精美双语散文阅读【推荐两篇】
英语散文的发展历程十分曲折,散文大家风格多变,兼之中英语言个性殊异,若要成功地把英语散文大家的作品翻译到中文,既须了解英语散文发展的概况,又须注意保证气韵逻辑通畅,文气沛然,才能传神译出,曲尽其妙,令汉语读者获得相同或相近的审美感受。下面读文网小编为大家带来精美双语散文阅读,希望大家喜欢!
精美双语散文:第二次生命的启示
Just ten years ago, I sat across the desk from adoctor with a stethoscope. “Yes, ” he said, “there isa lesion in the left, upper lobe. You have amoderately advanced case…” I listened, stunned, ashe continued, “You’ll have to give up work at onceand go to bed. Later on, we’ll see.” He gave noassurances.
十年前的一天,我坐在一名手持听诊器的医生对面。“你的左肺叶上部确实有一处坏损,而且病情正在恶化”——听到这里,我整个人一下懵了。“你必须停止工作卧床休息,有待观察。”医生对我的病情也是不置可否。
Feeling like a man who in mid-career has suddenly been placed under sentence of death with anindefinite reprieve, I left the doctor’s office, walked over to the park, and sat down on abench, perhaps, as I then told myself, for the last time. I needed to think. In the next threedays, I cleared up my affairs; then I went home, got into bed, and set my watch to tick off notthe minutes, but the months. 2 years and many dashed hopes later, I left my bed and beganthe long climb back. It was another year before I made it.
就这样,事业方面方兴未艾的我仿佛突然被人判了死刑,却说不准何时执刑。我离开医生的办公室,来到公园的长椅上坐下。这也许是最后一次来这儿了,我对自己说。我真得好好整理一下思绪。接下来的三天我把手头的事务全部处理完毕。我回到家,躺到床上,然后把手表从显示分钟改为显示月份。两年半的时间过去了,在无数次的失望之后,我终于可以离开病床,艰难地向从前的生活状态回归。一年之后,我做到了。
I speak of this experience because these years that past so slowly taught me what to value andwhat to believe. They said to me: Take time, before time takes you. I realize now that this worldI’m living in is not my oyster to be opened but my opportunity to be grasped. Each day, tome, is a precious entity. The sun comes up and presents me with 24 brand new, wonderfulhours—not to pass, but to fill.
我之所以谈起这段经历,是因为那段度日如年的岁月让我懂得应该珍惜什么,信仰什么。那段岁月让我明白一个道理:牢牢抓住时间,而不是让时间将你套牢。现在我终于明白,我生活着的这个世界不是等待我去打开的一扇牡蛎,而是需要我去抓住的一个机会。每一天我都视若珍宝,每一轮太阳带给我的崭新的二十四小时都鲜活而精彩,我绝不可将其虚度。
I’ve learned to appreciate those little, all-important things I never thought I had the time tonotice before: the play of light on running water, the music of the wind in my favorite pinetree. I seem now to see and hear and feel with some of the recovered freshness of childhood.How well, for instance, I recall the touch of the springy earth under my feet the day I firststepped upon it after the years in bed. It was almost more than I could bear. It was likeregaining one’s citizenship in a world one had nearly lost.
如今,我仿佛重返童年,又觉得自己所见所闻所感的一切都那么新鲜。当我卧床数年后重新将双脚踏在大地上的那一刻,脚下那久违了的松软土壤让我激动得情难自抑,仿佛重新拥有我差一点就失去的世界。
Frequently, I sit back and say to myself, Let me make note of this moment I’m living right now,because in it I’m well, happy, hard at work doing what I like best to do. It won’t always be likethis, so while it is I’ll make the most of it—and afterwards, I remember—and be grateful. Allthis, I owe to that long time spent on the sidelines of life. Wiser people come to thisawareness without having to acquire it the hard way. But I wasn’t wise enough. I’m wisernow, a little, and happier.
我现在时常舒舒服服地坐着,提醒自己要记住当下的每分每秒,因为现在的我健康、快乐,能努力做自己最爱做的工作。这一切如此美好,却终将消逝,在如此美好的生活消逝之前,我一定要倍加珍惜。在它逝去之后,我会记得曾经拥有的美好,并心存感激。这一切改变都得益于我在生命边缘徘徊的那几年。智者无需被逼到如此境地也能明白这些道理——可惜我从前太愚钝。现在的我比从前多了几分睿智,我也因此更加快乐。
“Look thy last on all things lovely, every hour.” With these words, Walter de la Mare sums up forme my philosophy and my belief. God made this world—in spite of what man now and thentries to do to unmake it—a dwelling place of beauty and wonder, and He filled it with moregoodness than most of us suspect. And so I say to myself, Should I not pretty often take timeto absorb the beauty and the wonder, to contribute a least a little to the goodness? Andshould I not then, in my heart, give thanks? Truly, I do. This I believe.
