英译汉典型题详解

英译汉典型题详解
2.2 英译汉典型题详解
题1
To sorrow
I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind; But cheerily, cheerily,
She loves me dearly,
She is so constant to me, and so kind.
I would deceive her,
And so leave her,
But ah! She is so constant and so kind. (By Keats) 参考译文：
我向“愁烦”，
说了声再见，
本打算，把她远远地撇在后边；
但她情意缠绵，
热烈把我爱恋；
她对我，情那样重，心那样坚。

我很想把她欺骗，
和她割断牵连，
但是啊！她情那样重，心那样坚。

题2
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love.
The shepherds’ swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me and be my love.
参考译文：
热恋的牧羊人
克里斯多夫·马洛
来和我一起生活，做我的至爱，
我们将共享人间的一切欢快。

这里有俊俏秀丽的山峦，
还有风光明媚的山谷田园。

在那边，我们坐在山岩上，
看着牧羊人喂食可爱的羊羔，
在浅浅的小河旁，
有小鸟婉转动听的鸣唱。

我将用玫瑰花瓣为你铺床，
还将扎起一千束芬芳的花朵，
我将编织一顶花冠，一袭绣装，
全身用桃金娘叶芽织就。

从最可爱的羊羔身上剪下上等羊毛，
织成温暖绵软的衣袍，
做成御寒的羊毛衬里拖鞋，
用纯金为你制作鞋扣。

芳草和常春藤编成的腰带，
点缀着琥珀饰纽和珊瑚扣环，
如果这些享受能开启你的心怀，
来和我一起生活，做我的心爱。

牧羊少年将在五月的每一个清晨
献上歌曲和舞蹈，为的是让你欢欣，
如果这些快乐能打动你的芳心，
就过来和我一起生活，做我的爱人。

题3
It is well that the commonest fruit should be also the best. Of the virtues of the orange I have not room fully to speak. It has properties of health giving, as that it cures influenza and establishes the complexion. It is clean, for whoever handles it on its way to your table, but handles its outer covering, its top coat, which is left in the hall. It is round, and forms an excellent substitute with the young for a cricket ball. The pip can be flicked at your enemies, and quite a small piece of peel makes a slide for an old gentleman.
But all this would count nothing had not the orange such delightful qualities of taste. I dare not let myself go upon this subject. I am a slave to its sweetness. I grudge every marriage in
that it means a fresh supply of orange blossom, the promise of so much golden fruit cut short. However, the world must go on.
参考译文：
很幸运，这种最普通的水果恰恰是最好的水果。

