20100821翻译作业.doc

The lives of most men are determined by their environment. They accept the circumstances amid which fate has thrown them not only with resignation but even with good will. They are like streetcars running contentedly on their rails and they despise the sprightly flivver that dashes in and out of the traffic and speeds so jauntily across the open country. I respect them; they are good citizens, good husbands, and good fathers, and of course somebody has to pay the taxes; but I do not find them exciting. I am fascinated by the men, few enough in all conscience, who take life in their own hands and seem to mould it to their own liking.大多数人的生活状况是由他们所处的环境所决定的。他们接受在这些环境之中。那里，命运不但听任顺从，甚至心甘情愿把他们抛弃。他们犹如在自己轨道上心满意足奔驰的汽车，鄙视那些富有活力的便宜车在往来的车辆中突进突出，扬扬得意的穿过开阔的城市。我尊重他们；他们是好市民，好丈夫，好父亲，诚然，有人不得不缴税；但是我没有发现他们十分兴奋。有种人十分吸引我，他们对于生活运筹帷幄，把生活塑造成自己喜欢的模样。的确，这样的人虽然极少，却也足够了。It may be that we have no such thing as free will, but at all events we have the illusion of it. At a cross-road it does seem to us that we might go either to the right or the left and, the choice once made, it is difficult to see that the whole course of the worlds history obliged us to take the turning we did.可能我们没有像自由意愿那样的东西，但不管怎样，我们拥有自由意愿的幻觉。在一个十字路口，对我们来说，看起来我们只能向右转或是向左转，一旦做出了选择，很难发现是整个世界历史道路强迫我们做出了转向。I never met a more interesting man than Mayhew. He was a lawyer in Detroit. He was an able and a successful one. By the time he was thirty-five he had a large and a lucrative practice, he had amassed a competence, and he stood on the threshold of a distinguished career, he had an acute brain, an attractive personality, and uprightness. There was no reason why he should not become, financially, a power in the land.我从没有遇见过比梅修更有趣的人了。他在底特律是一位有能力的成功律师。在35岁之时，他有了一份规模大，赚钱多的工作，同时已积累了能力，并站在了一个非凡事业的开端。他拥有敏锐的头脑，以及吸引人的个性和正直的品行。他没有理由不能在经济领域成为一股强劲势力。One evening he was sitting in his club with a group of friends and they were perhaps a little worse (or the better) for liquor. One of them had recently come from Italy and he told them of a house he had seen at Capri, a house on the hill, overlooking the Bay of Naples, with a large and shady garden. He described to them the beauty of the most beautiful island in the Mediterranean.一天夜晚，他与一帮朋友在他的俱乐部就餐，可能他朋友有酒量或差（或好），参差不齐。其中一个朋友最近刚从意大利回来，告诉他们，他在卡普里岛上看上一套房子。那房子位于山上，可俯瞰那不勒斯湾，并配有硕大遮阳的花园。他为他们描述了地中海上那最美丽的海岛之美。“It sounds fine,” said Mayhew. “Is that house for sale?”“Lets sendem a cable and make an offer for it.”“What in heavens name would you do with a house in Capri?”“Live in it,” said Mayhew.He sent for a cable form, wrote it out, and dispatched it. In a few hours the reply came back. The offer was accepted.梅修接着问道：“听起来很好，那房子在售么？”“我们给他们发份电报，考虑购买她。”“你会怎样处理在卡普里岛上的这套房子？”“去住啊。”梅修回答道。他取了一份电报，写了出来，发送出去。几小时之后，回复来了，申请被接受了。Mayhew was no hypocrite and he made no secret of the fact that he would never have done so wild a thing an impulsive nor an emotional man, but a very honest and sincere one. He would never have continued from bravado in a course that he had come to the conclusion was unwise. He made up his mind to do exactly as he had said. He did not care for wealth and he had enough money on which to live in Italy.梅修不是一个虚伪的人。他从不隐瞒那个事实，即他从不放荡不拘，冲动行事，也不是一个性情中人，但却是一个十分诚实，真挚的人。他从不会在一条结果不明朗的道路上持续逞能的走下去。他下决心正像他所说的那样做的。因有足够金钱去意大利居住，他不关心财富。He thought he could do more with life than spend it on composing the trivial quarrels of unimportant people. He had no definite plan. He merely wanted to get away from a life that had given him all it had to offer. I suppose his friends thought him crazy; some must have done all they could to dissuade him. He arranged his affairs, packed up his furniture, and started.他觉得他可以在生活上做到更多，而不是把生活花费在与不重要的人的琐碎的争吵上。他没有明确的计划，仅仅想逃离那种对任何事物都唾手可得，不费周折的生活。我想他朋友认为他很疯狂，有些人肯定尽其可能去劝阻他。但他安排好自己的事情，把家具装箱，启程了。Capri is a gaunt rock of austere outline, bathed in a deep blue sea; but its vineyards, green and smiling, give it a soft and easy grace. It is friendly, remote, and debonair. I find it strange that Mayhew should have settled on this lovely island, for I never knew a man more insensible to beauty. I do not know what he sought there: happiness, freedom, or merely leisure; I know what he found. In this place which appeals so extravagantly to the sense he lived a life entirely of the spirit. For the island is rich with historic associations and over it broods always the enigmatic memory of Tiberius the Emperor. 