英国诗人沃尔特.德拉.梅尔曾说过:“时刻记住,最后看一眼所有美好的事物!”这句诗正好总结了我的人生哲学与信仰。上帝创造的这个世界——这个人类时常试图毁灭的世界——是个美丽奇妙的家园。这里充满了上帝所赐予的美好事物,超过我们大多数人的想象。我于是常常自问,难道自己不应该去细细品味这些美丽与奇迹,尽绵薄之力去创造世间的美好吗?难道我不应心存感激吗?我确实应该——这就是我的信仰。
精美双语散文:爱情不是商品
A reader in Florida, apparently bruised by somepersonal experience, writes in to complain, “If Isteal a nickel’s worth of merchandise, I am a thiefand punished; but if I steal the love of another’swife, I am free.”
佛罗里达州的一位读者显然是在个人经历上受过创伤, 他写信来抱怨道: “如果我偷走了五分钱的商品, 我就是个贼, 要受到惩罚, 但是如果我偷走了他人妻子的爱情, 我没事儿。”
This is a prevalent misconception in many people’s minds—that love, like merchandise, canbe “stolen”. Numerous states, in fact, have enacted laws allowing damages for “alienation ofaffections”.
这是许多人心目中普遍存在的一种错误观念——爱情, 像商品一样, 可以 “偷走”。实际上,许多州都颁布法令,允许索取“情感转让”赔偿金。
But love is not a commodity; the real thing cannot be bought, sold, traded or stolen. It is anact of the will, a turning of the emotions, a change in the climate of the personality.
但是爱情并不是商品;真情实意不可能买到,卖掉,交换,或者偷走。爱情是志愿的行动,是感情的转向,是个性发挥上的变化。
When a husband or wife is “stolen” by another person, that husband or wife was already ripe forthe stealing, was already predisposed toward a new partner. The “love bandit” was only takingwhat was waiting to be taken, what wanted to be taken.
当丈夫或妻子被另一个人“偷走”时,那个丈夫或妻子就已经具备了被偷走的条件,事先已经准备接受新的伴侣了。这位“爱匪”不过是取走等人取走、盼人取走的东西。
We tend to treat persons like goods. We even speak of the children “belonging” to theirparents. But nobody “belongs” to anyone else. Each person belongs to himself, and to God.Children are entrusted to their parents, and if their parents do not treat them properly, thestate has a right to remove them from their parents’ trusteeship.
我们往往待人如物。我们甚至说孩子“属于”父母。但是谁也不“属于”谁。人都属于自己和上帝。孩子是托付给父母的,如果父母不善待他们,州政府就有权取消父母对他们的托管身份。
Most of us, when young, had the experience of a sweetheart being taken from us by somebodymore attractive and more appealing. At the time, we may have resented this intruder—but aswe grew older, we recognized that the sweetheart had never been ours to begin with. It was notthe intruder that “caused” the break, but the lack of a real relationship.
我们多数人年轻时都有过恋人被某个更有诱惑力、更有吸引力的人夺去的经历。在当时,我们兴许怨恨这位不速之客—但是后来长大了,也就认识到了心上人本来就不属于我们。并不是不速之客“导致了”决裂,而是缺乏真实的关系。
On the surface, many marriages seem to break up because of a “third party”. This is, however, apsychological illusion. The other woman or the other man merely serves as a pretext fordissolving a marriage that had already lost its essential integrity.
从表面上看,许多婚姻似乎是因为有了“第三者”才破裂的。然而这是一种心理上的幻觉。另外那个女人,或者另外那个男人,无非是作为借口,用来解除早就不是完好无损的婚姻罢了。
Nothing is more futile and more self-defeating than the bitterness of spurned love, thevengeful feeling that someone else has “come between” oneself and a beloved. This is always adistortion of reality, for people are not the captives or victims of others—they are free agents,working out their own destinies for good or for ill.
因失恋而痛苦,因别人“插足”于自己与心上人之间而图报复,是最没有出息、最自作自受的乐。这种事总是歪曲了事实真相,因为谁都不是给别人当俘虏或牺牲品——人都是自由行事的,不论命运是好是坏,都由自己来作主。
But the rejected lover or mate cannot afford to believe that his beloved has freely turned awayfrom him— and so he ascribes sinister or magical properties to the interloper. He calls him ahypnotist or a thief or a home-breaker. In the vast majority of cases, however, when a home isbroken, the breaking has begun long before any “third party” has appeared on the scene.
但是,遭离弃的情人或配偶无法相信她的心上人是自由地背离他的——因而他归咎于插足者心术不正或迷人有招。他把他叫做催眠师、窃贼或破坏家庭的人。然而,从大多数事例看,一个家的破裂,是早在什么“第三者”出现之前就开始了的。