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1-20《经济学家》读译参考

TEXT 1

Rebuilding the American dream machine

重建美国梦机器

Jan 19th 2006 | NEW YORK

From The Economist print edition

FOR America's colleges, January is a month of reckoning. Most applications for the next academic year beginning in the autumn have to be made by the end of December, so a university's popularity is put to an objective standard: how many people want to attend. One of the more unlikely offices to have been flooded with mail is that of the City University of New Y ork (CUNY), a public college that lacks, among other things, a famous sports team, bucolic campuses and raucous parties (it doesn't even have dorms), and, until recently, academi c credibility.

对美国的大学而言,一月是一个清算的月份。大多数要进入将于秋季开学的下一学年学习的申请必须在12月底前完成,因此一所大学的声望就有了客观依据:申请人的多少。纽约城市大学,一所公立学院,与其他学校相比,它没有一支声名显赫的运动队,没有田园诗一般的校园,也没有喧嚣嘈杂的派对——甚至连宿舍都没有,而且,直到最近也没取得学术上的可信度,可就是这所大学的办公室塞满了学生们寄来的申请函,这简直有些令人难以置信。

A primary draw at CUNY is a programme for particularly clever students, launched in 2001. Some 1,100 of the 60,000 students at CUNY's five top schools receive a rare thing in the costly world of American colleges: free education. Those accepted by CUNY's honours programme pay no tuition fees; instead they receive a stipend of $7,500 (to help with general expenses) and a laptop computer. Applications for early admissions into next year's programme are up 70%.

城市大学主要吸引人的地方在于它为从2001年开始为聪明过人的学生所设立的培养计划。6万名城市大学的五所顶尖学院学生中,约有1100人能得到“免费教育”,这在花费巨大的美国大学界可是一件稀罕事。被纳入城市大学荣誉计划的学生无需支付学费,相反,他们还获得一份7500美元的定期生活津贴(用于补助日常开销)以及一本笔记本电脑。这所学校申请尽早被批准进入下一学年计划的学生达到了70%。

Admission has nothing to do with being an athlete, or a child of an alumnus, or having an influential sponsor, or being a member of a particularly aggrieved ethnic group—criteria that are increasingly important at America's elite colleges. Most of the students who apply to the honours programme come from relatively poor families, many of them immigrant ones. All that CUNY demands is that these students be diligent and clever.

批准与否跟学生是不是一名运动员,或者是不是校友子弟,或者有没有颇具影响力的后台,或者是不是某个爱打抱不平的民族社团成员,都毫无干系——而这些在美国的知名学府中已经日益成为重要标准。申请加入荣誉计划的学生大多数来自相对贫困的家庭,其中许多人都是移民。城市大学唯一需要的就是这些学生必须勤奋并且聪颖。

Last year, the average standardised test score of this group was in the top 7% in the country. Among the rest of CUNY's students averages are lower, but they are now just breaking into the top third (compared with the bottom third in 1997). CUNY does not appear alongside Harvard and Stanford on lists of America's top colleges, but its recent transformation offers a neat parable of meritocracy revisited.

去年,城市大学学生的标准化考试平均分位居全美最高分的7%之列。城市大学其他学生平均分较低,但是他们即将冲进前三名(相比1997年的倒数前三名)。城市大学无法与哈佛和斯坦福这样的美国顶尖学校比肩,然而他们新近的转变让我清楚地领略到实力主义的再现。(这一段请高手参详)

Until the 1960s, a good case could be made that the best deal in American tertiary education was to be found not in Cambridge or Palo Alto, but in Harlem, at a small public school called City College, the core of CUNY. America's first free municipal university, founded in 1847, offered its services to everyone bright enough to meet its gruelling standards.

