精读《西南联大英文课》| 修订版 第一分册《吾国与吾民》视频和课件合集 | 翻译
笔记 by小然出击
说明：省略了过于简单的语法点，补充了一些原作没有讲到的用法，建议配合原作使用。由于笔记不能分p，为方便大家复习，将笔记投稿专栏。
Barren Spring 贫瘠的春天
Pearl S. Buck
导语
文章背景是落后生产力下的旧中国。1931年长江洪灾导致饥荒，主角农民老刘亲手埋葬了自己父母和儿女。为了活下去，老刘杀了自己视作兄弟的水牛充饥，烧了生产用的耕犁取暖。当春天来临时，老刘坐在门前，绝望地看着荒芜的土地。他渴望有牛，渴望有耕犁，甚至就算只有种子，他也愿意用手犁地。只可惜，他什么也没有，他有的只是满眼绝望和贫瘠的春天。
第一段
Liu, the farmer, sat at the door of his one-room house.
这里 of 的翻译很灵活，不一定要翻译成“农民老刘坐在只有一间屋子的房子的门口”。可以用小短句隔开，做到“形散神不散”，如：
农民老刘坐在门口，身后的房子只有一间屋子。
It was a warm evening in late February, and in his thin body he felt the coming of spring. How he knew that the time had now come when sap should stir in trees and life begin to move in the soil he could not have told himself.
sap (植物的) 汁液
In other years it would have been easy enough. He could have pointed to the willow trees about the house, and shown the swelling buds. But there were no more trees now. He had cut them off during the bitter winter when they were starving for food and he had sold them one by one. Or he might have pointed to the pink-tipped buds of his three peach trees and his six apricot trees that his father had planted in his day so that now, being at the height of their time, they bore a load of fruit every year.
apricot 杏
in his day 年轻的时候，全盛时期
at the height of their time 鼎盛时期
But these trees were also gone. Most of all, in any other year than this he might have pointed to his wheat fields, where he planted wheat in the winter when the land was not needed for rice, and where, when spring was moving into summer, he planted the good rice, for rice was his chief crop.
① 关于crop的短语
cream of the crop / best of the crop 精华；最优秀的人
the land in crop 种着庄稼的田地
crop circle 麦田里的怪圈
crop up 突然出现
② crop作名词除了作物，还有“产量、收成”的意思。
表达相同意思的词汇还有：yield / production / output / harvest 在一些关于作物产量的统计图表中yield和production更加常见，比如wheat crop小麦产量，在图表中一般写为wheat production或者wheat yield。
③ 另外，crop作动词有收割庄稼的意思，可以引申为“剃平头、剪短发”，或者“动物把草吃得只剩小茬”。
She had a crop. / She wanted her hair cropped short. 她剃了短发。
Sheep had cropped the grass short. 羊把草啃短了。
④ 农牧产品produce vs 手工、工业制品product
farm produce 农产品
dairy produce 乳制品
handicraft product 工艺品
residual product 副产品
industrial product 工业品
But the land told nothing, this year. There was no wheat on it, for the flood had covered it long after wheat should have been planted, and it lay there cracked and like clay but newly dried.
第二段
Well, on such a day as this, if he had his buffalo and his plow as he had always had in other years, he would have gone out and plowed up that cracked soil. He ached to plow it up and make it look like a field again, yes, even though he had not so much as one seed to put in it.
① ache 意思是have a desire for something or someone who is not present，即“渴望、惦记或怀念”，一般用ache for someone or something，或ache to do.类似的短语还有：
pine/yen/yearn/long for something
pine/yen/yearn/long to do
这种“渴望又惦记”的状态，可以用一句诗来体会，“衣带渐宽终不悔，为伊消得人憔悴”。其中，“为伊消得人憔悴” 就可以翻译为pining away for a special one.
② 文章中的ache to plow it up意思是渴望把地犁好。《华盛顿邮报》的一篇文章也有相似的用法，When you know too much to like a friend's fiancé 即《当你知道太多而对你朋友的未婚夫没有好感》中讲到“不要想着去做正确的事情”就用到了stop aching to be right.
Stop looking for missteps, stop aching to be right, and realize the best thing for your friend, and therefore for your friendship, would be for you to be wrong.
