汉翻英译文

（1）William Cowper - Country MusicMy greenhouse is never so pleasant as when we are just upon the point of being turned out of it. The gentleness of the autumnal suns, and the calmness of this latter season make it a much more agreeable retreat than we ever find it in summer: when, the winds being generally brisk, we cannot cool it by admitting a sufficient quantity of air without being at the same time incommoded by it. But now I sit with all the windows and the door wide open, and am regaled with the scent of every flower in a garden as full of flowers as I have known how to make it. We keep no bees, but if I lived in a hive I should hardly hear more of their music. All the bees in the neighbourhood resort to a bed of mignonette, opposite to the window, and pay me for the honey they get out of it by a hum, which, though rather monotonous, is as agreeable to my ear as the whistling of my linnets. All the sounds that nature utters are delightful, --at least in this country. I should not perhaps find the roaring of lions in Africa, or of bears in Russia, very pleasing; but I know no beast in England whose voice I do not account musical, save and except always the braying of an ass.The notes of all our birds and fowls please me, without an exception. I should not indeed think of keeping a goose in a cage, that I might hang him up in the parlour for the sake of his melody, but a goose upon a common, or in a farm-yard, is no bad performer; and as to insects, if the black beetle, and beetles indeed of all hues, will keep out of my way, I have no objection to any of the rest; on the contrary, in whatever key they sing, from the gnat’s fine treble to the bass of the humble-bee, I admire them all.（2）Roger Ascham - Seeing the WindTo see the wind, with a man his eyes, it is unpossible, the nature of it is so fine, and subtle, yet this experience of the wind had I once myself, and that was in the great snow that fell four years ago: I rode in the highway betwixt Topcliffe-upon-Swale, and Berowe Bridge, the way being somewhat trodden afore, by wayfaring men. The fields on both sides were plain and lay almost yard deep with snow, the night afore had been a little frost, so that the snow was hard and crusted above. That morningthe sun shone bright and clear, the wind was whistling aloft, and sharp according to the time of the year. The snow in the highway lay loose and trodden with horse feet: so as the wind blew, it took the loose snow with it, and made it so slide upon the snow in the field which was hard and crusted by reason of the frost overnight, that thereby I might see very well, the whole nature of the wind as it blew that day. And I had a great delight and pleasure to mark it, which maketh me now far better to remember it. Sometime the wind would be not past two yards broad, and so it would carry the snow as far as I could see. Another time the snow would blow over half the field at once. Sometime the snow would tumble softly, by and by it would fly wonderful fast. And this I perceived also that the wind goeth by streams and not whole together. For I should see one stream within a score on me, then the space of two score no snow would stir, but after so much quantity of ground, another stream of snow at the same very time should be carried likewise, but not equally. For the one would stand still when the other flew apace, and so continue sometime swiftlier, sometime slowlier, sometime broader, sometimenarrower, as far as I could see. Nor it flew not straight, but sometime it crooked this way sometime that way, and sometime it ran about in a compass. And sometime the snow would be lift clean from the ground into the air, and by and by it would be all clapped to the ground as though there had been no wind at all, straightway it would rise and fly again.And that which was the most marvel of all, at one time two drifts of snow flew, the one out of the West into the East, the other out of the North into the East: And I saw two winds by reason of the snow the one cross over the other, as it had been two highways. And again I should hear the wind blow in the air, when nothing was stirred at the ground. And when all was still where I rode, not very far from me the snow would be lifted wonderfully. This experience made me more marvel at the nature of the wind than it made me cunning in the knowledge of the wind: but yet thereby I learned perfectly that it is no marvel at all though men in a wind lose their length in shooting, seeing so many ways the wind is so variable in blowing.