英语专业8级翻译练习

片段翻译:

1)I am lonely only when I am overtired, when I have worked too long without a

break, when for the time being I feel empty and need filling up. And I am lonely sometimes when I come back home after a lecture trip, when I have seen a lot of people and talked a lot, and am full to the brim with experience that needs to be sorted out.

Then for a little while the house feels huge and empty, and I wonder where my

self is hiding. It has to be recaptured slowly by watering the plants, perhaps, and looking again at each one as though it were a person, by feeding the two cats, by cooking a meal.

只有在我过度劳累的时候,在我长时间不间断地工作的时侯，在我感到内心空虚、需要充实的时候，我才会感到寂寞。有时，外出演讲回来，见了许多人，讲了许多话，心中满是纷乱的体验需要整理，偶而也会觉得孤独。

于是有那么一会儿，我会感到整个房子非常大，空荡荡的。不知此时的自我又藏匿于何处。这时，我会给花草浇浇水，挨个瞅瞅，仿佛它们是活生生的人一样，或是喂喂两只小猫，亲手做顿饭菜，这样自我就慢慢地重新找回。

2)Opera is expensive: that much is inevitable. But expensive things are not

inevitably the province of the rich unless we abdicate society's power of choice.

We can choose to make opera, and other expensive forms of culture, accessible to those who cannot individually pay for it. The question is: why should we? Nobody denies the imperatives of food, shelter, defense, health and education. But even in

a prehistoric cave, mankind stretched out a hand not just to eat, drink or fight, but

also to draw. The impulse towards culture, the desire to express and explore the world through imagination and representation is fundamental. In Europe, this

desire has found fulfillment in the masterpieces of our music, art, literature and

theatre. These masterpieces are the touchstones for all our efforts; they are the

touchstones for the possibilities to which human thought and imagination may

aspire; they carry the most profound messages that can be sent from one human to another.

聆听歌剧，无疑昂贵至极。但是，昂贵的事物并非必定属于富人的范畴，除非我们放弃社会的选择权。我们可以选择去使歌剧以及其他某些昂贵的文化形式也能为那些不具备个人支付能力的人所享受。但问题是，我们有必要这么做吗？没人会否认食物、居所、防护、健康与教育的不可或缺性。但即便是在史前时代的洞穴中，人类伸出手来，早就不单纯是为了吃、喝或搏杀，而且亦进行绘画创作。人类对于文化的冲动，通过形象思维和再现手段来表现并探索世界的欲望，乃亘古有之。在欧洲，这一欲望在我们的音乐、艺术、文学和戏剧杰作中寻找到了其实现形式。这些杰作构成了我们全部努力的试金石。作为试金石，它们能衡量出人类的思想和想象力所可能企及的程度。

它们携带着最寓意深刻的主题，可在人类彼此间相互传递。

3)Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood

would have been Thoreau's idea of the low levels. The active discipline of

heightening one's perception of what is enduring in nature would have been his

idea of the high. What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend

on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starvation, but he would put into

feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him functioning for more

important efforts.

Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging

difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfaction we get from a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was

thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of “The pleasure of

taking pains”. The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless.

We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it.

The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When someone

ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.

梭罗所理解的“低层次”，即为了拥有而去拥有，或与所有的邻居明争暗斗而致拥有。他心目中的“高层次”，则是这样一种积极的人生戒律，即要使自己对自然界永恒之物的感悟臻于完美。对于他从低层次上节省下来的时间和精力，他可将其致力于对高层次的追求。勿庸置疑，梭罗不赞成忍饥挨饿，但他在膳食方面所投入的精力仅果腹而已，只要可确保他能去从事更为重要的事务，他便别无所求。

殚精竭虑，全力以赴，便是其精髓所在。除非我们愿意直面那些需要我们全身心投入的艰难困苦，否则便不会有幸福可言。正如叶芝所言，除却某些不可能的情形，我们于人生中所获取的满足皆取决于我们在多高的境界中选择我们所愿意面对的艰难困苦。当罗伯特·弗罗斯特言及“以苦为乐”时，他内心所思，大体如此。商业广告中所宣扬的那种幸福观，其致命的缺陷就在于这样一个事实，即它宣称，一切幸福皆唾手可得，不费吹灰之力。

即便于游戏之中，我们也需要有艰难困苦。我们之所以需要它，因为设若没有困难，便断无游戏可言。游戏即是这样一种方式，为了享受其中的情趣而人为地使事情变得不那么轻而易举。游戏中的种种规则，便是将困难武断地强加于人。当有人将情趣摧毁殆尽时，他总是因为拒不按游戏规则行事而使然。这犹如下棋；如果你随心所欲、心血来潮地去更改那些全然武断的游戏规则，这样去赢棋当然会更加容易。但下棋的情趣则在于，应在规则的限定范围内赢取胜利。一言以蔽之，没有艰难，断无情趣。

4)The stage is more beholding to love, than the life of man. For as to the stage, love

is ever matter of comedies, and now and then of tragedies; but in life it doth much mischief; sometimes like a siren, sometimes like a fury. You may observe, that

amongst all the great and worthy persons （whereof the memory remaineth, either

ancient or recent） there is not one, that hath been transported to the mad degree of love: which shows that great spirits, and great business, do keep out this weak passion. You must except, nevertheless, Marcus Antonius, the half partner of the empire of Rome, and Appius Claudius, the decemvir and lawgiver; whereof the