20世纪60年代以前,有一个很好的例子可以拿来说一说,那就是美国高等教育管理最好的并不在剑桥大学或者是Palo Alto大学,而是在哈莱姆(黑人住宅区),在一所名叫城市大学的公立学校里,也就是纽约城市大学的核心地。美国第一所市立免费大学创建于1847年,它为任何聪明才智足以应付其严格入学标准的人提供服务。

City's golden era came in the last century, when America's best known colleges restricted the number of Jewish students they would admit at exactly the time when New Y ork was teeming with the bright children of poor Jewish immigrants. In 1933-54 City produced nine future Nobel laureates, including the 2005 winner for economics, Robert Aumann (who graduated in 1950); Hunter, its affiliated former women's college, produced two, and a sister branch in Brooklyn produced one. City educated Felix Frankfurter, a pivotal figure on the Supreme Court (class of 1902), Ira Gershwin (1918), Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine (1934) and Robert Kahn, an architect of the internet (1960). A left-wing place in the 1930s and 1940s, City spawned many of the neo-conservative intellectuals who would later swing to the right, such as Irving Kristol (class of 1940, extra-curricular activity: anti-war club), Daniel Bell and Nathan Glazer.

城市大学的黄金时代开始于上个世纪,那时美国最知名的大学都限制犹太人学生入学,当时纽约到处都是贫苦的犹太移民的聪明孩子。1933年到1954年之间,城市大学培养出了9个后来获得诺贝尔奖的人,其中包括2005年经济学奖获得者罗伯特?奥曼(毕业于1950年)。城市大学前附属女子学院则培养出两名诺贝尔奖获得者,而其在布鲁克林的一所分校也培养出一名。城市大学还培养出了最高法院的关键人物费利克斯?法兰克福(1902届)、埃拉?格什温(1918届)、天花疫苗发明者乔纳斯?索尔克(1934届)以及互联网设计者罗伯特?卡恩(1960届)等人。20世纪三、四十年代,城市大学作为左翼分子活动区,城市大学孕育了许多新保守主义知识分子,他们后来都转向了右翼,比如欧文?克里斯托(1940届,校外活动积极分子,参加过反战俱乐部)、丹尼尔?贝尔和内森?格雷泽。

What went wrong? Put simply, City dropped its standards. It was partly to do with demography, partly to do with earnest muddleheadedness. In the 1960s, universities across the country faced intense pressure to admit more minority students. Although City was open to all races, only a small number of black and Hispanic students passed the strict tests (including a future secretary of state, Colin Powell). That, critics

not enough, and in 1969 massive student protests shut down City's campus for two weeks. Faced with upheaval, City scrapped its admissions standards altogether. By 1970, almost any student who graduated from New Y ork's high schools could attend.

哪里出问题了呢?简单点说,就是城市大学降低了它的标准。这一部分与人口统计有关,一部分与憨头憨脑的热忱有关。20世纪60年代,全美的大学都面临着招收少数民族学生的强大压力。尽管城市大学对各色人种都敞开校门,但也只有少数黑人和拉丁美洲裔学生能通过严格的测试(其中包括后来成为国务卿的科林?鲍威尔)。持批评意见的人士断定,这不符合城市大学“服务于全纽约市民”的宗旨。起初,入学标准作了调整,但仍不够。1969年,学生大规模的抗议让城市大学停课两周。面对突如其来的变化,城市大学彻底废除了所有入学标准。到1970年,几乎所有纽约高等中学毕业的学生都可以进入城市大学学习。

The quality of education collapsed. At first, with no barrier to entry, enrolment climbed, but in 1976 the city of New Y ork, which was then in effect bankrupt, forced CUNY to impose tuition fees. An era of free education was over, and a university which had once served such a distinct purpose joined the muddle of America's lower-end education.

可是,教育质量却因此骤然下降。一开始,由于没有入学限制,报名上学的人数不断攀升,但到了1976年,实际上已经陷入破产困境的纽约市,逼迫城市大学征收学费。免费教育的时代终结了,一所曾经有如此独特办学取向的大学从此成了美国低端教育的乌合之众。

By 1997, seven out of ten first-year students in the CUNY system were failing at least one remedial test in reading, writing or maths (meaning that they had not learnt it to high-school standard). A report commissioned by the city in 1999 concluded that “Central to CUNY's historic mission is a commitment to provide broad access, but its students' high drop-out rates and low graduation rates raise the question: …Access to what?? ”

直到1997年,城市大学系统的新生十之有七未能通过阅读、写作和数学中至少一门加试(亦即他们还未达到高中标准)。1999年纽约市府发布的一项报告总结认为,“纽约城市大学历史性使命的核心是承担面对大众的教育义务,但是学生的高退学率和低毕业率引发了这样一个问题:‘提供什么教育?’”。

Using the report as ammunition, profound reforms were pushed through by New Y ork's then mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, and another alumnus, Herman Badillo (1951), America's first Puerto Rican congressman. A new head of CUNY was appointed. Matthew Goldstein, a mathematician (1963), has shifted the focus back towards higher standards amid considerable controversy.