论其优点，难尽其详。

柑橘有益于健康，比如，可以治疗流感，滋养皮肤。

柑橘干净卫生，不管是谁把它端上餐桌，也只触到它的表皮，亦即它的外衣，吃完以后便被丢在餐厅。

柑橘是圆的，孩子们拿它当板球玩是再好不过了。

柑橘核可用来弹射你的对手，一小片橘皮也能让一个老者滑个趔趄。

但是，如若不是柑橘有甜美可口的味道，上述一切便不足为奇。

我真不敢纵谈它的美味，我被柑橘的美味所倾倒。

每一个婚礼都使我感到痛惜，它意味着一束鲜橘花——未来金灿灿果实的夭折。

无奈，人类还得继续繁衍。

题4（选入《英语翻译基础》）
Divorce : Balance of Power
It makes no sense to say that a good marriage requires parity, as most marriages in the world and throughout history have been based on entirely different principles. You might even conclude fro m America’s unusually high divorce rate that the expectation of equality and personal fulfillment is itself a more problematic prescription than that of honor and obedience.
Or perhaps the problem lies not in equality, but in the ambivalence that inevitably surrounds a titanic cultural shift only decades old. Many women today still sign up for marriages in which the man, to some extent, dominates. Traditionally those marriages have ended when the stronger party tires of the dependent. When Harriet Newman Cohen began practicing matrimonial law three decades ago, her clients were mostly women whose breadwinners had walked out. But she and others have observed that today, it is as often the weaker party who calls
it quits, tired of a role that is no longer culturally sanctioned. And, once equitable distribution laws—which forced the higher-earning spouse to share the wealth equitably—were passed in the 80’s, there was no longer any financial penalty for divorce.
Today, almost as many women as men file for divorce. Infidelity, in addition, is no longer a primarily male province. One divorced investment banker discovered that, within his circle of male friends, it was their wives who cheated, not they. “In the culture of my f irm, having affairs is just bad behavior, like drunk driving—something that could harm your reputation,” he says. Female infidelity, on the other hand, he says, reads differently. “They’re finding themselves, exploring their sexuality,” he observed bitterly. “She was fragile and neurotic and I was the white
knight. I made her feel taken care of and she made me feel strong—right up until the day she left.”
参考译文：
离婚：权力的均衡
由于古往今来世界上大多数人的婚姻是以完全不同的原则为基础的，所以，好的婚姻需要平等这种说法是没有什么意义的。

从美国奇高的离婚率，也可以得出这样的结论：在婚姻中期待彼此尊重、夫妻和谐已经不大容易，指望获得两性平等、实现自我就更是难上加难。

或许问题并不在于平等不平等，而在于仅仅最近数十年来所发生的文化巨变，使人们不可避免地对婚姻产生矛盾的态度。

在今天的许多婚姻中，男人仍在某种程度上占据主导地位，妇女不得不屈于遵从。

从传统上看，这些婚姻总是在强势的一方对依附的一方产生厌烦情绪时宣告结束。

哈莉特·纽曼·科恩三十年前开始从事婚姻方面的法律工作时，她的当事人大多是由于挣钱养家的丈夫离开而被抛弃的妇女。

而现在科恩和其他人都注意到，往往是弱势的一方，不甘于其不再被文化认可的角色而提出结束婚姻。

而且，自从80年代通过了财产公平分
割法，迫使收入高的配偶与对方平分财产，离婚就再也不遭受任何经济上的损失了。

如今，提出离婚的人当中，女子和男子人数基本相当。

而且，不忠行为也不再仅仅限于男人。

一位离了婚的投资银行家发现，在他的男性朋友圈子里，不忠的是妻子，而不是他的这些朋友。

他说：“在我们的公司文化中，有外遇和酒后驾车一样，都是不良行为，都会损坏你的名誉。

”但是，女性不忠便有不同的解读。

“她们是在发现自我，探索自己的性能力，”他苦涩地说道。

“她比较脆弱，神经质，而我是白马王子。

我让她觉得受人照顾，她让我觉得自己很强壮——直至她离开的那一天。

”
题5
The dignity of the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, but the joy of the tourist is to recognize the traveller on the top. The desire to see, for the sake of seeing, is, with the mass, alone the one to be gratified, hence the delight in detail.
And when the evening mist clothes the riverside with poetry, as with a veil, and the poor buildings lose themselves in the dim sky, and the tall chimneys become campanili, and the warehouses are palaces in the night, and the whole city hangs in the heavens, and fairy-land is before us—then the wayfarer hastens home; the working man and the cultured one, the wise man and the one of pleasure, cease to understand, as they have ceased to see, and Nature, who, for once, has sung in tune, sings her exquisite song to the artist alone, her son and her master—her son in that he loves her, her master in that he knows her.
参考译文：
白雪皑皑的高山因其清晰可见而失去它的尊严，但旅游者却因能够看见站在山顶上的游人而喜形于色。

对于大多数人，单是为了要看见而要看见的愿望需要得到满足而已，因此，他们仅以能看见细节为快。

当傍晚富有诗意的迷雾像面纱一样笼罩着河边，破旧的建筑消失在朦胧的天空，高高的烟囱变成一座座钟楼，仓库恍如夜间的宫殿，整个城市悬在空中，宛若仙境展现在我们眼前，那时候，路上的人们匆匆赶路回家；劳动者和有文化的人，智慧者和寻求乐趣的人，因为他们再也看不见什么，他们也就不能理解，这时已经开始歌唱的大自然便把自己微妙的歌唱给艺术家——她的儿子和她的主人；说他是儿子是因为他爱她，说他是主人是因为他理解她。

