笔译课外翻译.doc

Passage 1On the other part, instead of being its own seer, let it receive from another mind its truth, though it were in torrents of light, without periods of solitude, inquest, and self recovery, and a fatal disservice is done. Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over-influence. The literature of every nation bears me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakespearized now for two hundred years.Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated. Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholars idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other mens transcripts of their readings. But when the intervals of darkness come, as come they mustwhen the sun is hid, and the stars withdraw their shiningwe repair to the lamps which were kindled by their ray, to guide our steps to the East again. The Arabian proverb says, “A fig tree, looking on a fig tree, becometh fruitful.”It is remarkable, the character of the pleasure we derive from the best books. They impress us with the conviction, that one nature wrote and the same reads. We read the verses of one of the great English poets, of Chaucer, of Marvell, of Dryden, with the most modern joywith a pleasure, I mean, which is in great part caused by the abstraction of all time from their verses. There is some awe mixed with the joy of our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago , says that which lies close to my own soul, that which I also had well-nigh thought and said. But for the evidence thence afforded to the philosophical doctrine of the identity of all minds, we should suppose some pre-established harmony, some foresight of souls that were to be, and some preparation of stores for their future wants, who lay up food before death for the young grub they shall never see. Passage 1另一方面，若心灵不成为自己的先知，而且从另一心灵接受真理时又不静思，融会贯通，那么即便那真理之光光芒四射，其结果也是有害无益。大凡天才之名过剩则足以成天才之大敌。各国文学均能证明我此说不谬。200年来，英国的戏剧诗人一直都在效仿莎士比亚。世上无疑有一种正确的读书方法，即让书严格地服从读者。善思者切不可盲从于所读之书。书籍本为学者闲时所用。能直接领悟到上帝之书，就不该耗费宝贵的时间去读他人的读书笔记。但人孰能无惑，当偶尔困惑袭来时当太阳被遮蔽，群星也敛其光芒时我们便可到那些由阳光星光点亮的书灯之下，凭借其指引再次走向黎明所在的东方。有则阿拉伯谚语说：“一株无花果树注视另一株无花果树，结果自己便硕果累累。”我们从好的书中获得的那种喜悦可谓非凡。好书会使我们铭记这种信念：作者读者天性相通。读英国大诗人乔叟、马维尔或德莱顿的诗篇时，我们会感到一种颇具现代气息的喜悦我是说一种在很大程度上因他们的诗篇把“时间”抽象化而产生的喜悦。我们的惊喜交加中会羼杂几分敬畏，因那位生活在过去世界的诗人，那位生活在200年前或300年前的诗人，竟然说出如此贴近我心灵的话，说出我几乎也能想到并说出的话，但若要为这种心灵相通提供哲学上的证据，我们就应该假设存在某种前定和谐，存在着某种对未来心灵的预见，存在着某种供这些心灵将来之需的储备。这就像我们观察昆虫时注意到的那个细节：成虫在死之前会为它们永远也见不到的幼虫储存好食物。（爱默生著，论美国学者，曹明伦译)Passage 2I would not be hurried by any love of system, by any exaggeration of instincts, to underrate the Book. We all know, that, as the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge. And great and heroic men have existed who had almost no other information than by the printed page. I only would say that it needs a strong head to bear that diet. One must be an inventor to read well. As the proverb says, “He that would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry out the wealth of the Indies.” There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor the invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is as broad as the world. We then see, what is always true, that, as the seers hour of vision is short and rare among heavy days and months, so is its record, perchance, the least part of his volume. The discerning will read, in his Plato or Shakespeare, only that least partonly the authentic utterances of the