But he had no buffalo. If anyone had told him that he would eat his own water buffalo that plowed the good land for him, and year after year pulled the stone roller over the grain and threshed it at harvest he would have called that man idiot. Yet it was what he had done. He had eaten his own water buffalo, he and his wife and his parents and his four children, they had all eaten the buffalo together.
thresh 打谷
But what else could they do on that dark winter's day when the last of their store of grain was gone, when the trees were cut and sold, when he had sold everything, even the little they had saved from the flood, and there was nothing left except the rafters of the house they had and the garments they wore?
rafter 房椽
Was there sense in stripping the coat off one's back to feed one's belly? Besides, the beast was starving also, since the water had covered even the grass lands, and they had had to go far afield to gather even enough to cook its bones and flesh. On that day when he had seen the faces of his old parents set as though dead, on that day when he had heard the crying of his children and seen his little daughter dying, such a despair had seized him as made him like a man without his reason, so that he had gathered together his feeble strength and he had done what he said he never would; he had taken the kitchen knife and gone out and killed his own beast. When he did it, even in his despair, he groaned, for it was as though he killed his own brother. To him it was the last sacrifice.
① the faces of his old parents set as though dead 简单句的语序是his old parents set their faces as though dead，意思是“他年迈的父母面无表情，仿佛死了一样”。
set 在这里的意思是“使情绪、面部表情处于某种状态”，类似的用法还有：
set one's face against 坚决反对
set one's face like flint 下定决心
flint是指燧石或者极为坚硬的物体，set one's face like flint就是态度坚决地板着脸，绝不动容，所以是“下定决心”的意思。
② Such a despair had seized him as made him like a man without his reason.
这句话的意思是“绝望之情笼罩着他，让他变成一个没有理智的人”。as在这里作为关系代词，替代which引导主语从句。
③ as用作关系代词，一般只有三种搭配：
A. such + 名词 + as
Such a guy picked up girls easily as is bad and tells lies.（as引导主语从句） 这个家伙很容易钓上女孩子，而他很坏还说谎。
B. the same + 名词 + as
The same guy picked up girls easily as tells lies. （as引导主语从句）这个家伙勾搭女孩子就像说谎一样容易。
C. as + 名词 + as
We've got food for as many people as want it. （as引导主语从句）我们的食物，不论多少人吃都够了。
另外，复试自我介绍也可以用到，比如：
I may not be as academically inclined as are you, renowned professors and scholars, but I possess the qualities of passion, perseverance, initiative and teamwork. 尽管我不像在座的各位知名教授、学者一样有学术天赋，但是我有学术热情、持之以恒、积极进取，还善于团队合作。
这里的as引导表语从句，be可以省略，听上去有点别扭的as academically inclined as are you，就变成as academically inclined as you.
第三段
Yet it was not enough. No, they grew hungry again and there was nothing left to kill. Many of the villagers went south to other places, or they went down the river to beg in the great cities. But he, Liu the farmer, had never begged. Moreover, it seemed to him then that they must all die and the only comfort left was to die on their own land. His neighbor had come and begged him to set forth with them; yes, he had even said he would carry one of the old parents on his back so that Liu might carry the other, seeing that his own old father was already dead. But Liu had refused, and it was well, for in the next two days the old mother was dead, and if she had died on the way he could only have cast her by the roadside lest the others be delayed and more of them die. As it was he could put her safely into their own ground, although he had been so weak that it had taken him three days to dig a hole deep enough for her little old withered body.
as it is的意思是 with the situation that exists now 即“既然如此，现在”
And then before he could get her buried he and his wife had quarreled over the poor few clothes on the old body. His wife was a hard woman and she would have buried the old mother naked, if he had let her, so as to have the clothes for the children. But he made her leave on the inner coat and trousers; although they were only rags after all, and when he saw the cold earth against his old mother's flesh—well, that was sorrow for a man, but it could not be helped. Three more he had buried somehow, his old father and his baby daughter and the little boy who had never been strong.
hard 冷酷无情的，铁石心肠的
leave on 留下
第四段
That was what the winter's famine had taken from them. It would have taken them all except that in the great pools lying everywhere, which were left from the flood, there were shrimps, and these they had eaten raw and were still eating, although they were all sick with a dysentery that would not get well. In the last day or so his wife had crawled out and dug a few sprouting dandelions. But there was no fuel and so they also were eaten raw. But the bitterness was good after the tasteless flesh of the raw shrimps. Yes, spring was coming.
dysentery 痢疾
dandelion 蒲公英
第五段
He sat on heavily, looking out over his land. If he had his buffalo back, if he had his plow that they had burned for fuel, he could plow the land.
