ThePyramids(翻译赏析)解读.ppt

The Pyramids Objectives: 结构转换 Questions: 转换的依据是什么？ 1. Of the wall [of China] it is very easy to assign the motives. It secured a wealthy and timorous nation from the incursions of Barbarians, whose unskillfulness in arts made it easier for them to supply their wants by rapine than by industry, and who from time to time poured in upon the habitations of peaceful commerce, as vultures descend upon domestic fowl. 说起中国的长城,要确定修建的动机是十分容易的.长城确保一个富饶谦和的民族平平安安,以防化外之民的入侵.外夷不谙技艺,所以他们通过掠夺而非勤劳来满足需要,因为这样来得便当一些.他们不时蜂拥而来,闯入和和气气你来我往的居家之地,如同兀鹫捕食家禽一般. 2. Their celerity and fierceness made the wall necessary, and their ignorance made it efficacious. 他们速来速去,生性凶悍,因此修建长城乃必要之举;他们蒙昧无知,因此长城御敌果然见效. 3. But for the pyramids no reason has ever been given adequate to the cost and labor of the work. The narrowness of the chambers proves that it could afford no retreat from enemies, and treasures might have been reposited at far less expense with equal security. 但是说到金字塔,这项壮举劳民伤财,迄今尚未有人充分说明理由.各处俱为一隅之地,结果无法提供躲避来敌的退路,而要存储财富,本可费资减半而又同样安全 4. It seems to have been erected only in compliance with that hunger of imagination which preys incessantly upon life, and must be always appeased by some employment. 似乎耸立金字塔无非是迁就了想象力的饥渴,它一刻不停地消磨着生命,一定是要加以利用才能解渴. 5. Those who have already all that they can enjoy, must enlarge their desires. He that has built for use, till use is supplied must begin to build for vanity, and extend his plan to the utmost power of human performance, that he may not be soon reduced to form another wish. 有些人已经拥有了能够享受的一切,他们的贪欲一定是有增无减.凡为实用而大兴土木者,一俟物尽其用,一定又为虚荣而大兴土木,扩展宏图,极尽人力之能事,直至不可能旋即立下另一个心愿. 6. I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments. 我以为这座雄伟建筑物乃是人的享受不知足的历史见证. 7. A king, who power is unlimited, and whose treasures surmount all real and imaginary wants, is compelled to solace, by the erection of a pyramid, the satiety of dominion and tastelessness of pleasures, and to amuse the tediousness of declining life, by seeing thousands labour