高中英语 轻松阅读 女王和乌鸦The Queen and the Raven素材

用心 爱心 专心1 女王和乌鸦女王和乌鸦 TheThe QueenQueen andand thethe RavenRaven 喜鹊报喜 乌鸦报忧 乌鸦在中国传统文化中的形象多为消极的 事实上乌鸦聪明 专情 孝顺 集诸多美好品质于一身 伊索寓言中聪明的乌鸦借助石子喝水 白居易曾作 诗 慈乌夜啼 赞美乌鸦反哺 不仅如此 乌鸦更是英国王室钟爱的小生灵 女王和乌鸦 The Queen and the Raven By Boria Sax 熙凡 注 Legends and fairy tales are set in a world where relations between animals and human beings are egalitarian and reciprocal 1 This places human dominance in question and many societies try constantly to distance themselves from that message Already in ancient Greece and Rome the fables attributed to the half legendary Aesop were set in an indefinite period of the past when animals talked like human beings 2 In Early Modern Europe the animal guides helpers and guardian spirits that fill legends and fairy tales were demonized as familiars of witches 3 Particularly in English witch trials talking to animals or otherwise showing intimacy with them could be accepted as evidence of sorcery 4 In the early nineteenth centuries the Brothers Grimm started a revival of these tales but they still felt a need to remove them as far as possible from the context of daily life 5 When they published their first volume of fairy tales in 1812 they viewed the stories as remnants of old mythologies 6 In the second volume and increasingly in subsequent editions they set the stories instead in the enchanted 7 world of childhood But legends can arise in the contemporary era as much as they could in ancient times and among intellectuals as well as unlettered peasants 8 One case in point is the legend that Britain will fall if the ravens leave the Tower of London Like many folktales the origins of this prophesy 9 are often placed in the indefinite past the Once upon a time of fairy tales But ravens were only brought to the Tower of London in 1883 when they were used as props for tales of Gothic horror told to tourists by Beefeaters ceremonial guards at the Tower 10 The legend dates from July 1944 when ravens were being used as unofficial spotters 11 for Nazi bombs and planes and they really were important to Londoners survival As I anticipated my discovery of the ravens recent origin have had little impact on the countless news stories books and guides that simply repeat the familiar tale something that does not bother me in the least 12 Legend and history move on different planes The legend now lends the Tower of London itself a fairy tale sort of ambiance 13 At least six ravens most of which are injured birds that might not be able to survive in the wild are kept on the grounds of the Tower of London at all times Their wings are trimmed 14 so they cannot fly very far but otherwise they move freely on the grounds Over many decades routines 用心 爱心 专心2 have evolved that enable the ravens to interact with the Beefeaters who care for them with tourists and with one another in ways that are complex and reciprocal 15 Relations between animals and human beings are the subject of an emerging academic area known as anthrozoology and the grounds of the Tower of London seem to invite such research 16 It is a place where relationships between people and certain animals developed organically over more than a century without the artificiality of a laboratory setting 17 Ravens and other corvids 18 have long been considered among the most intelligent of animals rivaling and sometimes surpassing the great apes in areas such as tool use and language Recent research has shown that corvids can not only recognize individual human faces but also remember them for years When corvids regard a particular person as a threat they can even pass that understanding on to their young The ravens at the Tower of London are constantly observing people and doubtless forming individual relationships with some of them Whenever you see ravens at the Tower of London you are likely to spot a half eaten cream cheese sandwich nearby My suspicion which could be tested by research is that the ravens have adapted their techniques of hunting and foraging collectively in the wild to the environment of the Tower 19 One raven distracts a tourist while another grabs his food 20 Some people think that ravens at the Tower pose for the camera Surely that is not quite true but they are probably intrigued 21 by those shiny little colored boxes that people keep holding up to their faces Ravens have very good eyesight and may well see their own reflections in the lenses 22 One Tower raven in the early twenty first century with a rare linguistic gift was Thor who would startle tourists by perching just above their heads and saying Good morning According to former Ravenmaster Derrick Coyle Thor could also understand the grammatical distinction between I and me To what extent can ravens learn human language and ways of thinking simply by being around people It should be possible to find out Recent research showed that ravens much like human beings communicate by pointing using their wings and beaks One relatively simple study therefore would be to observe the ravens at the Tower of London systematically 23 noting at what and how often they point Is it at other ravens Tourists Beefeaters Food On May 17 2012 two baby ravens were born at the Tower of London the first in nearly two decades One of them has been named Jubilee to be ceremonially presented to the Queen by the Ravenmaster as part of the festivities to mark Elizabeth II s Diamond Jubilee 24 Rituals are as difficult to interpret as dreams are but I think this one tells us something about our longing for harmony with the natural world 25 It is also one more reason to better understand the relations between ravens and human beings at the Tower of London Vocabulary 1 egalitarian 平等主义的 主张人人平等的 reciprocal 互惠的 互相的 用心 爱心 专心3 2 attributed to 认为 由某人而作 认为 出自某人 Aesop 伊索 古希 腊著名寓言家 3 guardian spirit 守护之灵 demonize 使恶魔化 4 sorcery 巫术 魔法 5 十九世纪初 格林兄弟开始复兴童话故事 然而他们认为有必要让这些故事尽量 远离日常生活的情境 6 remnant 残余 残迹 mythology 神话 7 enchanted 中了魔法的 8 contemporary 当代的 intellectual 知识分子 unlette