题6（选入英语翻译基础）
AIDS Hitting African Farm Sector Hard
Once a largely urban problem, AIDS has moved to rural areas in developing countries, devastating thousands of farming communities and leaving impoverished survivors scarcely able to feed themselves. The disease is no longer a health problem alone, but is having a measurable impact on food production, household food security and rural peopl e’s ability to make a living.
The latest statistical evidence on sub-Saharan Africa—the worsthit region—confirms the scale of the epidemic’s impact on the countryside.
It is estimated that over half of the 28 million people living with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa live in rural areas. In order to estimate such figures, epidemiologists start with data taken from tests done on blood samples from pregnant women attending prenatal clinics. They then extrapolate the figures to estimate infection rates in larger areas. Recent findings point to two of the hardest-hit countries— Zimbabwe and Swaziland.
“This is a real wake-up call for governments,” says an expert on AIDS “Policy-makers are guided by evidence. Solid evidence is now coming in and will make governments understand how rural areas are actually more vulnerable to AIDS
than urban areas.”
Recent reports from other African countries show a similar pattern of rampant rural infection.
Poverty underlies the suffering and devastation behind these figures. The HIV/AIDS epidemic cannot be addressed without doing something about rural livelihoods: how people make their living, how they get enough food, what strategies they follow in order to survive.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations is currently formulating pilot projects that will test labour-saving techniques and low-input agriculture in African and Asian communities hard hit by the epidemic. Other priorities for the FAO HIV/AIDS programme include building up institutions that help rural communities, improving nutrition, addressing gender inequalities in access to productive resources (especially land) and helping devastated communities find a way to pass on farming knowledge to the young.
参考译文：
艾滋病重创非洲农业
以前，艾滋病主要是一个存在于城市的问题，而现在艾滋病已经转向发展中国家的农村地区，摧毁了数以千计的农村社区，使穷困的幸存者们无以为生。

这一疾病已不再是单纯的健康问题，而正在对食品生产、家用食品安全和农村人口谋生能力造成明显的冲击。

撒哈拉以南非洲地区受艾滋病打击最重；最新的统计数字已证实这一流行病对其农村地区造成了严重的影响。

据估计，撒哈拉以南非洲地区的2 800万艾滋病人或艾滋病病毒携带者中，有一半以上生活在农村地区。

为了对这一数字进行评估，流行病学家们首先从参加产前咨询的孕妇身上抽取血样进行化验，取得数据，然后推测出数字，对更广大地区的传染率进行估计。

最近的研究结果表明，受传染最严重的两个国家是津巴布韦和斯威士兰。

“这对各国政府来说是个真正的警钟，”一位艾滋病专家说。

“决策者们是跟着证据走的，现在已经有确凿的证据使各国政府明白，农村地区的确比城市更客易受到艾滋病的侵袭。

”
最近来自其他非洲国家的报告也表明农村地区艾滋病传染十分猖獗。

在这些数字背后，贫穷是人们遭受病痛折磨和打击的原因。

农村人口如何谋生，如何获得足够的粮食，采取什么样的办法维持生存——这些生计问题不解决，艾滋病的肆虐是得不到解决的。

联合国粮农组织目前正在制订试点计划，准备在艾滋病危害严重的非洲和亚洲人群中试行节省劳力的技术和低投入耕作方法。

粮农组织这项艾滋病防治计划重点考虑的问题还包
括：建立农村人口扶助机构、改善营养、解决生产资料(尤其是土地)使用中的男女不平等现象，协助重灾社区开辟途径将农业知识传授给年轻一代。

