大學英語5課文翻譯

1、One Writers Beginnings1 I learned from the age of two or three that any room in our house, at any time of day, was there to read in, or to be read to. My mother read to me. Shed read to me in the big bedroom in the mornings, when we were in her rocker together, which ticked in rhythm as we rocked, a

2、s though we had a cricket accompanying the story. Shed read to me in the dining room on winter afternoons in front of the coal fire, with our cuckoo clock ending the story with Cuckoo, and at night when Id got in my own bed. I must have given her no peace. Sometimes she read to me in the kitchen whi

3、le she sat churning, and the churning sobbed along with any story. It was my ambition to have her read to me while I churned; once she granted my wish, but she read off my story before I brought her butter. She was an expressive reader. When she was reading Puss in Boots, for instance, it was imposs

4、ible not to know that she distrusted all cats.作家起步時我從兩三歲起就知道，家中隨便在哪個房間里，白天無論在什么時間，都可以念書或聽人念書。母親念書給我聽。上午她都在那間大臥室里給我念，兩人一起坐在她那把搖椅里，我們搖晃時，椅子發(fā)出有節(jié)奏的滴答聲，好像有只唧唧鳴叫的蟋蟀在伴著讀故事。冬日午后，她常在餐廳里燒著煤炭的爐火前給我念，布谷鳥自鳴鐘發(fā)出“咕咕”聲時，故事便結束了；晚上我在自己床上睡下后她也給我念。想必我是不讓她有一刻清靜。有時她在廚房里一邊坐著攪制黃油一邊給我念，故事情節(jié)就隨著攪制黃油發(fā)出的抽抽搭搭的聲響不斷展開。我的奢望是她念我來攪拌；有

5、一次她滿足了我的愿望，可是我要聽的故事她念完了，她要的黃油我卻還沒弄好。她念起故事來富有表情。比如，她念穿靴子的貓時，你就沒法不相信她對貓一概懷疑。2 It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot

6、 remember a time when I was not in love with them with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the

7、reading I could give them. 當我得知故事書原來是人寫出來的，書本原來不是什么大自然的奇跡，不像草那樣自生自長時，真是又震驚又失望。不過，姑且不論書本從何而來，我不記得自己有什么時候不愛書 書本本身、封面、裝訂、印著文字的書頁，還有油墨味、那種沉甸甸的感覺，以及把書抱在懷里時那種將我征服、令我陶醉的感覺。還沒識字，我就想讀書了，一心想讀所有的書。3 Neither of my parents had come from homes that could afford to buy many books, but though it must have been some

8、thing of a strain on his salary, as the youngest officer in a young insurance company, my father was all the while carefully selecting and ordering away for what he and Mother thought we children should grow up with. They bought first for the future . 我的父母都不是來自那種買得起許多書的家庭。然而，雖然買書準得花去他不少薪金，作為一家成立不久的保

9、險公司最年輕的職員，父親一直在精心挑選、不斷訂購他和母親認為兒童成長應讀的書。他們購書首先是為了我們的前程。 4 Besides the bookcase in the living room, which was always called the library, there were the encyclopedia tables and dictionary stand under windows in our dining room. Here to help us grow up arguing around the dining room table were the Unabr

10、idged Webster, the Columbia Encyclopedia, Comptons Pictured Encyclopedia, the Lincoln Library of Information, and later the Book of Knowledge. In the library, inside the bookcase were books I could soon begin on and I did, reading them all alike and as they came, straight down their rows, top shelf

11、to bottom. My mother read secondarily for information; she sank as a hedonist into novels. She read Dickens in the spirit in which she would have eloped with him. The novels of her girlhood that had stayed on in her imagination, besides those of Dickens and Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, were Jan

12、e Eyre, Trilby, The Woman in White, Green Mansions, King Solomons Mines. 除了客廳里有一向被稱作“圖書室”的書櫥，餐廳的窗子下還有幾張擺放百科全書的桌子和一個字典架。這里有伴隨我們在餐桌旁爭論著長大的韋氏大詞典、哥倫比亞百科全書、康普頓插圖百科全書、林肯資料文庫，以及后來的知識庫。“圖書館”書櫥里的書沒過多久我就能讀了 我的確讀了，全都讀了，按著順序，一排接著一排讀，從最上面的書架一直讀到最下面的書架。母親讀書最重要的不在獲取信息。她是為了享受快樂而埋頭讀小說。她讀狄更斯時的神情簡直就像要跟他私奔似的。她少女時代讀的小說印