纽约市当时的市长鲁道夫?丘里安尼以及同样是城市大学校友(1951届)的美国第一名波多黎各裔议员赫尔曼?巴蒂洛,利用该报告为导火索,对城市大学进行了深入改革。一名新校长上任,他叫马修?高德斯坦,是一名数学家。他把争议的焦点重新引回到了更高的入学标准之上。

For instance, by 2001, all of CUNY's 11 “senior” colleges (ie, ones that offer full four-year courses) had stopped offering remedial education. This prompted howls from the teaching faculty, who said it would “create a ghetto-like separation between levels of colleges”, keeping black and Hispanic students out of the best schools. In fact, the racial composition of the senior schools, monitored obsessively by critics, has remained largely unchanged: one in four students at the senior colleges is black, one in five is Latino. A third have ties to Puerto Rico, Jamaica, China and the Dominican Republic.

例如,到2001年,所有城市大学的“高级学院”(亦即提供全部四年培养课程的学院)停止提供加试教育,随即引起了教师们的强烈不满,他们认为这将“造成学院不同水平学生之间如犹太人区一般的分裂”,并将黑人和拉丁美裔学生拒之门外。事实上,批评家们一直关注着,高级学院学生的种族构成大部分保持不变:高级学院学生中黑人占四分之一,拉丁美裔人占五分之一,还有三分之一是波多黎各、牙买加、中国和多米尼加人后裔。

Admissions standards have been raised. Students applying to CUNY's senior colleges now need respectable scores on either a national, state or CUNY test, and the admissions criteria for the honours programme are the toughest in the university's history. Contrary to what Mr Goldstein's critics predicted, higher standards have attracted more students, not fewer: this year, enrolment at CUNY is at a record high. There are also anecdotal signs that CUNY is once again picking up bright locals, especially in science. One advanced biology class at City now has twice as many students as it did in the late 1990s. Last year, two students, both born in the Soviet Union, won Rhodes scholarships, and a Bronx native who won the much sought-after Intel Science Prize is now in the honours programme.

入学标准提高了,申请进入城市大学高级学院学习的学生如今需要在全国、州或者城市大学考试中取得优异成绩,而荣誉计划的纳入标准则成为该大学有史以来最为严厉的一项标准。与高德斯坦先生预期的恰恰相反,更高的入学标准吸引了更多的学生,而非更少:今年,报名人数又创新高。也有小道消息称,城市大学正在再一次挑选聪明的当地居民,尤其是在科学方面。它的一门高级生物学目前上课人数是20世纪90年代末期的两倍。去年,两名均出生于前苏联的学生荣获罗兹奖学金(译者注:一个获得按塞西尔?罗兹的遗嘱设立的奖学金的学生,该奖允许他在牛津大学入学攻读两或三年的时期),一名布朗克斯区(译者注:美国纽约市的行政区,位于曼哈顿北部大陆,纽约东南部。曾为荷兰西印度公司工作的一个丹麦人,琼纳斯?布朗克最早定居,该地区于1898年成为大纽约的一部分。)出生的学生则荣获许多人梦寐以求的因特尔科学奖,现已获准进入荣誉计划。

All this should not imply that CUNY is out of the woods. Much of it looks run down. CUNY's annual budget of $1.7 billion has stayed largely unchanged, even as student numbers have risen. With New Y ork City's finances still precarious, city and state support for the university has fallen by more than one-third since 1991 in real terms. It has, however, begun to bring in private money.

如此种种,并不表示纽约城市大学已经走出泥潭。很多方面都在每况愈下。即便学生人数增加了,该大学每年17亿美元的预算仍未能得到较大改观。由于纽约市财政仍旧不稳定,市府和州府资助自1991年以来已经下降了超过三分之一。然而,学校已经开始从私人那里赚取资金。

A new journalism school will open in the autumn, helped by a $4m grant from the Sulzberger family, who control the New Y ork T imes, and led by Business Week's former editor, Steve Shepard (class of 1961). Efforts to raise a $1.2 billion endowment have passed the half-way

H ungarian immigrant, donated $26m (about 30% of City's operating budget) to the engineering school, calling his alma mater “a veritable American dream machine”.