卡普里岛是一个沐浴在深深蔚蓝大海中，轮廓紧缩，荒凉不毛的礁石。但它茂盛浓绿，喜悦欢笑的葡萄园，给它带来一种温柔惬意的优美。它友好偏远，愉快自信。对于梅修想要在这可爱小岛上定居，我觉得很奇怪，因为我从不知一位男士对美更无感觉。我不知道他在那是追求什么：幸福，自由，或者纯粹是闲适？我不知道他发现了什么。在这个地方，他如此奢侈的诉诸于体会他过的全部是精神层面的生活。因为岛屿富有古老的联系，在它之上，总是孕育着提比略皇帝的记忆。From his windows which overlooked the Bay of Naples, with the noble shape of Vesuvius changing colour with the changing light, Mayhew saw a hundred places that recalled the Romans and the Greeks. The past began to haunt him. All that he saw for the first time, for he had never been abroad before, excited his fancy; and in his soul stirred the creative imagination. He was a man of energy.从他的窗户向外眺望那不勒斯海湾，崇高外形的维苏威火山随着阳光的变化而变化着颜色，梅修注视着唤回罗马王朝和希腊王朝的许多处地方。过去的往事开始萦绕着他。由于他从未出过国，他第一次所看见的一切令他十分欢喜；同时，在他灵魂中激发出创造性的想象力。他是一个精力充沛的人。Presently he made up his mind to write a history. For some time he looked about for a subject, and at last decided on the second century of the Roman Empire. It was little known and it seemed to him to offer problems analogous with those of our own day.不久，他决心去书写一段历史。时常，他在寻找主题。最终，他决定描写二世纪的罗马皇帝。那皇帝鲜为人知，看起来对他来说，提供了许多那些与我们现在相类似的问题。He began to collect books and soon he had an immense library. His legal training had taught him to read quickly. He settled down to work. At first he had been accustomed to foregather in the evening with the painters, writers, and such like who met in the little tavern near the Piazza, but presently he withdrew himself, for his absorption in his studies became more pressing. He had been accustomed to bathe in that bland sea and to take long walks among the pleasant vineyards, but little by little, grudging the time, he ceased to do so. * withdraw into oneself,他开始收集书籍，很快，他就拥有了一个巨大的博物馆。他合理的训练教会他快速的阅读，继而安心工作。起初，他习惯于在夜晚与画家，作家和像在广场边小酒馆的人偶遇。但不久，由于他荒废的学业变得对他越发有压力，他就抽出身来了。他曾习惯于沐浴在那温和的大海中，在惬意的葡萄园中走很远的路。但是渐渐的，时间不情愿了，他停止了这么做。I grudge paying so much for such inferior goods.He worked harder than he had ever worked in Detroit. He would start at noon and work all through the night till the whistle of the steamer that goes every morning from Capri to Naples told him that it was five oclock and time to go to bed. His subject opened out before him, vaster and more significant, and he imagined a work that would put him forever beside the great historians of the past.他比他在底特律时工作的更为努力。他在中午开始工作一直到晚上，直到每天早晨从卡普瑞到那不勒斯的蒸汽船的汽笛声告诉他凌晨五点了，那时他才去睡觉。他的主题在他面前广泛，更有意义的展开了。他想象了一个工作，它可以使他永远在伟大的过去历史人物身旁。As the years went by he was to be found seldom in the ways of men. He could be tempted to come out of his house only by a game of chess or the chance of an argument. He loved to set his brain against anothers. He was widely read now, not only in history, but in philosophy and science; and he was a skillful controversialist, quick, logical, and incisive. But he had good-humour and kindliness; though he took a very human pleasure in victory, he did not exult in it to your mortification.随着时光的流逝，很少发现他有常人生活方式。他会仅仅为下盘棋或是有机会争论才走出房子。他喜欢让自己的大脑去反对他人。他现在阅读十分广泛，不但在历史方面，而且也涉足哲学和科学；他是一个反应快，有逻辑，敏锐的有经验的善辩家，却很有幽默，十分和蔼；虽然他有时以胜利而真正为乐，但他不会欣喜若狂让你觉得屈辱。When first he came to the island he was a big, brawny fellow, with thick black hair and a black beard, of a powerful physique; but gradually his skin became pale and waxy; he grew thin and frail. It was an odd contradiction in the most logical of men that, though a convinced and impetuous materialist, he despised the body; he looked upon it as a vile instrument which he could force to do the spirits bidding.当他第一次来到这个岛上时，他是一个留着一头又厚又黑的头发，长着一条胡子，硕大强壮有着健壮体格的伙计；但是逐渐的，他的皮肤变得苍白光滑，身体变得消瘦虚弱。尽管他是一个坚定不移，鲁莽的唯物主义者，但是他鄙视肉体。这在大多数人的逻辑中这是一个奇怪的争论。他把它当做一台令人厌恶的仪器来观察，他强迫这台仪器服从精神的命令。Neither illness nor lassitude prevented him from going on with his work. For fourteen years he toiled unremittingly. He made thousands and thousands of notes. He sorted and classified them. He had his subject at his finger ends, and at last was ready to b