13、在了她心頭的，除了狄更斯、司各特和羅伯特路易斯斯蒂文森等人的作品之外，還有簡愛、切爾比、白衣女士、綠廈和所羅門王的礦藏。 5 To both my parents I owe my early acquaintance with a beloved Mark Twain. There was a full set of Mark Twain and a short set of Ring Lardner in our bookcase, and those were the volumes that in time united us all, parents and children.多虧了

14、我的父母，我很早就接觸了受人喜愛的馬克吐溫。書櫥里有一整套馬克吐溫文集和一套不全的林拉德納作品集，這些書最終將父母和孩子聯(lián)結在一起。6 Reading everything that stood before me was how I came upon a worn old book that had belonged to my father as a child. It was called Sanford and Merton. Is there anyone left who recognizes it, I wonder? It is the famous moral tale w

15、ritten by Thomas Day in the 1780s, but of him no mention is made on the title page of this book; here it is Sanford and Merton in Words of One Syllable by Mary Godolphin. Here are the rich boy and the poor boy and Mr. Barlow, their teacher and interlocutor, in long discourses alternating with dramat

16、ic scenes anger and rescue allotted to the rich and the poor respectively. It ends with not one but two morals, both engraved on rings: Do what you ought, come what may, and If we would be great, we must first learn to be good.我一本接一本閱讀擺在我面前的書，讀著讀著便發(fā)現(xiàn)一本又破又舊的書，是我父親小時候的。書名是桑福徳與默頓。我不相信如今還有誰會記得這本書。那是托瑪斯戴

17、在18世紀80年代撰寫的一本著名的進行道德教育的故事書，可該書的扉頁上并沒有提及他；上面寫的是桑福徳與默頓簡易本，瑪麗戈多爾芬著。書中講的是一個富孩子和一個窮孩子與他們老師巴洛先生之間的冗長的談話，其間穿插著戲劇性場面 分別寫了富孩子和窮孩子如何發(fā)火、如何獲救。書末講的道德寓意不是一條，而是兩條，都印在環(huán)形圖案里：“不管發(fā)生什么，該做的就去做”，還有“想做偉人，必須先學會做個好人”。 7 This book was lacking its front cover, the back held on by strips of pasted paper, now turned golden, in

18、 several layers, and the pages stained, flecked, and tattered around the edges; its garish illustrations had come unattached but were preserved, laid in. I had the feeling even in my heedless childhood that this was the only book my father as a little boy had had of his own. He had held onto it, and

19、 might have gone to sleep on its coverless face: he had lost his mother when he was seven. My father had never made any mention to his own children of the book, but he had brought it along with him from Ohio to our house and shelved it in our bookcase.這本書沒了封面，封底用幾條紙片粘牢，有好幾層，如今都泛黃了，書頁上污跡斑斑，邊角處都破碎了；書中

20、花哨的插圖脫了頁，但都保存良好，夾在書里。即使在少不更事的童年，我就覺得那是我父親小時候擁有的惟一一本書。他一直珍藏著這本書，或許還枕著這本沒了封面的書睡覺：他7歲時就沒了母親。我父親從來沒跟自己的孩子提起過這本書，但他從俄亥俄一路把它帶到我們的家，把它放進我們的書櫥。8 My mother had brought from West Virginia that set of Dickens: those books looked sad, too they had been through fire and water before I was born, she told me, and

21、there they were, lined up as I later realized, waiting for me.母親則從西弗吉尼亞帶來了那套狄更斯：那套書看上去也慘不忍睹 她告訴我，我還沒出生，這些書就歷經(jīng)水火之災，可現(xiàn)在它們還是整齊地排列在那兒 后來我意識到，是等著我去讀。9 I was presented, from as early as I can remember, with books of my own, which appeared on my birthday and Christmas morning. Indeed, my parents could not

22、give me books enough. They must have sacrificed to give me on my sixth or seventh birthday it was after I became a reader for myself-the ten-volume set of Our Wonder World. These were beautifully made, heavy books I would lie down with on the floor in front of the dining room hearth, and more often

23、than the rest volume 5, Every Childs Story Book, was under my eyes. There were the fairy tales Grimm, Andersen, the English, the French, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves; and there was Aesop and Reynard the Fox; there were the myths and legends, Robin Hood, King Arthur, and St. George and the Dragon,

24、even the history of Joan of Arc; a whack of Pilgrims Progress and a long piece of Gulliver. They all carried their classic illustrations. I located myself in these pages and could go straight to the stories and pictures I loved; very often The Yellow Dwarf was first choice, with Walter Cranes Yellow