由于得到《纽约时报》老板苏尔兹伯格家族400万美元的赞助,在《商业周刊》前任编辑史蒂夫?谢巴德(1961届学生)的牵头下,一所新办的新闻学院将于秋季开学。在一些校友(此前与学校较为疏远)的帮助下,募集12亿美元捐赠的行动已经成功了一半。1960年毕业、曾经身无分文的匈牙利移民、因特尔公司前任主席安德鲁?格罗夫向工程学院捐赠了2600万美元(约相当于大学预算的30%),并称赞他的母校是“一部真正的美国梦机器”。

There are broader lessons to draw from CUNY, esp ecially to do with creating opportunities in higher education for the poor. Currently, only 3% of the students in America's top colleges come from families in the lowest income quartile and only 10% from the bottom half, according to a study by Anthony Carnevale and Stephen Rose for the Century Foundation. Most students are relatively well-off, and their numbers include plenty of racial minorities who receive preferential status independent of their economic circumstances.

纽约城市大学还有很多的经验值得我们学习,尤其是关于在高等教育中为穷人创造机遇方面。根据安东尼?卡内瓦和斯蒂芬?罗斯的一项“世纪基金”研究,目前美国顶尖大学的学生中仅有大约3%来自低收入家庭,而且仅有10%来自中等收入以下的家庭。大多数学生家境相对较好,其中包括许多不受经济条件约束、享受特权的许多少数民族学生。

For all its imperfections, CUNY's model of low tuition fees and high standards offers a different approach. And its recent history may help to dispel the myth that high academic standards deter students and donors. “Elitism”, Mr Goldstein contends, “is not a dirty word.”

对城市大学所有不完善的方面而言,它关于低学费和高标准的模式为我们展示了一个与众不同的教育方法,而且,该大学新近发展进程也许有助于打破这样一个谬论,那就是学校高标准会让学生以及捐助者们望而却步。高德斯坦先生坚持认为,“杰出人物统治论这个词并不难听。”

TEXT 2

Here be dragons

龙来了

Jan 26th 2006

From The Economist print edition

Google, the internet search engine that has grown into a corporate giant, began operations in China on January 25th. Though critics suggest it has betrayed its own motto - “don't be evil” - by agreeing to censor certain sites, Google maintains it will do more good than harm

已经成为公司巨人的国际互联网搜索引擎——Google,1月25日启动了在中国的业务。尽管评论家认为,Google违背了自己的箴言——“别干坏事”,因为它同意对一些特定的站点进行审查,但Google公司坚持认为这样一来将利大于弊。

IN 2001 human-rights activists in China crowed that a little-known search engine called Google was the most important tool ever created to skirt state censors. Users could retrieve content that Beijing banned by clicking to call up a “cached” copy of the web page, stored by Google. Soon, however, Google itself was being sporadically blocked. The firm was instructed to deactivate that particular feature, and for a short time its web address was even re-routed by Chinese network operators to the website of a local rival.

2001年,一种鲜为人知的、名叫Google的搜索引擎成为那时被用来避开国家审查的最重要工具。中国人权激进分子为此而幸灾乐祸。用户可以通过点击打开由Google存储的“缓冲存储”网页备份,从而重新获得被政府封杀的相关内容。不过,Google公司自己很快也被不定期关闭。该公司接到通知,要求它取消那种特定功能,并且中国网络运营者甚至曾一度将该公司的网址链接改到一家中国本地搜索引擎(google的竞争对手)上。

The continual cat-and-mouse game ended this week when Google, now a corporate giant, entered the dragon?s den. On January 25th the search engine “https://www.sodocs.net/doc/34348452.html,” began operations. It is a first step towards beefing up the company?s local presence, which will al so mean placing computer-servers in the country. This will speed up service for mainland users, who otherwise must penetrate the great firewall of China, which dramatically slows down access to https://www.sodocs.net/doc/34348452.html,.