oracle; all the rest he rejects, were it never so many times Platos and Shakespeares.Of course, there is a portion of reading quite indispensable to a wise man. History and exact science he must learn by laborious reading. Colleges, in like manner, have their indispensable officeto teach elements. But they can only highly serve, when they aim not to drill, but to create; when they gather form far every ray of various genius to their hospitable halls, and, by the concentrated fires, set the hearts of their youth on flame. Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and our American colleges will recede in their public importance, whist they grow rich every year.Passage 2我不能因对秩序的热爱和对直觉的夸饰就遽然低估书的作用。众所周知，人体可从任何食物中摄取营养，哪怕是煮熟的野菜或皮鞋汲取营养。世上一直都有除书本知识外几乎一无所知的伟才英杰。不过我想说，要忍受这种食物，你得有个健全的头脑。善读书者一定是创新者。就像有则谚语说：“要想把印度的财富搬回家，首先得让那财富为你所有。”因此，除了创造性的写作外，还得有创造性的阅读。当心灵被努力和创造力振奋时，我们读的任何一本书都会页页生辉，都会给予我们各种启示。这时每个句子都会显得更有意义，作者的见识也会显得无比广博。于是我们会看到一种由来已久的实情，即在沉闷的岁月里，先贤们往往也只是灵光乍现，因此记录其真知灼见的文字可能只占其著作的极少部分。明智者读柏拉图或莎士比亚总是只读这极少部分，只读先贤真想说的那一部分，而将其余部分略去，即使略去的办法也绝对出自柏拉图和莎士比亚的手笔。当然，对明智者来说，有些书非读不可。比如对历史和科学著作，你就必须靠苦读方能融会贯通。同样，大学也有其非尽不可的职责，那就是传授基础知识。但大学可以发挥更大的作用，只要它们的目标不仅仅是基础训练，而是鼓励创造；只要它们把天下英才的智慧之光点燃莘莘学子年轻的心灵。思想和知识乃自然之物，仪器和自负无助于对其之获取。价值万金的学位服和教学基金业抵不过用寥寥数语表述的真知灼见。若忘记这点，即使我们美国大学的基金投入会逐年增多，其社会价值也会逐年减少。(ibid.)Passage 3The maple smoke of autumn bonfires is incense to Canadians. Bestowing aroma for the nose, chroma for the eye, sweetness for the spring tongue, the sugar maple prompts this sharing of a favorite myth and an original etymology of the world maple.The maple looms large in Ojibwa folk tales. The time of year for sugaring-off is “in the Maple Moon.” Among Ajibwa, the primordial female figure is Nokomis, a wise grandmother. In one tale about seasonal change, cannibal wendigoscreatures of evilchased old Nokomis through the autumn countryside. Wendigos throve in icy cold. When they entered the bodies of humans, the human heart froze solid. Here wendigos represent oncoming winter. They were hunting to kill and eat poor Nokomis, the warm embodiment of female fecundity who, like the summer, has grown old.Knowing this was a pursuit to the death. Nokimis outsmarted the cold devils. She hid in s stand of maple trees, all red and orange and deep yellow. This maple grove grew beside a waterfall whose mist blurred the trees outline. As they peered throught the mist, slavering wendigos thought they saw a raging fire in which their prey was burning. But it was only old Nokomis being hidden by the right red leaves of her friends, the maples. And so, drooling ice and huffing frost, the wendigos left her and sought easier prey. For their service in saving the earth mothers life., these maples were given a special gift: their water of life would be forever sweet, and humans would tap it for nourishment. Passage 3对加拿大人来说，秋天篝火中燃烧的枫树枝冒出的烟气就是熏香。糖枫树给人带来扑鼻的香气、耀眼的色彩和令人咋舌回味的甘甜，它促使我写下这篇文章，告诉大家我最喜爱的一个神化以及“maple”（枫树）一词的独特词源。在奥吉布瓦族印第安人的民间传说里，枫树总会赫然显现出来，占有重要的地位。每年熬制枫糖的时节就“在枫树月里”。在奥吉布瓦人的心目中，最原始的女性形象是一个聪明的老奶奶，名叫诺柯米丝。有一个关于四季轮回的传说讲到，一群叫温迪格的食人恶鬼在秋天的乡野里追赶诺柯米丝。温迪格们是在滴水成冰的严寒里生长起来的。它们侵入人体时，人的心脏就会冻成冰块。在这个故事里，温迪格们代表将要来临的冬天。它们在追逐着可怜的诺柯米丝，要把她杀死吃掉，因为她是女性旺盛生殖力的温暖的象征，而且像夏天一样已经衰老。 诺柯米丝知道，她若是被抓则必死无疑，于是她运用智谋蒙蔽那群冷酷的恶鬼。她躲进一片红色、橙色、深黄色的枫树林里。树林长在一挂瀑布旁边，瀑布的水雾使树林的轮廓变得模糊。当那些口滴馋涎的温迪克们透过水雾费力地窥探时，意为看见了一对熊熊的烈火，以为自己追逐的猎物正在烈火中燃烧。其实诺柯米丝老奶奶只不过是被她的枫树朋友们用红得发亮的叶子掩蔽起来了。于是温迪格们不追了。它们流着口水，喘着粗气，口水顷刻结成了冰，呵气顷刻凝成了霜；它们就这样走了，去寻找更容易捕获的猎物。