对比一下文中出现的两次虚拟语气：
第五段：If he had his buffalo and his plow, he could plow the land. 与现在相反，他如果现在有牛和犁，他现在就会去犁地。
第二段：If he had his buffalo and his plow, he would have plowed the land. 与过去相反，如果他当时有牛和犁，他当时就会去犁地。
But when he thought of this as he did many times every day, he felt helpless as a leaf tossed upon the flood. The buffalo was gone; gone also his plow and every implement of wood and bamboo, and what other had he?
have等于have got，这里的what other had he，其实就是what other had he got，类似的用法还有：
Have you a car? 你有车吗？
I haven't a car. 我没有车。
Sometimes in the winter he had felt grateful that at least the flood had not taken all the house as it had so many other houses. But now suddenly it came to him that he could be grateful for nothing, no, not even that he had his life left him and the life of his wife and the two older children. He felt tears come into his eyes slowly as they had not even come when he buried his old mother and saw the earth fall against her flesh, bared by the rags which had comforted him that day. But now he was comforted by nothing. He muttered to himself.
第六段
“I have no seed to plant in the land. There the land lies! I could go and claw it up with my hands if I had the seed and the land would bear.
claw up 挖
bear 开花结果，收成
I know my good land. But I have no seed and the land is empty. Yes, even though spring comes, we must still starve!”
第七段
And he looked, hopeless, into the barren spring.
笔记汇总
1.Liu, the farmer, sat at the door of his one-room house.
这里 of 的翻译很灵活，不一定要翻译成“农民老刘坐在只有一间屋子的房子的门口”。可以用小短句隔开，做到“形散神不散”，如：
农民老刘坐在门口，身后的房子只有一间屋子。
2.
sap (植物的) 汁液
apricot 杏
in his day 年轻的时候，全盛时期
at the height of their time 鼎盛时期
3.crop
① 关于crop的短语
cream of the crop / best of the crop 精华；最优秀的人
the land in crop 种着庄稼的田地
crop circle 麦田里的怪圈
crop up 突然出现
② crop作名词除了作物，还有“产量、收成”的意思。
表达相同意思的词汇还有：yield / production / output / harvest 在一些关于作物产量的统计图表中yield和production更加常见，比如wheat crop小麦产量，在图表中一般写为wheat production或者wheat yield。
③ 另外，crop作动词有收割庄稼的意思，可以引申为“剃平头、剪短发”，或者“动物把草吃得只剩小茬”。
She had a crop. / She wanted her hair cropped short. 她剃了短发。
Sheep had cropped the grass short. 羊把草啃短了。
④ 农牧产品produce vs 手工、工业制品product
farm produce 农产品
dairy produce 乳制品
handicraft product 工艺品
residual product 副产品
industrial product 工业品
4.
thresh 打谷
rafter 房椽
5.ache
① ache 意思是have a desire for something or someone who is not present，即“渴望、惦记或怀念”，一般用ache for someone or something，或ache to do.类似的短语还有：
pine/yen/yearn/long for something
pine/yen/yearn/long to do
这种“渴望又惦记”的状态，可以用一句诗来体会，“衣带渐宽终不悔，为伊消得人憔悴”。其中，“为伊消得人憔悴” 就可以翻译为pining away for a special one.
② 文章中的ache to plow it up意思是渴望把地犁好。《华盛顿邮报》的一篇文章也有相似的用法，When you know too much to like a friend's fiancé 即《当你知道太多而对你朋友的未婚夫没有好感》中讲到“不要想着去做正确的事情”就用到了stop aching to be right.
Stop looking for missteps, stop aching to be right, and realize the best thing for your friend, and therefore for your friendship, would be for you to be wrong.
6. the faces of his old parents set as though dead 简单句的语序是his old parents set their faces as though dead，意思是“他年迈的父母面无表情，仿佛死了一样”。
set 在这里的意思是“使情绪、面部表情处于某种状态”，类似的用法还有：
set one's face against 坚决反对
set one's face like flint 下定决心
flint是指燧石或者极为坚硬的物体，set one's face like flint就是态度坚决地板着脸，绝不动容，所以是“下定决心”的意思。
7.as的用法
① Such a despair had seized him as made him like a man without his reason.
这句话的意思是“绝望之情笼罩着他，让他变成一个没有理智的人”。as在这里作为关系代词，替代which引导主语从句。
② as用作关系代词，一般只有三种搭配：
A. such + 名词 + as
Such a guy picked up girls easily as is bad and tells lies.（as引导主语从句） 这个家伙很容易钓上女孩子，而他很坏还说谎。
B. the same + 名词 + as
The same guy picked up girls easily as tells lies. （as引导主语从句）这个家伙勾搭女孩子就像说谎一样容易。
C. as + 名词 + as
We've got food for as many people as want it. （as引导主语从句）我们的食物，不论多少人吃都够了。
另外，复试自我介绍也可以用到，比如：
I may not be as academically inclined as are you, renowned professors and scholars, but I possess the qualities of passion, perseverance, initiative and teamwork. 尽管我不像在座的各位知名教授、学者一样有学术天赋，但是我有学术热情、持之以恒、积极进取，还善于团队合作。
这里的as引导表语从句，be可以省略，听上去有点别扭的as academically inclined as are you，就变成as academically inclined as you.