本周,当现已成为公司巨人的Google进入了“中国龙潭”,长久以来的猫捉老鼠游戏也就结束了。1月25日,中文搜索引擎“https://www.sodocs.net/doc/34348452.html,”开始运行。这是公司为加强本地化实力所迈出的第一步,也意味着公司即将把计算机服务器放到中国了,如此一来可以加快为中国大陆用户的服务速度,此外也必然会穿越中国巨大的防火墙——这面防火墙大大减慢了用户登录Google的速度。

Having local infrastructure gives an advantage to Google?s search-engine riv als, such as China?s https://www.sodocs.net/doc/34348452.html, (which enjoys around 40% of the Chinese search market, compared with Google?s 30%), and Yahoo! and Microsoft?s MSN, which have local Chinese operations. Chin a?s internet market, with more than 100m users, is one of the fastest-growing and most lucrative in the world. Can Google—with its motto “don?t be evil”—do business in China without betraying its soul?

中国地方政府部门倾向于支持Google在搜索引擎方面的竞争对手,比如中国百度(大约占中国搜索业市场的40%份额,而Google 为30%),以及在中国内地都有业务的雅虎、微软的MSN。拥有1亿用户的中国互联网市场是全球发展最快、最富利润的市场之一。以“别干坏事”自诫的Google公司,用不着自食其言,能在中国做成生意吗?

The company is making a concerted effort to do just that. It has reached an agreement with the Chinese authorities that allows it to disclose to users, at the bottom of a list of search results, whether information has been withheld. This is similar to what the company does in other countries where it faces content restrictions, such as France and Germany (where Nazi sites are banned), and America (where it removes material that is suspected of copyright infringement). Although the disclosure is more prominent on these western sites, putt ing such a message on its Chinese site is an important step towards transparency and, furthermore, is something its rivals do not do.

Google公司正齐心协力,就是为了“自食其言”。他们已经与中国政府达成共识,允许其搜索结果列表底部信息向用户开放,无论是否属于禁止范围。这类似于该公司在其他一些同样面临内容限制的国家中的做法,比如法国和德国(禁止纳粹站点)以及美国(疑

化迈出的重要一步,更为甚者,这也是某种其中国对手无法办到的事情。

Furthermore, Google is tiptoeing into the country with only a handful of services. It is not offering e-mail, blogging or social-networking services, because it worries that it will not be able to ensure users? privacy. It wishe s to avoid the situation in which MSN and Y ahoo! find themselves, whereby they are forced to obey the Chinese government?s orders in censoring content and revealing users? identit ies. Rather than be placed in a position where it may have to compromise its values, Google instead is narrowing what it offers (although its news service will contain only government-approved media sources).

而且,Google只须提供很有限的服务,就悄悄地进入了中国市场。由于担心无法确保可以保护用户隐私,该公司并不提供电子邮件、博客以及社交网络服务。Google公司希望自己不会落入MSN和雅虎如今的境地——这两家公司不得不遵守中国政府关于内容审查和泄露用户身份方面的规定。Google公司目前的处境并不损及其自身利益,相反还缩减了支出费用(虽然其提供的新闻服务内容来源仅限于政府认可的新闻媒体)。

Google believes that entering China, even with restraints on content, lets it offer more information than if it remained outside. Yet the decision comes as American internet firms such as Y ahoo! and MSN duck criticism that they are complicit with the Chinese authorities. Google相信,进入中国,无论诸多内容限制,仍令其能提供比以往更多的信息。不过,当雅虎、MSN这些美国互联网公司纷纷回避那些指责他们与中国政府串通一气的言论时,Google公司终于下了决心。

Meanwhile in America

For Google, taking the higher road happens to also be a way to differentiate its service. This month America?s Department of Justice went to court to force Google to comply with a subpoena seeking more than 1m web addresses and a weeks? worth of all users? searches (down from an original demand of every web address it holds and two months of searches), albeit without any information that would ident ify individual users. The government wants the data in order to examine the effectiveness of software filters to block pornography, for a case involving a law prohibiting the content, which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional.

美国国内反响

对于Google而言,向更高目标进发恰好也是一种让服务多样化的途径。1月,美国司法部通过法庭勒令Google公司履行之前法院发出的传票,提供一百多万个网址以及所有用户数周的使用搜索引擎记录(亦即……和两个月的搜索情况),不过不需要确认个人用户身份的相关信息。美政府之所以要这些数据,是想要检验一下打击网络色情的软件滤过性能,

The government requested, and received, information from Y ahoo!, MSN and AOL—all of which initially stonewalled about whether they disclosed the data. Y et Google resisted, arguing that “acceding to the request would suggest it is willing to reveal informat ion about those who use its services. This is not a perception that Google can accept.” The day the subpoena was made public, Google?s shares dropped almost 9%, its largest single-day decline since it began trading in 2004.