题7（选入英语翻译基础）
The Shape of Things to Come
When the world was a simpler place, the rich were fat, the poor were thin, and right-thinking people worried about how to feed the hungry. Now, in much of the world, the rich are thin, the poor are fat, and right-thinking people are worrying about obesity.
Evolution is mostly to blame. It has designed mankind to cope with deprivation, not plenty. People are perfectly tuned to store energy in good years to see them through lean ones. But when bad times never come, they are stuck with that energy stored around their expanding bellies.
Thanks to rising agricultural productivity, lean years are rarer all over the globe. Modern-day Malthusians, who used to draw graphs proving that the world was shortly going to run out of food, have gone rather quiet lately. According to the UN, the
number of people short of food fell from 920m in 1980 to 799m 20 years later, even thou gh the world’s population increased by 1.6 billion over the period. This is mostly a cause for celebration. Mankind has won what was, for most of his time on this planet, his biggest battle: to ensure that he and his offspring had had enough to eat. But every silver lining has a cloud, and the consequence of prosperity is a new plague that brings with it a host of interesting policy dilemmas.
As a scourge of the modern world, obesity has an image problem. It is easier to associate with Father Christmas than with the four horses of the apocalypse. But it has a good claim to lumber along beside them, for it is the world’s biggest public-health issue today—the main cause of heart disease and diabetes. Since the World Health Organization labeled obesity an “epidemic” in 2000, reports on its fearful consequences have come thick and fast.
Will public-heath warnings, combined with media pressure, persuade people to get thinner, just as they finally put them off tobacco? Possibly. In the rich world, sales of healthier foods are booming and new figures suggest that over the past year Americans got very slightly thinner for the first time in recorded history. But even if Americans are losing a few ounces, it will be many years before the country solves the health problems caused by half a century’s dining to excess. And, everywhere else in the world, people are still piling on the pounds. That’s why there is now a consensus among doctors that governments should do something to stop them.
参考译文：
未来的身段
世界原本没有这么复杂。

