英语学习课件妙语短篇unit4.docVIP

A Strange Pet One of the worlds greatest poets was the Roman poet Vergil. He lived in Rome nearly two thousand years ago. His most famous poem is the Aeneid. Vergil was not only an interesting poet. He was also a most unusual man. In 43 B.C., Rome was ruled by three men: Augustus, Mark Antony and Lepidus. To make themselves popular with the soldiers, they took all land — except for land used for cemeteries and mausoleums — away from the people. They gave all this land to soldiers when they returned from a war Rome was fighting at that time. Vergil was very worried that his home on the Esquiline Hill in Rome would be taken from him. To prevent this from happening, he decided to build amausoleum on the land. ! A mausoleum is a building in which dead bodies are kept by their families. But whose dead body could he keep in the mausoleum? He soon solved his problem. He told all his friends that his favorite pet had died suddenly and invited them all to a big funeral for it. He even asked some of his more important friends to make speeches at the pets funeral. At the funeral, the dead pet was laid to rest in the huge mausoleum, which had cost the equivalent of over US$100,000 to build. But the money was well spent. Vergil was allowed to keep his land, even though the pet buried in it was only a fly. Words and Expressions Roman /reumsn/ a（古）罗马的 Rome /reum/ n.罗马 cemetery /semitn/ n公墓，墓地 mausoleum /,mo:s3lrem/ n陵墓 prevent... from阻止 favorite /feivant/ a.特别喜欢的（英式拼法为favourite） funeral /fjumsral/ n葬礼 equivalent /Ikwivsbnt/ n.等价的，等值 fly /flai/ n.苍蝇 Vergil:维吉尔，罗马著名诗人 Exercises A Diction（词语选择） Antonyms: For each sentence, choose the word(s) which mean the opposite of the word(s) in bold. 从下面的词中为句子中的粗体词选出反义词 ( ) 1 Vergil was one of the worlds most famous poets,a) smallest b) cleverest c) happiest d) least well-known ( ) 2 Before 43 B.C., the three rulers were popular,a) friendless b) disliked c) uninteresting d) important ( ) 3 They took away