（3）Daoism and Leisure1There has been much discussion of Daoism, but most of this has been about the revised version that developed after the Han dynasty and which had two branches. One was the art of Huang Lao, a form of strategy for government that politicized Daoist thought into a way of ruling based on the concept of letting society recover vitality through rest. Another branch was “religious Daoism.”Religious Daoism is quite different form philosophical Daoism, and has its own origins. There can be traced back to the northern coastal culture of China and the practices of medicine men. The constantly changing ocean environment endowed this school of thought with a sense of mystery and magic, closely related to the ancient witchcraft traditions of exorcism and healing. This developed into the Dao of longevity and alchemy, and finally into religious Daoism.The blurring of philosophical Daoism with religious Daoism occurred after the Han dynasty. Most religious in the world tend to downplay, disdain the present world, and focus on the afterworld. Only religious Daoism advocates prolonging the life of the body and tries to directly transform it. This is quite unique.It also drew upon the ancients for backing. We know that early Han-dynasty religious Daoism was very fragmented, but by the end of the Eastern Han it had become fully developed, and referred back to Laozi and Zhuangzi as its predecessors.If we want to talk about the culture of leisure in Chinese tradition, we must turn to these pre-Qin Daoists and not to the religious Daoism that came later.2The sense of leisure constitutes another realm of the self, expressed in Zhuangzi’ s section on “unburdened Roaming” (Xiao Yao You). It is artistic and emotional, and has its theatrical foundation in philosophical Daoism.Its most important explanation can be found in the “Inner Volumes” of Zhuangzi, which describe how everything in this world, including the human body, goes through a natural cycle of birth and destruction. This is what Zhuangzi calls “transformation” (hua), and contains a sense of creativity. To Zhuangzi, knowledge is actually a game we create in which we select a few things, make up theories about them, and finally come up with a world view. Other people might produce a completely different one.On closer inspection, this theory can become very complicated. Its simplest version, however, can be found in Zhuangzi’s “On Ordering Things” (Qi Wu Lun). Here he says that our knowledge about nature, and truth and falsity of opinion is entirely based on criteria that we choose ourselves. Regardless of what people claim, however, the world changes according to its own internal principles.Take human life for example. From nothing you become something, go through your existence, and then finally pass away. This is the natural “Way” of your life.Trying to change things, as proposed by Confucian thinking, is meaningless and unnecessary.(4)Reflecting on the FutureThe word “future” loaded with such associations as “progress”, “beauty” and “expectation” has an irresistible temptation for everybody. Since it is human nature to long for changes of their circumstances and for a better life, they invariably want to calculate and predict the future.Back in the 1980s, the Americans shot a film titled Brave New World, in which the people are exclusively incubated in test tubes. As their thoughts and behavior are pre-designed by their fosterers; they are body and soul dominated by the latter. A scene like that would be horrible indeed, although in that beautiful prospective world they are in want of nothing. Of late, in fact, the aggravating conception of human cloning comes very close to such an “ingenious” terror.Among Westerners, fears towards technological development have existed for a long time. A major proofof this in the West is the famous science freak Frankenstan. Books and films keep coming out, recounting, starkly and crudely, how this morbid science monster by applying his amazing yet ill-used intellectual power threatens the world. Hawkins, awheelchair-stricken paralytic scientist who organizes his thoughts and language by using a computer-programmed device, predicts that there will emerge a computer as complex as the human brain itself. This involves a vision long cherished by thousands of computer researchers—man-machine dialogue. That, too, is full of hazards. With only one transducer, you can strike up a conversation between your own brain and a computer without tapping the keyboard. But has it occurred to you that a computer may catch a virus or be implanted with one so that your thoughts become externally controlled? This may sound s implausible as a cock-and-bull story, yet technically it is unfortunately possible, and it is only a matter of time before such apprehensions become a hard fact. Provided you have the patience to wait, anything once deemed impossible could happen.Cloned