将是旷日持久的斗争和苦难。你若问我们的目标是什么?我可以用一个词来概括,那就是胜利。不惜一切代价去夺取胜利,不畏惧一切恐怖去夺取胜利,不论前路再长再苦也要多去胜利,因为没有胜利纠无法生存!我们必须意识到,没有胜利就没有大英帝国,没有胜利就没有大英帝国所象征的一切,没有胜利就没有多少世纪以来强烈的要求和冲动:人类应当向自己的目标迈进。此刻,我的精神振奋,满怀信心地承当起自己的人物。我确信,只要我们大家联合,我们的事业就不会挫败。此时此刻千钧一发之际,我觉得我有权要求各方面的支持。我要呼吁:“来吧,让我们
群策努力,并肩迈进!”
12)We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency - a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here. But there is hopeful news as well: we have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst - though not all - of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly. However, too many of the world's leaders are still best described in the words of Winston Churchill applied to those who ignored Adolf Hitler's threat: "They go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, all powerful to be impotent. "So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the sun
我们人类,正面临全球性的危机,我们的生存和文明受到威胁。尽管我们聚在一起共商对策,而灾难却在扩大,形式不容乐观。但也有令人欣喜的消息:如果行动大胆果断,反应迅速,我们有能力解决这场危机,避免其向最坏的方向发展。 但是,时下世界上的许多国家领导人可以用当年温斯顿? 丘吉尔批评欧洲诸政要忽视阿道夫? 希特勒的名言来形容," 它们在奇怪的悖论中前行,仅仅为一个决定而犹豫不决,有了决心却拖泥带水,信心犹疑不定,见解随波逐流,掌权者虚弱无力。" 而如今我们向这个星球脆弱的大气层倾倒超过七千万吨温室气体,把其当作天然排污口。明天我们还会变本加厉,堆积的温室气体吸纳了越来越多的太阳热度。
13)I thought that it was a Sunday morning in May;that it was Easter Sunday,and as yet very early in the morning.I was standing ,as it seemed to me,at the door of my own cottage.Right before me lay the very scene which could really be commanded from that situation,but exalted, as was usual,and solemnized by the power of dreams.There were the same mountains ,and the same lovely valley at their feet; but the mountains were raised to more than Alpine height,and there was interspace far larger between them of savannahs and forest lawns;the hedges were rich with white roses;and no living creature was to be seen, excepting that in the green churchyard there were cattle tranquilly reposing upon the verdant graves,and particularly round about the grave of a child whom I had once tenderly loved,just as I had really seen them ,a little before sunrise,in the same summer when that child died.
我想那是五月的一个周日的早晨;那天是复活节,一个大清早上。我站在自家小屋的门口。就在我的面前展现出了那么一番景色,从我那个位臵其实能够尽收眼底,可是梦里的感觉往往如此,由于梦幻的力量,这番景象显得超凡出尘,一派肃穆气象。群山形状相同,其山脚下都有着同样可爱的山谷;不过群山挺然参天,高于阿尔卑斯峰,诸山相距空旷,丰草如茵,林地开阔,错落其间; 树篱上的白玫瑰娟娟弥望;远近看不见任何生物,唯有苍翠的教堂庭院里,牛群静静地卧躺在那片郁郁葱葱的墓地歇息,好几头围绕着一个小孩的坟墓。我曾对她一腔柔情,那年夏天是在旭日东升的前一刻,那孩子死去了,我如同当年那样望着牛群。
14)The old lady had always been proud of the great rose-tree in her garden, and was fond of telling how it had grown from a cutting she had brought years before from Italy, when she was first married. She and her husband had been travelling back in their carriage from Rome ( it was before the time of railways ) and on a bad piece of road south of Siena they had broken down, and had been forced to pass the night in a little house by the road-side. The accommodation was wretched of course; she had spent a sleepless night, and rising early had stood, wrapped up, at her window, with the cool air blowing on her face, to watch the dawn. She could still, after all these years, remember the blue mountains with the bright moon above them, and how a far-off town on one of the peaks had gradually grown whiter and whiter, till the moon faded, the mountains were touched with the pink of the rising sun, and suddenly the town was lit as by an illumination, one window after another catching and reflecting the sun’s beam, till at last the whole little city twinkled and sparkled up in the sky like a nest of stars.