25、 Dwarf in full color making his terrifying appearance flanked by turkeys. Now that volume is as worn and backless and hanging apart as my fathers poor Sanford and Merton. One measure of my love for Our Wonder World was that for a long time I wondered if I would go through fire and water for it as my

26、 mother had done for Charles Dickens; and the only comfort was to think I could ask my mother to do it for me.從記事起我就收到給自己的書了，那是在生日時，還有圣誕節(jié)早晨。我父母真的是送給我再多的書都嫌不夠。在我6歲或7歲生日時 那是在我自己能讀書之后 他們送我一套10卷本的我們的神奇世界，為此，準是作了不少犧牲。那套書真漂亮，厚厚的，我總是帶著它躺在餐廳壁爐前的地板上，讀得最多的是第5卷：兒童故事。那都是些童話故事 格林的、安徒生的、英國童話、法國童話，“阿里巴巴和四十大盜”； 還有伊

27、索寓言和列那狐的故事；還有神話和傳奇故事，如羅賓漢、亞瑟王、圣喬治和龍，甚至還有歷史故事圣女貞德；還有一部分天路歷程，以及一長段格列佛游記。每篇故事都有精彩的插圖。我早已讓自己走進這些故事中去了，一翻就能翻到自己喜愛的故事和插圖；黃膚色小矮人常常是我的首選，沃爾特克萊恩繪的彩色插圖中黃膚色小矮人看著令人害怕，他左右還有火雞侍立。如今這冊書已經(jīng)跟父親那本損壞的桑福徳與默頓一樣，又破又舊，最后幾頁掉了，書頁散了。有很長一段時間，我一直想自己能不能像母親為查爾斯狄更斯做的那樣，為我們的神奇世界這套書赴湯蹈火，從這一點也可想見我對這套書是多么珍愛；惟一令人安慰的是我相信我可讓母親為我這么做。10 I

28、believe Im the only child I know of who grew up with this treasure in the house. I used to ask others, Did you have Our Wonder World? Id have to tell them The Book of Knowledge could not hold a candle to it.在所有認識的孩子們當中，我想自己是惟一有家藏寶庫伴隨著長大的孩子。過去我常常問別人：“你有我們的神奇世界嗎？”我常常得跟人解釋，知識庫根本沒法跟這套書比。11 I live in gra

29、titude to my parents for initiating me as early as I begged for it, without keeping me waiting into knowledge of the word, into reading and spelling, by way of the alphabet. They taught it to me at home in time for me to begin to read before starting to school. 我感激父母通過認識字母對我 早在我要求之時，而沒有讓我等待 進行文字啟蒙，教

30、我閱讀和拼寫。他們在家里教我，我得以在上學前就開始了閱讀。 12 Ever since I was first read to, then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didnt hear. As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isnt my mothers voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly

31、not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the reader-voice: I have supposed, but never foun

32、d out, that this is the case with all readers to read as listeners and with all writers, to write as listeners. It may be part of the desire to write. The sound of what falls on the page begins the process of testing it for truth , for me. Whether I am right to trust so far I dont know. By now I don

33、t know whether I could do either one, reading or writing, without the other.從最初聽故事，到后來自己開始讀書，從來沒有一行讀過的字我不聞其聲。當我的目光掃過一個句子時，就會有個聲音默念給我聽。那不是母親的聲音，也不是我能辨認的某個人的聲音，當然也不是我本人的聲音。那是人的聲音，但是內在的，我傾聽的正是內心深處的聲音。對我而言，那就是故事本身的聲音，就是詩本身的聲音。那抑揚頓挫的聲音，不論它要你相信的是什么，那印刷文字中蘊含的情感，通過誦讀者的聲音傳遞給我：我一直猜想，卻始終沒能證實，所有的讀者都如此 邊讀邊聽，所有的作

34、者都如此 邊寫邊聽。那或許是寫作欲望的一部分。對我而言，落在紙頁上的聲音可幫助測試寫下來的是否是實事真情。我不知道我相信到這個程度是否對頭。如今我也不知道自己能不能做到只讀不寫，或只寫不讀。13 My own words, when I am at work on a story, I hear too as they go, in the same voice that I hear when I read in books. When I write and the sound of it comes back to my ears, then I act to make my chang

35、es. I have always trusted this voice.在寫小說時，我也能聽見文字落紙的聲音，與我讀書時聽到的聲音一樣。我寫著，那聲音傳入耳內，于是我聞聲而動，加以修改。我一直信賴這一聲音。Prison Studies1 Many who today hear me somewhere in person, or on television, or those who read something Ive said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade. This impression is due