humans, the millennium bug, the Internet… all these new phenomena are challenging our long-held beliefs and customs. Whereas we should have the courage to go beyond the limits of human capability, it should also be remembered that not all technological achievements are flawless and impeccable. Unbridled development, just like excessive spending, can be disastrous. This explains why many Western scientists live in latent anxiety. They at once exult and shudder at the prospect of future breakthroughs. Pondering scientific advancement critically has become part and parcel of their daily exploration.Some may argue that for the Chinese, it is nothing short of senseless worrying, for we still have a long way to go before we attain material affluence, while puzzling over the mysteriousness, glamour and virtue of science upon its threshold. We make much of life in this information era, hoping that bio-engineering will bring us good health and longevity. How exhilarating it would be, we marvel, to travel to Mars in a spaceship, enjoying the sight of twinkling stars all the way… But, if courage should fail us to examine science critically before it istoo late, we will have to pay dearly for that negligence someday when we meet the Evil of the Future down a narrow path, facing the Final Judgment as foretold in the Bibles.(5)Sweet Osmanthus Flowers Falling Like Rain DropsThe days just before and just after the Mid-autumn Festival marked the season of the Sweet Osmanthus Flowers back in my hometown. Sweet Osmanthus…the very name brings the fragrance back to me. There are two kinds of Sweet Osmanthus. One comes from the family of plants known as cassia, and it blooms anew every month of the year. Its flowers are a trifle smaller, a delicate yellow in hue. Taiwan ought to have it too. I’ve picked up the aroma while strolling by peoples’ courtyard walls, and the scent alone is enough to give me a pinge of nostalgic sadness. Another variety is called Golden Osmanthus. It only blooms during the autumn of the year, and the flowers are golden in color, and larger. In the middle of our old mansion there was a courtyard with a yard in both front and back, and a great wall thatwound around the outside borders. Golden Osmanthus was planted all along the inside rim. Right there in the courtyard directly in front of the main residence there were a couple of cassia bushes and a pair of what we called hydrangea plants. And in the area beneath the portico of Father’s study there were pots of camellia and sweet-scented osmanthus bushes.Now when I was small, I don’t know why, but I never had much appreciation for flowers, and it didn’t matter a whit what kind they were. Father would have his fingers in the air and point—this is a Chinese Trumpet Creeper, and this one is a Ring-a-Ding-ding-bell Flower, this is a wood-of-Turquoise…Besides remembering those names, what I recall is that the flower I liked the very most was the Sweet Osmanthus. The Sweet Osmanthus bush isn’t nearly as impressive in appearance as the plum tree. When it’s not in bloom it just stands there like a dullard, quite clumsy and stupid looking really, just a bush thickset with leaves is all it is. But then when its time to blossom arrives, you search for these tiny delicate little buds that sprout amidst the leaves of green, and there’s nothing in the whole wide world that can match it inbeauty. But the aroma of Sweet Osmanthus can really put a spell on you. The reason it can put a spell on you is that you can only just smell it, you can eat it too. Eating a flower. For a writer of poetry, isn’t it stooping a bit low to put it that way? How utterly vulgar? But I would rather be vulgar, for that’s what it means to me to be a Sweet Osmanthus lover.Sweet Osmanthus has really thrown a rope around my soul and dreams.My hometown was in a county that was very close to the sea. The month of August was typhoon season, what Mother used to call the time of “the omen of wind and water.” The Sweet Osmanthus would start to blossom, and right away Mother would start into her worrying about the working of wind and water. (That meant a typhoon would soon arrive.) The first thing she fretted over was getting the harvest in from the rice paddies, and the second was harvesting the Sweet Osmanthus. Sweet Osmanthus was like peaches and plums and pears; it had a harvest too. Mother would pace back and forth every day from one courtyard to the other, her lips mouthing an d murmuring the words, “If only a typhoon wouldn’tcome, then I could bring in such a harvest, oh, so many baskets, and I could send over a basket for Good Old Gramps at the Hu household, and a basket too for Second Auntie over at the Maos. Those two families turn out so