那时，富人胖，穷人瘦，头脑正常的人
在发愁：怎样才能让挨饿的人吃上饭。

而现在，在这个世界上的很多地方，富人瘦，穷人胖。

头脑正常的人在为肥胖发愁。

这罪魁祸首就是进化。

进化已将人类设定好了，它使人能对付匮乏，却不会应对富足。

经过进化的完美调教，人们可以在丰年储存能量，靠它捱过荒年。

但是如果坏年景总也不来，他们不断增长的肚皮上囤积的能量，就甩不掉了。

由于农业生产力不断提高，荒年在世界各地都更为罕见。

当代的马尔萨斯论者曾画出各种图表，证明全世界的粮食马上就会吃完，而他们最近却不怎么吱声了。

根据联合国的数字，粮食短缺的人口从1980年的9.2亿下降到了20年后的7.99亿，尽管世界人口同期增长了16亿。

这总该是件可喜可贺的事情。

人类打了个大胜仗，他们在这个星球上的绝大部分时
间里，都在为赢得这场最大的战役而奋斗，那就是保证他们自己和他们的子孙都能吃得饱。

但是，凡是好事，都有可能向坏的方面转化，现在富足带来了一种新的烦恼，搞得人们在一大堆问题的决策上进退两难，这种近况令人关注。

肥胖这个当今世界的灾难，首先带来的是一个形象问题。

它更容易让人联想到圣诞老人，而不是《圣经·启示录》中(给人类带来战争、饥荒、瘟疫和死亡的)那四匹马。

但肥胖完全有理由和这四匹马并驾齐驱，因为它是当今世界最大的公众健康问题，是引起心脏病和糖尿病的主要原因。

自从世界卫生组织2000年把肥胖列为“流行病”，对其可怕后果的报道一时间连篇累牍，铺天盖地。

对公众的健康警告，再加上媒体的压力，能像规劝人们最终戒烟那样，说服他们减肥吗?也许能行。

在富国，健康食品的销售迅速增长，新的统计数字表明，在去年，美国人有史以来第一次瘦下来了一点点。

但是，即使他们瘦了那么几盎司，美国要解决半个世纪狂吃狂喝造成的各种健康问题，还需要很多年的时间。

而在世界其他地方，人们还在成磅成磅地堆积赘肉。

正因为如此，医生们现在已经达成这样一个共识，那就是政府应该有所作为，阻止人们长胖。

题8（选入英语翻译基础）
It has now been five years since Margaret Thatcher resigned as Britain’s Prime Minister. In her heyday she strode the international headlines with such bravura that she seemed inevitable, a natural force. The world stage seemed just the right size for her, as she chaffed her conservative soul mate Ronald Reagan or flattered the “new man,” Mikhail Gorbachev.
Now the political world has begun to focus on the immensity of her achievement. How on earth did she manage to get there? She was elected to Parliament at 32 in 1958 (five years before The Feminine Mystique was published). She parried her way through the complacent, male-dominated councils of power—no woman had ever roiled those wa ters. Couldn’t the old boys see her coming? After all, there was nothing subtle about her personality or her approach.
As The Path to Power(Harper-Collins; 656 pages; $30), the second volume of her autobiography, makes clear, Thatcher was probably too simple and direct for the Tories, with their heavy baggage of class and compromise. She traveled light, proud of her roots as a grocer’s daughter from the small town of Grantham but never tethered by working-class resentments or delusions of inferiority. Her parents taught her the verities they believed in: Methodism, hard work, thrift and the importance of the individual. She has never wavered from them, and they run through the book.
参考译文：
马格丽特·撒切尔辞去英国首相职务已经五年了。

在她(政治生涯)的鼎盛时用，她以光彩照人的风格而成为国际上的新闻人物，她好像必然如此，她是一股自然的力量。

在她跟她的保守党精神伙伴罗纳德·里根打趣时，或是在奉承“新人”米哈伊尔·戈尔巴乔夫时，这个世界看来恰好是适合她驰骋的舞台。

现在政界开始把注意力集中在她的辉煌的政绩上。

她到底是如何进入政界的呢? 1958年(《女性的奥秘》发表前五年)她三十二岁时被选进议会。

她左挡右闪闯进了那些由自满的男人控制的权力机构——过去不曾有任何女人到那里去搅和。

难道那些老家伙们看不见她的到来吗?其实她的性格和施政手段并没有什么微妙之处。

正如她的第二本自传《通往权力之路》(哈珀—科林斯出版社；656页；30美元)所说，对于那些阶级意识很重并善于折衷的英国保守党党员，也许撒切尔过于简单，过于直来直去。

她没有负担。

她以自己是格兰瑟姆小镇一个杂货商的女儿而感到自豪，但是她没有被劳动阶级因为地位低下而产生的怨恨或迷惑所束缚。

她的父母教她懂得了他们所相信的真理：卫斯理教，勤勉，节俭，以及个人的重要性。

对于这些信仰，她从未动摇过。

这些内容贯穿着全书。

题9（选入英语翻译基础）
The Millennium Development Goals call for a dramatic reduction in poverty and marked improvements in the health of the poor. Meeting these goals is feasible but far from assured. Success in achieving the MDGs will require a seriousness of purpose, a political resolve in countries, and an adequate flow of resources from high-income to low income countries on a sustained and well-targeted basis.
The importance of the MDGs in health is, in one sense, self-evident. Improving the health and longevity of the poor is an end in itself, a fundamental goal of economic development. But it is also a means to achieving the other development goals relating to poverty reduction. The linkages of health to poverty reduction and to long-term economic growth are powerful, much stronger than is generally understood. The burden of disease in some low-income regions, especially sub-Saharan Africa, stands as a stark barrier to economic growth and therefore must be addressed
frontally and centrally in comprehensive development strategy. The AIDS pandemic represents a unique challenge of unprecedented urgency and intensity. This single epidemic can undermine Africa’ s development over the next generation, and may cause tens of millions of deaths in India, China, and other developing countries unless addressed by greatly increased efforts.
The feasibility of meeting the MDGs in the low-income countries is widely misjudged. On the one side of the debate are those who believe that the health goals will take care of themselves, as a fairly automatic by-product of economic growth. With the mortality rates of children under 5 in the least-developed countries standing at 159 per 1,000 births, compared with 6 per 1,000 births in the high-income countries, they take the view that it’s just a matter of time before the mortality rates in the low-income world will converge with those of the rich countries. This is false for two reasons.
First, the disease burden itself will slow the economic growth that is presumed to solve the health problems; second, economic growth is indeed important, but is “very far from enough. Health indicators vary widely for the same income level. The evidence suggests that 73 countries are far behind in meeting the MDGs for infant mortality, and 66 are far behind for meeting the MDGs for child mortality. The disease burden can be brought down in line with the MDGs only if there is a concerted, global strategy of increasing the access of the world’ s poor to essential health services.
参考译文：
《千年发展目标》要求大幅度地扶贫减困，使穷人的健康得到显著的改善。