美政府要求并业已收到了来自雅虎、MSN以及AOL提交的材料,这些公司起初对是否公布有关数据有些举棋不定。不过,Google 公司最终还是予以了拒绝,并称“谁要是同意按要求去做,就表面谁愿意泄露其用户的隐私。Google对此感到不可思议。”传票公布于众的当天,Google的股价几乎下跌了9%,创下2004年上市以来最大单日跌幅。

Google?s stance could put commercial pressure on its rivals to adopt more customer-friendly policies, and may serve as a warning to other internet firms to treat customers? data with more care. Y et such high-mindedness will be tested as Google enters China. Keeping its options open, the company is not shutting down the Chinese-language version of https://www.sodocs.net/doc/34348452.html,. It will remain available, for those willing to wait a bit longer for their uncensored search results.

从商业上看,Google公司这一态度有可能迫使其竞争对手采取更有益于用户的政策,并且会提醒其他互联网公司在对待用户数据时要更为谨慎。然而,在Google进驻中国后,它的这种高尚品格将受到考验。Google并未关闭https://www.sodocs.net/doc/34348452.html,的中文界面,仍然保持着其可选性,如此一来,对于那些想搜索到未经审查的信息而宁愿网速慢一些的用户而言,仍然有路可寻。

TEXT 3

Food firms and fat-fighters

食品公司与减肥斗士

Feb 9th 2006

From The Economist Global Agenda

Five leading food companies have introduced a labelling scheme for their products in the British market, in an attempt to assuage critics who say they encourage obesity. But consumer groups are unhappy all the same. Is the food industry, like t obacco before it, about to be *engulfed[1] by a wave of lawsuits brought on health grounds?

五家业内领先的食品公司采取了一项方案,就是在其投入英国市场的食品上作出标注,力图堵住那些说他们鼓励肥胖的批评人士的嘴。不过,消费者团体仍然不开心。食品业会像之前的烟草一样,被卷入一场关乎健康的诉讼之中吗?

KEEPING fit requires a combination of healthy eating and regular exercise. On the second of these at least, the world?s food companies can claim to be setting a good example: they have been working up quite a sweat in their attempts to fend off assaults by governments, consumer groups and lawyers who accuse them of peddling products that encourage obesity. This week saw the unveiling of another indust ry initiative: five leading food producers—Danone, Kellogg, Nestlé, Kraft and PepsiCo—introduced a labelling scheme for the British market which will show “guideline daily amounts” for calories, fats, sugar and salt on packaging. The new labels will start to appear on the firms? crisps, chocolate bars, cheese slices *and the like[2] over the next few months. A number of other food giants, such as Cadbury Schweppes and Masterfoods, have already started putting guideline labels on their products.

将健康的饮食习惯和经常性的锻炼二者结合才可以让身体保持健康。至少就第二点而言,全球的食品公司可以说是树立了一个很好

周,食品业的另一举措也公诸于世:五家业内领先的食品厂商——Danone, Kellogg, Nestlé, Kraft以及PepsiCo——在英国市场实施了一项商品标注计划,即在包装上标明卡路里(热量)、脂肪、糖和盐的“每日摄入量指南”。在接下来的几个月里,这些食品公司的土豆条、巧克力棒、干酪片等等包装上将开始出现这类新标注。其它许多食品业巨头如Cadbury Schweppes 和Masterfoods也已经着手在其产品上加入指导性标记。

The food companies say doing this will empower consumers, allowing them to make informed decisions about which foods are healthy. (1)But consumer groups have cried foul. They point out that the Food Standards Agency, a government watchdog, is due to recommend a different type of labelling scheme next month: a “traffic light” system using colours to tell consumers whether products have low, medium or high levels of fat, salt and the like. The food firms, they say, have rushed to introduce their own, fuzzier guidelines first in a cynical attempt to undermine the government?s plan—which they fear might hurt their sales. In consumer tests, the traffic light performed better than rival labelling schemes.