那些枫树由于救了大地母亲诺柯米丝的命，而得到了上天的特别恩赐：它们生命之液将永远甘甜，人类将汲取这液汁来获取营养。（比尔卡斯尔曼著，关于枫树的传说，谷启楠译）Passage 4A little flap in the backdrop pulled open. And a young man stepped forth.The rest of the dancers departed and left him alone. The lights took on a white hue and one saw that the young man was very pale with dark-penciled eyes. He was dressed in a light blousing shirt and tight breeches of cream-colored stain.Stepping forward, with causal grace, he began to dance.At first, all I could realize of him was the delicate-footed motion, the coolness and lightness of the figure. He wore soft close-fitting slippers and the insteps of his feet were so beautiful and alive that I fell in love with him them at once. He was small and perfectly formed, slender-hipped and probably quite typical of the ballet dancer. And perhaps there was something too mannered and too self-conscious in the face. His eyes were drawn to appear elongated, Oriental. The head was finely shaped, dark-haired. But the very self-conscious style of him seemed to add to the charm. What could equal the stance, the quick lightning movements of the body, or the severe control of its quietness?But none of these features by themselves gave the full effect. The complete harmonious accord of the momentthere was no way to explain it.When the ballet was over and the dancers were bowing outside the curtain, I felt a terrible childish sadness, the kind that is felt only after the accidental pleasure. It is a puzzling sensation, the regret for the loss of that which one had notno, nevereven hoped for in the first place!The young man stood a little in front of the others, bowing. I noticed that his ears were beautifully pointed and his hair was sleek. The lights in the Auditorium went up. The orchestra began to play. People put on their wraps and began to talk in matter-of-fact voices. But I was gravely occupied with the memory of the young man. Moving slowly in the large arena of the Auditorium, I felt that I would never forget him. I listened dreamily to the music and watched the audience make dignified parade to the rear exit. It seemed, to my impressionable mind, that everything existed only for the contemplation of him.Passage 4 背景幕上，一处不大的挡帘拉开了，一位青年举步朝前台走来。所有的演员都退向幕后，舞台上只剩下他独自一人。灯光泛为白色，只见那青年描眉漆黑，面色浅淡，上身穿一件宽松的浅色衬衫，下身配的是乳黄色的紧身裤。他走向前，悠然地跳起了曼妙的舞步。我最初看到的只有那优雅的舞步和沉着轻盈的舞姿。他瞪着一双贴脚的舞鞋，脚背十分漂亮而富有活力，一眼望去，我立刻为之动情了。他臀围纤小，身材小巧而完美，这也许正是芭蕾舞演员应有的体形。看他的表情，或许多了些不太自然的造作与忸怩。他眼眉描得细长，看去很像是东方人，头部轮廓优美，生着满头黑发。不过那异样害羞的气质反而更让人着迷。那优美的舞步，那疾如闪电的舞动，那一丝不苟的从容体态，这一切还有什么能相媲美呢？然而，每一次举手投足都无法表现整体的效果，那和谐如一的完美瞬间实在是难以言传。舞蹈结束了，演员们来到幕前向观众谢礼。此时此刻，我感到一阵强烈而充满稚气的悲哀，一种只有经历了不期而遇的愉快后才能感受到的悲哀。那是一种难以名状的感觉，是不曾希望而且从未奢望得到的东西得到后又突然失去的痛惜之情。那青年站的比别人稍微靠前，屈身向观众致谢。我看到他尖尖的双耳煞是俊俏，满头整齐的黑发光洁而润滑。礼堂里亮起了灯光，乐队又开始演奏。人们披上外衣，若无其事地谈论起来，而此时我仍是一心惦记起那位青年。我漫步走过礼堂中央宽敞的舞台，心想再也不能够忘记他了。我听着音乐，如在梦中，望着那些观众神态高贵地朝后门出口走去。在我敏感的心灵里，万物存在于世间，仿佛只为唤起对于他的深深思念。（美简梅霍尔著.情系芭蕾. 刘全福译）Passage 5Time was in my life when the dawn happened to other people. I was definitely not a morning person; I associated the sunrise with long plane flights across many time zones and groggy strolls around the strange cities waiting for my hotel room to become available. Then I had children, and the first light took on new meaning. Sometimes it was the sigh at the end of a fretful night up with a feverish baby; or the opposite, the joyous cry of an exuberant 3-year-old eager to get the day going. It was only later, when mornings were taken over by the