这些目标是可能实现，却又难以确保实现的。

要想成功实
现《千年发展目标》，需要各国有认真的态度和政治决策，从高收入国家流向低收入国家的资源要充足、要有持续性、流向目标明确。

《千年发展目标》中健康目标的重要性在某种意义上是不言而喻的。

提高穷人的健康和寿命本身就是一个目标，是经济发展的一个基本目标。

但是，这同时也是一种手段，凭此可以实现扶贫的其他发展目标。

健康和扶贫减因的关系、和长期经济增长的联系都十分紧密，其紧密程度超出人们的一般理解。

在一些低收入国家里，尤其是在撒哈拉沙漠以南的非洲地区，疾病造成的负担，彻底成为了经济发展的障碍，因而必须把它当作全面发展战略中的重要问题，全力解决。

艾滋病的大面积流行是一个特殊的挑战，其紧迫性和严重性前所未有。

仅仅这一种传染病，就足以破坏下一代非洲的发展，如果不下大力气解决，还有可能在印度、中国和其他发展中国家造成数千万人的死亡。

《千年发展目标》是否能在低收入国家实现，在这一问题上还存在着许多错误的认识。

在这场争论中，有人认为健康指标用不着去管，经济增长了，这些指标就会自然而然地实现。

在最不发达的国家里，五岁以下儿童的死亡率是159%，而高收入国家则是6%。

因此，有人认为，低收入国家的死亡率要赶上富裕国家的水平，只是个时间问题。

这种看法是错误的，原因有两条：
首先，人们想当然地认为经济增长会解决健康问题，但是疾病所造成的负担本身就会延缓经济的增长；第二，经济增长的确重要，但仅此是远远不够的。

同样的收入水平，健康水平却会相差很大。

据统计，有73个国家的婴儿死亡率远远达不到《千年发展目标》的要求。

有66个国家的儿童死亡率远未达到《千年发展目标》的要求。

只有全球采取协调一致的战略，使穷人得到更多的基础医疗服务，才能按照《千年发展目标》的要求，减轻疾病所造成的负担。

题10
Thin people make me tired. They’ve got speedy little metabolisms that cause them to bustle briskly. They’re forever rubbing their bony hands together and eyeing new problems to “tackle”. I like to surround myself with sluggish, inert,
easygoing fat people，the kind who believe that if you clean it up today, it’ll just get dirty again tomor row.
Some people say the business about the jolly fat person is a myth, that all of us chubbies are neurotic, sick, sad people. I disagree. Fat people may not be chortling all day long, but they’re a hell of a lot nicer than the wizened and shriveled. Thin people turn surly, mean, and hard at a young age because they never learn the value of a hot-fudge sundae for easing tension. Thin people don’t like gooey soft things because they themselves are neither gooey nor soft. They are crunchy and dull, like carrots. They go straight to the heart of the matter while fat people let things stay all blurry and hazy and vague, the way things actually are. Thin people want to face the truth. Fat people know there is no truth. One of my thin friends is always staring at complex, unsolvable problems and saying, “The key thing is...” Fat people never say that. They know there isn’t any such thing as the key thing about anything.
参考译文：
瘦子让我感到累。