这些食品公司说,这么做可以让消费者在确定何种食品为健康食品时心知肚明。但是消费者团体大声疾呼食品公司此举纯属犯规,他们指出,作为政府监督机构,食品标准局应该在下个月推出一项不同的标注措施——“红绿灯”方法,亦即应用不同颜色,提醒消费者食品的脂肪、糖、盐分等含量是低、中等还是高。他们说,食品公司突然率先采用他们自定的那些模糊指南,是对政府计划的恣意破坏,他们害怕政府的计划会让他们的产品卖不出去。对消费者进行调查后显示,“红绿灯”方法比食品公司的标注方案效果要好。

Nevertheless, the food companies argue that the traffic-light system is too simplistic and likely to scare people away from certain products that are fine if consumed in moderation, or in conjunction with plenty of exercise—which most observers, including the medical profession, agree is crucial for anyone wanting to stay in shape. They also point out that they have competitors to worry about—namely the big supermarket chains with their own-label products. Last April, Tesco, the biggest of these, announced that it was rejecting the traffic-light system in favour of a less stark “signposting” approach. Its rivals fear that adopting colour-coding could put them at a competitive disadvantage.

然而,食品公司辩称,“红绿灯”方法过于简单,某些产品会因此吓跑消费者,而这些产品如果食用适量或者结合充分锻炼,对人都是十分有益的,而且包括医学专家在内的大多数观察人士都认为,这些食品对于任何想要保持好体形的人而言都至关重要。同时,他们还指出,他们要顾及一些竞争者,也就是那些对产品加上各自标注的大型超市连锁店的做法。去年四月,最大一家超市连锁店Tesco宣布,他们反对采用“红绿灯”方法,取而代之的是一种更为灵活的“路标”法。因此,食品公司担心,若采用颜色编码(也就是红绿灯法),会令他们在竞争中处于劣势。

Better labelling has become an important weapon of the food giants? armoury as they f ight back against their critics. In October 2005 McDonald?s, the world?s largest fast-food company, said it would start printing nutritional facts on the packaging of its burgers and fries, including the fat, salt, calorie and carbohydrate content. Before that, information about (2)big-sellers such as the Big Mac, which contains 30g of fat, could only be found on the firm’s website or in leaflets.

在食品业巨头们回击批评意见的过程中,更好的标注方式已经成为他们“武器库”中的一个“杀手锏”。2005年10月1日,世界最大快餐公司麦当劳称,公司将在汉堡包和炸薯条包装上印上营养常识,包括脂肪、盐分、热量以及碳水化合物含量。此前,人们只能从食品公司的网站或宣传品上看到一些销路好的食品有关信息,比如含有30克脂肪的Big Mac。

But labelling is not enough; the food firms know they must also offer healthier fare. McDonald's has introduced salads and fruit to its menus. Kraft and others have brought out low-carbohydrate ranges. Last year, McDonald?s e ven announced a sporty makeover for Ronald McDonald, its mascot clown, in a bid to encourage children to be more active. But some in the industry suspect that consumers are keener on seeing (3)lighter, healthier meals on the menu than they are on actually buying and eating them; such products are not what the industry calls “(4)business builders”. That said, some of Nestlé’s more nutritional products, like its PowerBar range for athletes, enjoy higher margins and growth than its traditional fare.

不过,标注还不够;食品公司清楚,他们还必须生产出更加健康的食品。麦当劳公司已将沙拉和水果引入了它的点餐单之中,Kraft 跟其它公司也制造出了一系列低碳水化合物食品。去年,麦当劳甚至还宣布要对它的小丑吉祥物——麦当劳叔叔进行翻新改造,使其具有运动型外表,以鼓励孩子们更为活泼。但是某些业内人士对此提出质疑,认为消费者更渴望在点餐单上看到不加色素、比较健康的膳食,而不会真地去买来吃;这类食品并非是产业中所谓的“商业增洁剂”。这么说来,雀巢公司生产的某些更富营养的食品,比如运动员专用的PowerBar系列,要比其传统食品能带来更高的利润及增长。

Wobbling all over the world

全球食品业正经受震荡

The pressure on the industry is most acute in America, which leads the world in obesity. The proportion of Americans characterised as overweight has risen steadily from 47% ((5)bad enough in itself) in the late 1970s to around two-thirds, including over 30% who are clinically obese. Fast-food chains? American sales grew from about $6 billion in 1970 to an estimated $134 billion in 2005. Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation”, an influential book attacking the industry, has pointed out that Americans spend more on fast food than they do on higher education, PCs or new cars—worrying, when a single meal at a KFC of less than a pound-weight of food plus a large Pepsi can top 1,600 calories, not far short of the daily intake recommended by the government for adults doing only “light physical activity”.