36、entirely to my prison studies.獄 中 學 習今天，許多在什么地方直接聽我講話的人，或在電視上聽我講話的人，或讀過我寫的東西的人，都會以為我上學遠不止只讀到8年級。這一印象完全歸之于我在監(jiān)獄里的學習。2 It had really begun back in the Charlestown Prison, when Bimbi first made me feel envy of his stock of knowledge. Bimbi had always taken charge of any conversation he was in, and I had

37、 tried to emulate him. But every book I picked up had few sentences which didnt contain anywhere from one to nearly all of the words that might as well have been in Chinese2 the words that might as well have been in Chinese: it would have made no difference if the English words had been in Chinese,

38、because I didnt have the slightest knowledge of either.2. When I just skipped those words, of course, I really ended up with little idea of what the book said. So I had come to the Norfolk Prison Colony still going through only book-reading motions. Pretty soon, I would have quit even these motions,

39、 unless I had received the motivation that I did.其實這事要從查爾斯頓監(jiān)獄說起，一開始賓比就讓我對他的知識淵博羨慕不已。賓比總是主宰談話話題，我總想效仿他?？墒?，我隨便打開一本書，幾乎沒有一個句子不是少則一兩個字，多則差不多所有的字都不認識。我只好跳過這些字，結果自然是對書上說的幾乎一無所知了。因此，我被解送到諾?？司辛羲鶗r，讀書還只是為了擺擺樣子而已。要不是我真的獲得了學習動力，我恐怕沒多久就會連讀書的樣子也懶得去擺了。3 I saw that the best thing I could do was get hold of a dictio

40、naryto study, to learn some words. I was lucky enough to reason also that I should try to improve my penmanship. It was sad. I couldnt even write in a straight line. It was both ideas together that moved me to request a dictionary along with some tablets and pencils from the Norfolk Prison Colony sc

41、hool.我認識到，最要緊的是得到一本字典好認字學字。幸好我還認識到得好好練習寫字。說來悲傷，我寫字都不能寫得齊整成行。這兩個想法促使我向諾?？司辛羲鶎W校要了字典，還有本子和筆。4 I spent two days just riffling uncertainly through the dictionarys pages. Id never realized so many words existed! I didnt know which words I needed to learn. Finally, just to start some kind of action, I bega

42、n copying.整整兩天，我把字典一頁頁翻了個遍，不知該怎么學。我壓根兒沒想過會有那么多字。我不知道自己需要學哪些字。最后，總得有所行動吧，我便開始抄寫。5 In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks.我寫字又慢又費勁，而且歪歪斜斜，但我在本子上抄寫下了第一頁上包括標點在內的所有印刷符號。6 I believe it took me a day. Then, a

43、loud, I read back, to myself, everything Id written on the tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting.記得我抄寫了一天。然后,我把本子上抄寫下的所有字大聲朗讀給自己聽。一遍又一遍，我大聲朗讀自己抄寫的字。7 I woke up the next morning, thinking about those wordsimmensely proud to realize that not only had I written so much at o

44、ne time, but Id written words that I never knew were in the world. Moreover, with a little effort, I also could remember what many of these words meant. I reviewed the words whose meanings I didnt remember. Funny thing, from the dictionary first page right now, that “aardvark” springs to my mind. Th

45、e dictionary had a picture of it, a long-tailed, long-eared, burrowing African mammal, which lives off termites caught by sticking out its tongue as an anteater does for ants.我第二天早上醒來，仍想著那些字 想到自己不僅一次寫了那么多字，而且還寫了以前根本不認識的字，不由得深感自豪。更何況，略加回想，我還能記住其中許多字的意思。沒記住的字我都復習了一遍。有趣的是，此時此刻，那本字典第一頁上“aardvark”這個字躍入了我

46、的腦海。字典上有一幅畫它的插圖，那是一種長尾巴長耳朵會掘洞的非洲哺乳動物，像食蟻獸捕食螞蟻那樣伸出舌頭捕食白蟻。8 I was so fascinated that I went onI copied the dictionarys next page. And the same experience came when I studied that. With every succeeding page, I also learned of people and places and events from history. Actually the dictionary is like a

47、 miniature encyclopedia. Finally the dictionarys A section had filled a whole tabletand I went on into the Bs. That was the way I started copying what eventually became the entire dictionary. It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to pick up handwriting speed. Between what I wrote in