老太太总以自家花园里那棵高大的玫瑰树为荣. 她非常喜欢告诉别人, 数年前她初次结婚时从罗马带回来的枝条, 是如何长成如今这般高大的. 那时, 她与丈夫乘马车从罗马旅行归来(那时还没有火车), 途经锡耶那南部的崎岖路段时, 马车坏了, 他们被迫就宿于路边的小屋里. 住宿条件当然非常差; 她一夜未能安眠, 一早便起身穿好衣服, 立于窗前, 感
受着扑面而来的席席凉风, 等待着黎明的到来. 事隔多年, 她仍然记得那情景. 明月高悬在青山群峦之上. 远处山峰上的小镇逐渐明亮起来, 月亮慢慢消退, 晨曦把群山涂得粉红. 突然之间, 一束阳光照亮了城镇. 城里的窗户相继明亮起来, 反射出耀眼的光芒. 最后, 整个小城宛若繁星, 在天空中不停闪烁。
15)For the relationship between friends, similar habits and tempers help to make it closer; on the other hand, opposite ones leave distance from each other. No matter how familiar and intimate the friends are, the relationship should be treated carefully and respect should be treasured for friends. Otherwise, the partnership and balance would be broken, as a result, a good relationship would no longer exist. Everyone has a desire for his own personal space, which could be easily invaded if the attitude between friends is too free. Then conflicts appear, causing barriers. Although it seems a small case of not respecting friends, harmful seeds may be sowed to ruin the relationship. In a word, the best way to keep positive friendship is associating with temperate manners and without too much interference.
朋友之间,情趣相投、脾气对味则合、则交,反之,则离、则绝。朋友之间再熟悉、再亲密,也不能随便过头、不恭不敬,这样,默契和平衡将被打破,友好关系将不复存在。 每个人都希望拥有自己的一片私密空间,朋友之间过于随便,就容易侵入这片禁区,从而引起冲突,造成隔阂。待友不敬,有时或许只是一件小事,却可能已埋下了破坏性的种子。维持朋友亲密关系的最好办法是往来有节,互不干涉.
16)There is only one wish realizable on the earth; only one thing that can be perfectly attained: Death. And from a variety of circumstances we have no one to tell us whether it be worth attaining. A strange picture we make on our way to our chimaeras, ceaselessly marching, grudging ourselves the time for rest; indefatigable, adventurous pioneers. It is true that we shall never reach the goal; it is even more than probable that there is no such place; and if we lived for centuries and were endowed with the powers of a god, we should find ourselves not much nearer what we wanted at the end. O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you, you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labor.
世上只有一种愿望可以实现, 也仅有一种事物绝对能得到, 那便是死亡. 但因身处境地的不同, 没人能告诉我们是否死得其所. 我们不停向着梦想前进, 不肯稍作休息, 这形成了一幅奇异的画面:不知疲倦, 勇于冒险的先锋. 的确, 我们永远不会达到目标, 甚至目的地根本就不存在; 即使活上几百年, 被赋予神的力量, 我们最终也不能接近目标多少. 啊辛劳的双手! 啊, 不知疲倦的双脚, 一直不停地奔走, 却不知要到何方. 不久, 你便会发现, 你必须登上某些显著的山头, 然而在不远处, 在夕阳的照耀下, 你会看到黄金国的尖顶. 身处于幸福之中, 你却没有觉察:旅行远比抵达要充满乐趣; 真正的成功就在于奋斗.
17)It is in virtue of his own desires and curiosities that any man continues to exist with even patience, that he is charmed by the look of things and people, and that he wakens every morning with a renewed appetite for work and pleasure. Desire and curiosity are the two eyes through which he sees the world in the most enchanted colours: it is they that make women beautiful or fossils interesting: and the man may squander his estate and come to beggary, but if he keeps these two amulets he is still rich in the possibilities of pleasure.
正是因为希望与好奇,我们才会以加倍的耐心继续生存,才会着迷于纷繁复杂、多姿多彩的人或事,早晨醒来才会以崭新的热情投入新一天的工作和娱乐。希望和好奇是人观看这绚丽迷人的世界的一双眼睛:正是这双眼睛使得女人美丽妩媚,又使顽石妙趣横生 。一个人可以倾家荡产,沦为乞丐,可是只要他还有这两个“护身符”,他就仍然可能拥有无限的欢乐。
18) We live in an ascending scale when we live happily, one thing leading to another in an endless series. There is always a new horizon for onward-looking men, and although we dwell on a small planet, immersed in petty business and not
enduring beyond a brief period of years, we are so constituted that our hopes are inaccessible, like stars, and the term of hoping is prolonged until the term of life. To be truly happy is a question of how we begin and not of how we end, of what we want and not of what we have.
正是因为不停地追求进取,我们才感到生活幸福。一件事完成后,另一件随之而来,如此连绵不绝,永无止境。对于往前看的人来说,眼前总有一番新天地。虽然我们蜗居于这颗小行星上,整日忙于琐事且生命短暂,但我们生来就有不尽的希望,如天上繁星,遥不可及。只要生命犹在,希望便会不止。真正的幸福在于怎样开始,而不是如何结束,在于我们的希翼,而并非拥有。
19)"Of making books there is no end," complained the Preacher; and did not perceive how highly he was praising letters as an occupation. There is no end, indeed, to making books or experiments, or to travel, or to gathering wealth. Problem gives rise to problem. We may study for ever, and we are never as learned as we would. We have never made a statue worthy of our dreams. And when we have discovered a continent, or crossed a chain of mountains, it is only to find another ocean or another plain upon the further side. In the infinite universe there is room for our swiftest diligence and to spare. It is not like the works of Carlyle, which can be read to an end. Even in a corner of it, in a private park, or in the neighborhood of a single hamlet, the weather and the seasons keep so deftly changing that although we walk there for a lifetime there will be always something new to startle and delight us.
