英汉互译练习4

英汉互译练习4 （周五交）
1. Translating the following 2 passages, paying attention to Note.
提示：原文中的某些语句实际上是翻译，注意还原。

1．It Takes Years to Learn English Well
Confucius said, “Since the age of 15, I have devoted myself to learning; since 30, I have been well established; since 40, I have understood many things and have no longer been confused; since 50, I have known my heaven-sent duty; since 60, I have been able to distinguish right and wrong in other people’s words; and since 70, I have been able to do what I intend freely without breaking the rules.”
The average life expectancy at the Spring and Autumn Periods and Warring States Periods was, according to some research, about 19 years. Confucius lived 72 to 73 years, a rare god of longevity indeed. It was even hard for those with power and leisure to reach such an age. Therefore, Confucius could be very well learned, far from what an ordinary people could expect at his times.
The latest statistics in 2001 shows that the world life expectancy is 62.27 with the Japanese taking the lead to be 79.66 while China gaining a position surpassing all developing countries by its 69.98. However, the Chinese have not yet reached the age to do what they intend freely without breaking the rules. Thus, rules are hard not to be broken.
Calculated in the terms Confucius set for us in learning, those of us who have been learning English for ten years still have a long way to go before reaching the time to be established. To have no confusion, one has to spend 25 years. To truly understand the purpose of English learning, one has to do it for 35 years. It takes 45 years if one wants to distinguish right and wrong in other people’s words, and 55 years to manipulate English language freely without breaking the rules.
2.维纳斯和猫
有只猫爱上了一个青年，恳求爱神维纳斯把她变成个姑娘，好得到他的爱慕。

女神对她深表同情，把她变成一个美女。

青年倾向于她的美貌，便娶她为妻。

维纳斯想知道，这只猫变了外形后是否也改变了本性，便趁他俩在卧房里坐着的时候，在她的面前放出一只老鼠。

这位姑娘忘了自己现在的身分，禁不住从座位上一跃而起，向老鼠猛扑过去，很像要把它当场吃掉。

女神为她的轻举妄动所激怒，立刻又把她变回一只猫。

所谓江山易改，本性难移。

3．（课后练习，不需交，但课堂上要展示自己的译文）
Gentle Reader，
What, you may ask, was the origin of this book?
Though the answer to this question may at first seem to border on the absurd, reflection will show that there is a good deal more in it than meets the eye.
Long ago, when the goddess Nǚ-wa was repairing the sky, she melted down a great quantity of rock and, on the Incredible Crags of the Great Fable Mountains, moulded the amalgam into thirty-six thousand, five hundred and one large building blocks, each measuring seventy-two feet by a hundred and forty-four feet square.
She used thirty-six thousand five hundred of these blocks in the course of her building operations, leaving a single odd block unused, which lay, all on its own, at the foot of Greensickness Peak in the aforementioned mountains.
Now this block of stone, having undergone the melting and moulding of a goddess, possessed magic powers. It could move about at will and could grow or shrink to any size it wanted. Observing that all the other blocks had been used for celestial repairs and that it was the only one to have been rejected as unworthy, it became filled with shame and resentment and passed its days in sorrow and lamentation.
4. 翻译欣赏：比较下列“Liu Ch’e”和《落叶哀蝉曲》这两首英汉语诗歌，它们有何异同？
Liu Ch’e
The rustling of the silk is discontinued,
Dust drifts over the court-yard,
There is no sound of foot-falls, and the leaves
Scurry into heaps and lie still,
And she the rejoycer of the heart is beneath them:
A wet leaf that clings to the threshold. (by Ezra Pound)
译文：
刘彻
罗袂沙沙声已断
玉墀上尘埃飘动
不闻足音，叶子——
急卷成堆，躺在那里
而他的心上人在下面：
一块湿叶黏着，在门槛上。

（叶维廉译，2002）
落叶哀蝉曲
刘彻
罗袂兮无声，
玉墀兮尘生。

虚房冷而寂寞，
落叶依于重扃。

望彼美之女兮安得，
感余心之未宁！。