many cakes.” You could actually use Sweet Osmanthus as a fragrance in cake recipes. When Sweet Osmanthus flowers hit their peak, maybe you couldn’t claim to smell them from ten lis1 away, but the aroma wafted all through the neighborhood air for a string of ten or so households. There wasn’t a corner any place nearby where the fragrance didn’t permeate. Now when the Sweet Osmanthus flowers burst into their fullest glory, there occurred what we called “the great shaking”. What was shaken down were the Sweet Osmanthus flowers, whole and complete and do I mean fresh, and the fragrance all round you would not be quite the same if they withered after their bloom and fluttered to the ground, which happened especially when the rain and wind would ro ar, and they’d be all they’d all sopping wet with the water. “The great shaking of the Sweet Osmanthus” was a magnificent phenomenon as far as I was concerned. And so I’d always be fixing my eyes onMother and asking her, “Ma, how come we haven’t had the g reat shaking yet?” Mother would answer, “It’s still too early, they haven’t blossomed yet. There’s nothing to shake loose.” But as soon as Mother caught sight of great bunches of dark clouds in the sky above, when the clouds formed “sky toes and tail feathers,” then she knew “the wind and water are working,” and quickly she would send the order out for the house workers to get ready for “the great shaking of the Sweet Osmanthus.” When that happened, was I ever happy! I helped with the spreading out of the thick mats beneath the Sweet Osmanthus branches, and then I grabbed at the Osmanthus branches and gave them a gentle tug, and the Osmanthus flowers would shower down upon me, and cover me from the tip of my ears to the end of my toe nails, and I would shout, “Wow! It’s just rain like rain drops, sweet smelling rain drops! Wow!” Mother would wash her hands and then gather up some of the Osmanthus flowers onto a platter of sparkling crystal glass, and then it was off to pay our respects to the Buddha at the family shrine. Father would light the incense at the altar. Slender strands of smoke would rise and vanish into the air above, the twofragrances mixed together, the Buddhist Temple seemed just like the Land of the Immortals. Then Father’s poetic chant would happen. He would just break out into a four line poem he improvised right there on the spot.Slender streams of fragrance and hallowed scentWith holy fumesHands so swift for harvest of OsmanthusForetell a prosperous yearChildren all knowThe joy and mirth ofThe wondrous shakingBlossoms like drops of gentle rain infuse a child’s dreamTender beyond all measureThese poetic verses…well, perhaps they not seem all that spectacular. But in the eyes of my heart, I saw a Father who stood tall with mighty genius, that he could create verse like that!After we were done with the shaking and the gathering of the Osmanthus flowers, everyone in thefamily would lend a hand to tear off the tiny little twiglets and leaves, and spread them out on the mats, and we’d let the sun send down its rays to dry them out for a few days. Then we gathered them all together into steel vats, so they could be mixed with tea leaves for drinks, or be used to make Osmanthus concentrate, or to sweeten cakes at the time of the Chinese New Year. The whole year long, all through our village, we were steeped in the scent of Sweet Osmanthus.I went to Hangchou for middle school. Hangchow hada resort called Man Chueh Lung, a tiny little niche in the mountains. It was covered with Sweet Osmanthus, and when those flowers hit their peak, you could smell them from here to forever. In the autumn we would go hiking, and of course we just had to go to Man Chueh Lung to enjoy the Sweet Osmanthus. “To enjoy the Sweet Osmanthus” was just an excuse t hough, for the important thing was to fill up on a kind of Sweet Osmanthus broth. In addition to Sweet Osmanthus, Man Chueh Lung also had chestnuts. The chestnuts would ripen, and there was this velvety soft peeling on them, and they would mix and blend it with lily pods all the way from famousHis-hu, the West Lake, and on top it they sprinkled Osmanthus petals that gave the concoction an aroma that no matter what you did, there’s no way in the world you could find the words to describe how good it was. Although none of the Sweet Osmanthus flowers were sprinkled into the broth, they still played a part in the aroma, since the chestnuts themselves carried the scent, having nestled amidst the Osmanthus branches.As we hiked along, we reached out and shook the branches. Sweet Osmanthus flowers rang through the air like rain, so much so that you couldn’t even see the dirt on the ground, the path was so blanketed with the flowers. We