传道者感叹到:“著书立说没有止境”,却没发觉他已高度评价了作家这一职业。的确,写作、旅行、积聚财富都是没有终结的。一个问题引发另外一个问题。我们不断学习,且永远达不到心中所渴望的那般学识渊博。我们永远雕刻不出自己心仪的塑像。当发现一个新大陆, 或翻过一座山脉时,我们总会看到远方还有未曾涉足的海洋与陆地。宇宙浩渺,总会有供我们勤奋努力的东西,总会有供我们探索的空间。它不像卡莱尔的著作,可以读完。即使在其一角,在一个私人花园,或一个农庄附近,四季轮回,天气瞬息万变,哪怕在那里生活了一辈子,也总会有让我们惊喜的事情。
20)Again, when you have married your wife, you would think you were got upon a hilltop, and might begin to go downward by an easy slope. But you have only ended courting to begin marriage. Falling in love and winning love are often difficult tasks to overbearing and rebellious spirits; but to keep in love is also a business of some importance, to which both man and wife must bring kindness and goodwill. The true love story commences at the altar, when there lies before the married pair a most beautiful contest of wisdom and generosity, and a life-long struggle towards an unattainable ideal. Unattainable? Ay, surely unattainable, from the very fact that they are two instead of one.
当你步入婚姻的殿堂,你可能认为已经爬到了山顶,剩下的只是悠闲地沿着平缓的山坡下山。然而,这只是恋爱的结束,婚姻的开始。拥有一颗骄傲而又叛逆的心,坠入爱河与赢得爱情都是难事;但维持爱情也很重要,夫妻都应相敬如宾, 互相关爱。当真爱起始于圣坛之时,夫妻之间便开始了一场智慧与慷慨的竞争,一场为了一个不可能实现的理想而持续一生的奋斗。不可能实现?啊,当然不可能,因为他们不是一个人,而是两个呀。
21)A close friend of mine recently underwent tests for leukemia. The most agonizing part of the ordeal, she said, was the week-long wait for the test results. A bad outcome she could learn to cope with, my friend said. It was the not knowing, the uncertainty, that was so difficult. 'People feel worse when something bad might occur than when something bad will occur,' wrote Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert in a recent New York Times op-ed. 'Most of us aren't losing sleep and sucking down Marlboros because the Dow is going to fall another thousand points, but because we don't know whether it will fall or not ─ and human beings find uncertainty more painful than the things they're uncertain about.'
我的一个好朋友最近接受了白血病测试。她对我说,最令人痛苦的折磨就是苦苦等待测试结果的那一周时间。我朋友说,她可能会学着直面坏结果。但真正让人煎熬焦虑的是那种茫然的感觉。孟克(Edvard Munch)的名画《呐喊》哈佛大学心理学家吉尔伯特(Daniel Gilbert) 不久前在《纽约时报》(New York Times) 的专栏中写道,不知道要发生什么坏事比知道什么坏事要发生的感觉更糟。我们大多数人之所以会夜不能寐、抽烟发泄,并不是因为道琼斯指数要再跌1000点,而是因为我们不知道道指会不会下跌──不确定的感觉比不确定的事情本身更折磨人。
22)In the following year, a formal peace pact was signed. About a month later, Cixi left Xi’an at last. She was utterly fearful of foreigners just as she was extremely arrogant toward her own countrymen. She stopped far a long time in Henan
and halted in Baoding for quite a few days before finally arriving in Beijing. According to unofficial accounts,an amusing episode took place during this long and drawn out journey. When a local official offered a monkey to her as a gift,she was so pleased that she ordered a yellow mandarin jacket to be conferred upon the monkey .later, a eunuch heard some officials complaining that people were considered less worthy than a monkey and went to inform Cixi,who realized that her order had been indeed a little too whimsical. So she issued another edict granting each of the escorting officials a yellow mandarin jacket. Upon the receipt of such an unusual favor the officials did not know whether they should thank Cixi or rather the monkey for it.
第二年正式签署和约,随后过了一个月慈禧才终于从西安动身。她对外国人万分惧怕,正像她对国人无比傲慢一样。她在河南停留了很长一段时间,到了保定又逗留多日,好不容易才回到北京。据野史记载,在这漫长的旅途中还发生了一件趣事。一位地方官员送给慈禧一只猴子,她颇为高兴,竟下旨给那只猴子穿黄马褂。后来太监报告说,有的官员发出了“人不如猴”的感慨,慈禧这才发现自己的决定有些荒唐,于是又下旨给随行官员每人一件黄马褂。得到这殊荣之后,大家真不知道该感谢慈禧还是感谢那只猴子。
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