8.as it is的意思是 with the situation that exists now 即“既然如此，现在”
9.what other had he?
have等于have got，这里的what other had he，其实就是what other had he got，类似的用法还有：
Have you a car? 你有车吗？
I haven't a car. 我没有车。
10.
hard 冷酷无情的，铁石心肠的
leave on 留下
dysentery 痢疾
dandelion 蒲公英
claw up 挖
bear 开花结果，收成
THE BEAST OF BURDEN 负重的牲口
W. Somerset Maugham
At first when you see the coolie on the road, bearing his load, it is as a pleasing object that he strikes the eye.
coolie 苦力
原作认为这里的 as.. that.. 可以理解为such.. that..，即“如此..以至于”，it代指前面“苦力搬东西”的景象：这种景象是如此令人愉悦，以至于他冲击着人们的眼球。
另一种解释是形式主语it的倒装用法。
it 代替了 that he strikes the eye，整个句子还原过来就是 That he strikes the eye is as a pleasing object.
他冲击着人们的眼球，（因为）这场景令人愉悦。
In his blue rags, a blue of all colors from indigo to turquoise and then to the paleness of a milky sky, he fits the landscape.
He seems exactly right as he trudges along the narrow causeway between the rice fields or climbs a green hill. His clothing consists of no more than a short coat and a pair of trousers; and if he had a suit which was at the beginning all of a piece, he never thinks when it comes to patching to choose a bit of stuff of the same color. He takes anything that comes handy. From sun and rain he protects his head with a straw hat shaped like an extinguisher with a preposterously wide, flat brim.
You see a string of coolies come along, one after the other, each with a pole on his shoulders from the ends of which hang two great bales, and they make an agreeable pattern. It is amusing to watch their hurrying reflections in the padi water. You watch their faces as they pass you. They are good-natured faces and frank, you would have said, if it had not been drilled into you that the oriental is inscrutable; and when you see them lying down with their loads under a banyan tree by a wayside shrine, smoking and chatting gaily, if you have tried to lift the bales they carry for thirty miles or more a day, it seems natural to feel admiration for their endurance and their spirit. But you will be thought somewhat absurd if you mention your admiration to the old residents of China. You will be told with a tolerant shrug of the shoulders that the coolies are animals and for two thousand years from father to son have carried burdens, so it is no wonder if they do it cheerfully. And indeed you can see for yourself that they begin early, for you will encounter little children with a yoke on their shoulders staggering under the weight of vegetable baskets.
The day wears on and it grows warmer. The coolies take off their coats and walk stripped to the waist. Then sometimes in a man resting for an instant, his load on the ground but the pole still on his shoulders so that he has to rest slightly crouched, you see the poor tired heart beating against the ribs: you see it as plainly as in some cases of heart disease in the out-patients' room of a hospital. It is strangely distressing to watch. Then also you see the coolies' backs. The pressure of the pole for long years, day after day, has made hard red scars, and sometimes even there are open sores, great sores without bandages or dressing that rub against the wood; but the strangest thing of all is that sometimes, as though nature sought to adapt man for these cruel uses to which he is put, an odd malformation seems to have arisen so that there is a sort of hump, like a camel's, against which the pole rests. But beating heart or angry sore, bitter rain or burning sun notwithstanding, they go on eternally, from dawn till dusk, year in year out, from childhood to the extreme of age. You see old men without an ounce of fat on their bodies, their skin loose on their bones, wizened, their little faces wrinkled and apelike, with hair thin and grey; and they totter under their burdens to the edge of the grave in which at last they shall have rest. And still the coolies go, not exactly running, but not walking either, sidling quickly, with their eyes on the ground to choose the spot to place their feet, and on their faces a strained, anxious expression. You can make no longer a pattern of them as they wend their way. Their effort oppresses you. You are filled with a useless compassion.
In China it is man that is the beast of burden.
“To be harassed by the wear and tear of life, and to pass rapidly through it without the possibility of arresting one's course, —is not this pitiful indeed? To labor without ceasing, and then, without living to enjoy the fruit, worn out, to depart, suddenly, one knows not whither,—is not that a just cause for grief?”
So wrote the Chinese mystic.