他们新陈代谢快，脚总是忙个不停。

两只皮包骨头的手总是搓来搓去，还东张西望，看有什么新问题需要“着手解决”。

我喜欢和那些慢腾腾、懒洋洋、随随便便的胖子在一起，他们相信这样的哲学：你今天打扫干净了，明天还会变脏的。

有人说整天笑嘻嘻的胖子有点神秘；说我们胖子神经质，有病，可悲。

我不同意。

胖子虽然不是整天乐呵呵，但跟那些干瘪的瘦子相比，胖子要好得多。

瘦子年纪轻轻的脾气就不好，又小气又苛刻，因为他们从不懂得热乳脂软糖圣代冰淇淋可以缓和紧张情绪。

瘦子不喜欢又甜又柔软的东西，因为他们自己既不甜也不温柔。

他们像萝卜，嚼起来嘎吱作响而没有味道。

瘦子喜欢抓事物的要害，胖子却让事物保持其模糊不清的状态，客观事物本来就是那样！瘦子总想面对真理，胖子很清楚，世上本没有真理。

我的一个瘦子朋友，眼睛老是盯着那
些复杂、棘手的问题，说：“关键在于……”胖子从不说这样的话。

他们知道根本就没那
回事，什么关键不关键的。

题11（选入《英语翻译基础》）
At the Fringe of Language
Language exists to communicate whatever it can communicate. Some things it communicates so badly that we never attempt to communicate them by words if any other medium is available. Those who think they are testing a boy’ s “elementary” command of English by asking him to describe in words how one ties one’ s tie or what a pair of scissors is like, are far astray. For precisely what language can hardly do at all, and never does well, is to inform us about complex physical shapes and movements. Hence descriptions of such things in the ancient writers are nearly always unintelligible. Hence we never in real life voluntarily use language for this purpose; we draw a diagram or go through pantomimic gestures. The exercises which such examiners set are no more a test of “elementary” linguistic competence than the most di fficult bit of trick—riding from the circus ring is a test of elementary horsemanship.
Another grave limitation of language is that it cannot, like music or gesture, do more than one thing at once. However the words in a great poet’s phrase interanimate on e other and strike the mind as quasi-instantaneous chord, yet, strictly speaking, each word must be read or heard before the next. That way, language is as unilinear as time. Hence, in narrative, the great difficulty of presenting a very complicated change which happens suddenly. If we do justice to the complexity, the time the reader must take over the passage will destroy the feeling of suddenness. If we get in the suddenness we shall not be able to
get in the complexity.
One of the most important and effective uses of language is the emotional. It is also, of course, wholly legitimate. We do not talk only in order to reason or to inform. We have to make love and quarrel, to propitiate and pardon, to rebuke, to console, intercede, and a rouse. “He that com plains,” said Johnson, “acts like a man, like a social being.” The real objection lies not against the language of emotion as such, but against language which, being in reality emotional, masquerades—whether by plain hypocrisy or subtle self-deceit—as being something else.
参考译文：
语言的存在就是用来表达它所能表达的一切。

有些事情用语言表达效果太糟，所以如果有其他的媒介，我们从不用语言去表达。

有人认为，让小孩用语言描述怎样系领带，或者描述一把剪刀的样子，就能测出他语言的“基本”水平，这种看法是完全错误的。

语言做不到。

也从来做不好的事，恰恰就是描述复杂的物体形状和动作。

因此，古代作家对这类事情的描述，几乎总是让人看不懂。

因此，我们在现实生活中，从来不会主动用语言来做这些事；我们会画一个图，或者用手势表示。

这种语言测试设计，考的不是语言的“基本”能力，这就像用马戏团花样骑马表演中最难的部分，去考一个人的基本骑术。

语言的另一大局限就是它无法像音乐或手势那样，一次能做不止一件事。

一个伟大的诗人，即使他的词句那样相互辉映，一瞬间好像和弦一样打动了我们，但是，严格来说，每一个字都是一个接一个地读到或听到的。

这么说，语言就和时间一样，是单线前进的。

因此，在叙事时，要描述瞬间发生的复杂变化，就十分困难。

如果我们要把复杂性适当描述出来，读者阅读这一段语言所花的时间就会破坏瞬间感。

如果我们要体现这件事的瞬间感，我们就无法表现其复杂性。

语言最重要、最有效的一种用途就是表达感情。

这当然也完全是合情合理的。

我们说话不止是为了讲道理、说事情。

我们还要表达爱情、与人争吵、劝解抚慰、宽恕原谅，还要指。