getting-to-school frenzy, that I discovered the serenity of the surprisingly fast transition from night to day. For the small price of 15 minutes of sleep I could buy 15 minutes of solitary peacewith a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Given the tidbit of time at my disposal, I developed the habit of skimming the paper, which quickly came down to a surreptitious and almost superstitious ritual checking out obituaries.At first I attributed this new habit to advancing ageI had recently turned 40and glumly concluded that I was becoming morbid. But why, then, was I finding my secret rite so uplifting? Finally, after many years of starting the day this way, I have figured out that I am doing it not to obsess about death but to find out about life. Real life. Obituaries capture the benchmarks of life span without passing judgment or making order out of the events. The high points are easyPulitzer Prize winners joke that as soon as they are named they know what the headline is going to be on their obituarybut I read most attentively for clues to the defeats and the flatline periods, the inexplicable changes of heart and the twists of fate, the gambles and the unexpected consequences, the loose endsThe message that comes through over and over is that although there are times in any life when things seems to be proceeding step by logical step, the whole things seems to be proceeding step by logical step, the whole is mostly random and askew. Life, as every biography and obit I have ever read confirms, is what happens when you are making other plans.Passage 5在我生命中有一段，黎明与我无缘。我那时根本不愿起早。一提到日出，就令我想起远程飞行的经历，常常是在跨越几个时区后，抵达了目的地，客房却偏偏尚未腾出，于是只好拖着疲惫的步伐，在陌生的城市内漫无目的地游逛。后来，我有了孩子，第一道曙光便有了新的意义。有时孩子生病，整晚不得安宁，于是黎明是在我的一声叹息中迎来的。有时恰恰相反，精力充沛的三岁孩子迫不及待地要开始一天的生活，黎明于是在孩子欢快的叫喊声中到来。后来，孩子上学了，于是清晨就是在送孩子上学的忙乱中度过的。正是这忙乱的时刻，我突然发现从夜晚过渡到白昼何其短促，那一瞬间却有无比宁静。那么，不妨少睡十五分钟，就可以喝咖啡，看报纸，享受十五分钟独处的宁静。由于可以支配的时间有限，我便养成了利用这片刻随便翻阅报纸的习惯，而且我喜欢偷偷地查看报上的讣告，这一习惯几乎到了雷打不动的地步，近乎是一种迷信般的仪式。起初，我以为这是因为上了年纪的缘故（当时我刚四十岁），于是我不无悲哀地认为这是一种病态心理。可令我不解的是，为什么我竟对这个秘密的仪式感到如此振奋？我就是以这种方式年复一年地度过那清晨那片刻的时光，直到有一天我突然明白过来，我如此喜欢读讣告并非迷恋死亡，而意在探索生命，真正的生命。讣告捕捉一生中的重要时刻，却不对事件进行评价。辉煌的时刻当然容易在讣告中发现，普利策奖得主不无诙谐地说，一得奖他们就知道自己讣告的标题是什么。然而我读讣告专心捕捉的却是生命中的失败，人生中百无聊赖的时刻，莫可名状的心意改变和命运的峰回路转，人生中的赌博和事与愿违的结局，还有那未了的心愿反复阅读讣告得到的感悟是，虽然有时人生的发展一步接一步符合逻辑，但总体来说，人生却让你无法预料。每一本传记，每一则讣告都毫无例外地印证，人生就是你制定计划时意外发生的事情。（苏珊娜莱文著拂晓前的秘密仪式叶子南译）Passage 6No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader. For me the initial delight is in the surprise of remembering something I didnt know I knew. I am in a place, in a situation, as if I had materialized from cloud or risen out of the ground. There is a glad recognition of the long lost and the rest follows. Step by step the wonder of unexpected supply keeps growing. The impressions most useful to my purpose seem always those I was unaware of and so made no note of at the time when taken, and the conclusion is come to that like giants we are always hurling experience ahead of us to pave the future with against the day when we may want to strike a line of purpose across it for somewhere. The line will have the more charm for not being mechanically straight. We enjoy the straight crookedness of a good walking stick. Modern instruments of precision are being used to make things crooked as if by eye and hand in the old days.I tell how there may be a better wildness of logic than of inconsequence. But the logic is backward, in