tramped along right on top of them, soft though they were, and delicate, oh so delicate. Deep inside me I felt a twinge of something alike to sacrilege shoot through me. This was probably what Mother meant when she talked of, “The great grand land, every grain of sand made of gold, the promised land.” Mother had a life of toil allright; no complaint did she make, no groan did she utter. That’s because she carried in her heart a great grand land with sand of gold, a promised land in another world, one crafted in the finest of glazed porcelain.When I came back home, I would carry along in my hands a great sack of Osmanthus flowers just for Mother. But Mother said, “The Sweet Osmanthus of Hangchow smells good, but it just can’t compare with the Golden Osmanthus we once had in our old courtyard back home.”That’s how I still recall the fl ower-shaking-you of my youth when I grew up in my home town…and those Sweet Osmanthus flowers that fell like rain drops.1. A unit of linear measure, about one-third of a mile.(6)The SunWu GuanzhongYesterday, the small park was bathed in sunshine and lots of kids and elderly folks there enjoyed themselves very much. Today, the sun has disappeared. It is a cold and gloomy winter day and looks like snow. The park is deserted except for a solitary walker wrapped in an overcoat with his head bent low. The disappearance ofthe sun does affect his solitary walk at all. It seems that there is no sun in his heart.We are all closely related to the sun. We get up at sunrise and fall into a heavy slumber after sunset until the sun reappears the next day. We all love the sun and long for sunrise. Impression, Sunrise is a world-famous painting. “The setting sun shines with unrivalled splendor” is a celebrated line from an ancient Chinese poem. The sun endows Mother Nature with color and creates shadows for men. Without shadows, we could be unable to see light. It is by means of shadows that we find the world to be three-dimensional. It is unhealthy to confine ourselves to shadows, nor is it healthy to have no shadows in life. The sun has much to do with our health and determines our life or death, survival or extinction.People look at the sun and admire its glow, light and brilliance. Men invented the lantern in imitation of the sun and continue to love the lantern when they have the electric lamp because the sun will always have the worship of all. It also appears most often in drawings done by children. We see one and only one sun from the earth. The sun is the sole ball of fire in the sky. Anythingthat is the only one of its kind is often held up as great. Louis XIV styled himself Solar King. But he nevertheless died, leaving his potential successors to contend for the Solar-King throne.The sun is the source of heat and the symbol of warmth. Sorrowful people often complain that they have no sun in their hearts. People dread the sun in sweltering summer days. The sun does not always give us blessings. It may be a hypocrite, causing seedlings to wither and plunging people into the depth of misery. While people dread the sun, they admire the moon on summer evenings though, in fact, its enchanting pale light is a reflection from the sun. the sun goes on doing whatever it pleases, always shining on all alike, be they wild grass, fresh flowers, worms, bats, skyscrapers, deserts, wild country….All in all, people can’t live without the all-powerful sun.(7)He Haixia, As I Read HimJia PingwaThe year I moved to Xi’an from the country, He Haixia1moved from Xi’an to Beijing. While Beijing boasts a great artist, the capital city of the ancient Qin dynasty finds itself deserted. Though I had the good fortune to be contemporaries with him, I had regretfully missed making his acquaintance within the city walls of Xi’an.I went up to Mt. Huashan and, drinking up a bottle of Xifeng to the howling of Qin opera by some uncouth fellow by the Chess Pavilion, I had the feeling that Zhao Kuangyin, the Founding Emperor of the ancient Song dynasty, was sitting in the pavilion, playing chess with Chen Tuan, a Taoist hermit. I was wondering whether Zhao Kuangyin was He Haixia, or He Haixia, by simple transposition, was Chen Tuan. I turned up to the sky with a deep sigh: Why on earth did he have to leave Xi’an?As the saying goes, you are prepared to end up anywhere in the land but, since ancient times, Xi’an has not been able to keep people from leaving. He Haixia, too, had left, but since then there have been hosts of legendary stories told about him.Over a long period of time, geniuses and “clowns” have been mixed up on the bustling (or hectic) arena of the art, like rocks and sand mixed and driven by stormy waves along the shore. We have not seen much of He Haixia