48、my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I wrote a million words.我完全著迷了，于是繼續(xù)抄 我又抄寫了字典的第二頁。我學這一頁上的字時體驗到了同樣的感受。每學一頁字，我還學到了一點有關人物、地方和歷史事件的知識。字典實際上就像是一部小型百科全書。最后，字典上A那部分字的條目抄滿了整整一個本子 接著我抄寫B(tài)字部。我就是這樣開始抄寫的，最后抄完了整本字典。大量的抄寫幫助我提高了書寫速度，以后抄寫起來就快了許多。從在本子上抄寫，到后來在那段余下的服刑時間

49、里寫信，我估計自己在監(jiān)獄里寫了一百萬字。9 I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then unti

50、l I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldnt have gotten me out of books with a wedge. Between Mr. Muhammads teachings, my correspondence, my visitorsusually Ella and Reginaldand my reading of books, months passed withou

51、t my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.想來也是自然而然的，隨著詞匯的增加，我第一次能夠拿起一本書讀下去，開始明白書上說的是什么。任何閱讀廣泛的人都想象得出在我面前展現(xiàn)的嶄新世界。我不妨告訴你：從那時起，直到我離開那座監(jiān)獄，在任何可以自由支配的時間里，我不是在圖書室里，就是在自己的鋪位上看書。真的是手不釋卷。我的日常活動就是聽穆罕默德先生傳道，寫寫信，會會客 來探視的一般都是埃拉和雷金納德 加上讀書，幾個月一晃而過，我甚至沒

52、想過自己是在坐牢。事實上，在這之前，我從來沒覺得自己是如此自由。10 The Norfolk Prison Colonys library was in the school building. A variety of classes were taught there by instructors who came from such places as Harvard and Boston universities. The weekly debates between inmate teams were also held in the school building. You wou

53、ld be astonished to know how worked up convict debaters and audiences would get over subjects like “Should Babies Be Fed Milk?”諾?？司辛羲膱D書室在教學樓里。來自哈佛大學、波士頓大學等等院校的教員教授不同的課程。每周還在教學樓里舉行囚犯間的辯論會。想必你聽了會大吃一驚，那些囚犯辯手和聽眾會對諸如“該不該給嬰兒喂牛奶”這類辯題爭得面紅耳赤。11 Available on the prison librarys shelves were books on just abo

54、ut every general subject. Much of the big private collection that Parkhurst had willed to the prison Much of the big private collection that Parkhurst had willed to the prison: Many of the books that had been bought and kept by Parkhusrt and later given to the prison according to his will was still

55、in crates and boxes in the librarythousands of old books. Some of them looked ancient: covers faded, old-time parchment-looking binding. Parkhurst, Ive mentioned, seemed to have been principally interested in history and religion. He had the money and the special interest to have a lot of books that

56、 you wouldnt have in general circulation. Any college library would have been lucky to get that collection.拘留所圖書室架子上書的種類幾乎包羅萬象。帕克赫斯特遺贈給拘留所的為數(shù)可觀的私人藏書中的大多數(shù)仍在圖書室的板箱及盒子里擱著 成千上萬本舊書。有些看上去年代久遠：封面褪了色，像是用舊式的羊皮紙裝訂的。我剛才說過，帕克赫斯特的興趣似乎主要在歷史和宗教方面。他有財力，有與眾不同的興趣，得以收藏了許多外面一般見不到的書。任何一家大學圖書館若能得到這批收藏，都不失為一樁幸事。12 As you

57、can imagine, especially in a prison where there was heavy emphasis on rehabilitation, an inmate was smiled upon if he demonstrated an unusually intense interest in books. There was a sizable number of well-read inmates, especially the popular debaters. Some were said by many to be practically walkin

58、g encyclopedias. They were almost celebrities. No university would ask any student to devour literature as I did when this new world opened to me, of being able to read and understand.你可以想象，在一座著重強調改造罪犯的監(jiān)獄里，一個囚犯要是表現(xiàn)出對書本不同尋常的強烈興趣，自然會大受贊許。囚犯中有不少人讀過許多書，尤其是那些最受歡迎的辯手。在不少人看來，有些簡直稱得上是活的百科全書。他們差不多就是名人。我能讀書能讀懂了，一個嶄新的世界展現(xiàn)在我的面前；那時，我那么貪婪地閱讀文學作品，沒有一所大學能讓其學生這么做。13 I read more in my room than in the library itself. An inmate who was known to read a lot could check out more than the