retrospect, after the act. It must be more felt than seen ahead like prophecy. It must be a revelation, or a series of revelations, as much for the poet as for the reader. For it to be that there must have been the greatest freedom of the material to move about in it and to establish relations in it regardless of time and space, previous relation, and everything but affinity. We prate of freedom. We call our schools free because we are not free to stay away from them till we are sixteen years of age. I have given up my democratic prejudices and now willingly set the lower classes free to be completely taken care of by the upper classes. Political freedom is nothing to me. I bestow it right and left. All I would keep for myself is the freedom of my materialthe condition of body and mind now and then to summons aptly from the vast chaos of all I have lived through.Passage 6诗人没有眼泪，读者亦不会流泪。诗人没有惊喜，读者亦不会惊喜。对我而言，最初的欢欣就在突然回想起我不知自己所知的某事或某物的惊喜之中。我会身在某处，处于某种状态，仿佛我是从云中钻出或是从地面高高升起，心中怀着一种因认出早已淡忘的事物而感到大喜悦，其余的一切接踵而来。意想不到大惊喜一点点地增加。最有助于我实现目的的印象似乎总是那些我当初获得时未加留心而没有记录下来的印象，而结果是我们总像巨人似的把经历抛到前方去铺我们未来的路，以防有朝一日我们也许会想另觅一条实现目的的路，超越以往的经历去什么地方。那条路也许更有魅力，因为它不会笔直得单调乏味。我们总喜欢一根漂亮的拐杖的直中有曲。现代精密仪器正在被用来使东西弯曲，就像过去人们凭眼睛和手工所做的一样。较之非逻辑躲野性，我知道怎么会有一种更逻辑的野性。但这种逻辑是后来的，是在行动之后，在回忆之时才有的。它必须是被感觉到，而不是像预言那样被预见到。不管对诗人还是对读者，它都必须是一种启示，或一连串启示。因为情况应该是这样：素材在任何时间空间都必须有最充分的自由在这种逻辑中运动，并在其中建立各种关系，包括先前的关系，以及除类同之外的一切关系。我们爱空谈自由。因为我们16岁之前没有离开学校的自由，我们就认为我们的学校自由。我已经放弃了我的民主偏见，现在我乐意让下层民众自由地被上层阶级全面照管。政治自由于我可有可无。我可以把它送给左邻右舍。我要身心状态随时能响应我所经历过的大混乱之召唤的自由。(美弗罗斯特著.曹明伦译.诗运动的轨迹)Passage 7In a speech delivered in 1952, Rachel Carson warned, “Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world.Carson voiced these worries before the triumph of television or shopping malls, before the advent of air-conditioning, personal computers, video games, the Internet, cell phones, cloning, genetic engineering, and a slew of other inventions that have made the artificial world ever more seductive. Unlike Earth, the artificial world is mad before us. It feeds our bellies and minds with tasty pabulum; it shelters us from discomfort and sickness; it proclaims our ingenuity; it flatters our pride. Snug inside bubbles fashioned from concrete and steel, form silicon and plastic and words, we can pretend we are running the planet.By contrast, the natural world was not made for our comfort or convenience. It preceded us by some billions of years, and it will outlast us; it mocks our pride, because it surpasses our understanding and control; it can be dangerous and demanding; it will eventually kill us and reclaim our bodies. We should not be surprised that increasing numbers of people choose to live entirely indoors, leaving buildings only to ride in airplanes or cars, viewing the great outside, if they view it at all, through sealed windows, but more often gazing into screens, listening to human chatter, cut off from “the realities of earth and water and the growing seed.”Passage 7雷切尔卡森在其1952年的一次演说中警告世人说：“人类在其自己创立的人造世界中走得太远了。他们把自己圈在建造的钢铁和混泥土城市里，与土地、水和正在生长的种子的现实世界隔绝开来。他沉迷于自我威力的意识中，变本加厉地进行毁灭自己、也毁灭这个世界的各种试验-他看来走得越来越远了。”在电视机购物商业区尚未走俏的时候，在空调、个人计算机、视频游戏、因特网、手机、克隆技术、基因工程，以及其他一堆使这个人造世界越发诱人的发明出现之前，卡森就表达了她的忧虑。与地球不同，人造世界是为我们而建造的。它以美味佳肴供我们充饥，以精神食粮益我们的心智。它给我们提供庇荫以免受不适合疾患的侵害。它告知天下我们是何等聪颖；它满足了我们的虚荣。蜷缩在由钢铁和混凝土、硅和塑料以及话语构筑的泡沫世界里，我们可以假装在驾驭这个星球。与之形成鲜明对比的是，自然世界的产生不是为了我们的舒适和方便。它在数十亿年前就存在了，而人类的诞生则是在数十亿年之后的事，但自然界的寿命却要比人类更长久。自然界嘲笑我们的虚荣，因为他们超越了我们对它的理解和控制。它危险而严酷，并最终会置我