on the TV or in the newspapers, but as rumor from Beijing has it, he is still around. Around as he is, there has not been much mention of him, because the mere mention of his name makes one feel sad. Ghosts are hideously clamorous while God is silent. He Haixia’s art is the art of conquest; the fact that he is still around is awe-inspiring.I am qualified to comment on any particular aspect of his works, for whatever I say would be short of its professionalism, turning technical terms into frivolities, thus laying bare a layman’s follies. At this point I think of Xiang Yu, the ancient heroic general, who had unusual physical strength and overwhelming will power. It has braced me up from the suffering of ailments, turning what is cowardly in me into courage. In this era characterized by too much pettiness and flightiness, it is really a miracle that we should find such imposing forcefulness and artistic excellence as shown in hisworks. I remember once sitting at home alone, with his album open in front of me, my mind wandering about in the artistic nature created by the artist, feeling as if I were Zhuangzi transformed into a butterfly fluttering around. But the first time I saw a recent photo of his, emaciated and aged, I sensed a lonely soul in him. Ah, but it is the loneliness of his soul that makes his art great.Without the Tao, never is there wonder in poetry. The sea is big, its wide expanses spread out to the horizon where the sun casts its glorious rays. And that, is He Haixia.Of the Chinese landscape painting in its genuine sense, He Haixia is probably the only master that has survived.1. Haixia in Chinese means glorious sun rays on the horizon of the sea.(8)Bugle Music from the Night BarracksEileen ChangTen o’clock at night, and I am reading a book by lamplight when the bugle in the army barracks near myhome starts to play a familiar melody. A few simple musical phrases, slowly rising and then descending, with a purity of heart altogether rare in this vast crucible of a city.I say, “They’re playing the bugle again, Auntie. Didn’t you hear it?” My aunt says, “I wasn’t paying attention.” I am afraid of hearing that bugle every night, because I am the only one who ever listens to it.I say, “Oh, they are playing again.” But for some unknown reason, this time the sound is very soft, as slight as a strand of silk, breaking off several times before once again picking up the thread. This time, I don’t even ask my aunt w hether she has heard it. I begin to doubt whether there really is a bugle at all or if this is merely a memory of something I’ve heard. Above and beyond my sense of desolation, I feel frightened.But then I hear someone outside whistling loud and clear, pi cking up and following the bugle’s melody as he goes along. I jump suddenly to my feet, full of joy and empathy, and rush over to the window. Yet I have no desire to know who it is, whether it’s coming from anapartment upstairs or down below or from a passerby on the street.Andrew F. Jones 译(9) GinggoGuo Mo-ruoGingko, I hold your dear, but I, at a loss as to why you are called Grandpa Tree. However, as to the name White Fruit the average man gives you that is within my easy reach.To my knowledge, the characteristics you show are not confined to the similarity between you and the apricot in your fruit, the pure silver white of the peel and the rich nutrition contained in the core—the characteristics are just self-evident.Nevertheless, it is beyond the knowledge of the average man that you boast the remotest antiquity among flowering plants, and your pollen and ovules are reminiscent of the natural properties of an animal. You are a rare treasure, having defied the passage of time entirely by virtue of human preserving power.Though you are nameless in Nature, you stand upright, in a supercilious manner, with your resonant song of the triumph of the human world echoing in the air.You are an oriental sage and a living monument in Chinese culture. It is in China alone that you exist, which seems unknown to the average man.When I visited Japan, I found you there. But you are definitely an overseas Chinese residing in Japan, and your residence in Japan could have witnessed an equal length of time with that of Chinese culture in Japan.You are entitled to the honor of the national tree in China. I like you, and I dote on you, not because you are a specialty in China, but because you are beautiful, true and benign.You are noted for upright trunks, luxuriant branches and folding-fan-like green leaves, so pure, so exquisite!In summer, you helmet countless temples with lofty canopies and shelter numerous laborers with overhanging cool shade.The parasol tree is not as firm as you, though equally upright.。