肥胖人数居世界首位的美国食品业承受的压力最大。上世纪70年代末期,美国人中超重人口所占比例从47%(这个数字本身已经糟糕透了)逐步增长到大约三分之二,其中包括30%以上临床肥胖症患者,而美国快餐连锁店的销售额则从1970年的60亿美元增加到2005年的大约1340亿美元。旨在抨击快餐业、颇具影响力的《快餐国度》一书作者埃里克?施罗瑟曾指出,美国人吃快餐花的钱要比花在高等教育、个人电脑或者买新汽车上的钱多。令他感到担忧的是,在肯德基快餐店光吃一顿不到一磅重的餐点,再喝一大杯百事可乐,摄入热量就可能超过1600卡路里,这比美国政府为仅从事“轻度体力活动”的成人所推荐的每日摄取量并不低多少。(言下之意,一餐就摄取如此多热量,况乎一日三餐?)

(6)Where the United States leads, others are following. In the European Union, up to 27% of men are considered to be obese, and almost a quarter of all children are deemed overweight. Britain, with its love of burgers and packaged meals, is seen as followi ng closest on America?s heels, but the rate of obesity has started to swell on the continent too. Some 11% of the adult population of France were obese in 2003, up from 8% in 1997 (the actual level may be higher still since the figures are based on polls asking people if they are fat, and (7)self-reporting produces underestimates). France has *latched on to[3] the fast-food culture: it is one of the biggest and most profitable European markets for McDonald’s.

凡是有美国带头的地方,别国都会亦步亦趋。在欧盟国家,高达27%的男性被认为患有肥胖症,几乎四分之一的儿童则被认为体重超常。爱吃汉堡包和打包食物的英国被看作是跟美国最贴近的“跟屁虫”,不过其“肥胖队伍”同样开始日益壮大。在法国,成人患肥胖症的比率从1997年的8%一下子增加到2003年的11%(由于统计数主要基于问卷调查,因此实际水平可能更高——自己说自己的情况往往导致低估实际水平嘛)。法国已经领悟了快餐文化的真谛:它就是麦当劳公司在欧洲最大、最赚钱的市场之一。No wonder, then, that the past few years have been bad for food companies (8)in image terms—and terrible for the fast-food lot. Attacks on the industry have changed the psychological climate in which it operates, and they may yet change the legislative climate too. So far, lawsuits brought on health-and-safety grounds have been more of a warning than a general threat. In 2003 a New Y ork judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming that McDonald?s had misled customers into believing that its food was healthy (though the suit was later par tially reinstated). A number of American states h ave passed “common-sense consumption laws” aimed at deterring obesity cases in local courts.

那么,过去这几年食品公司的日子不太好过,而快餐业就更加糟糕。对食品业的抨击,已经带来了人们消费心理上的变化,或许也还将改变立法。迄今为止,基于健康安全的诉讼更多的是一种警醒,而没有对食品业形成真正的威胁。2003年,纽约一名法官驳回了一项诉讼,该诉讼声称麦当劳公司误导了消费者,让他们相信其食品是健康的(尽管该诉讼后来又受到部分复议)。美国一些州还通过了《消费常识法》,旨在让地方法庭拒绝受理肥胖诉讼案例。

Nevertheless, some lawyers still see a similarity between the position of food companies now and that of tobacco companies in the 1960s and 1970s, when private lawsuits paved the way for a co-ordinated attack on “big tobacco” by attorneys-general. Worries about rising obesity rates among children, and fear of subsequent legal actions, have caused companies to (9)scale back their marketing of fatty food and soft drinks to minors.

不过,有的律师仍然察觉到目前食品公司的处境与上世纪六、七十年代时的烟草公司有一定的相似之处。当时,众多个人诉讼为后来各州首席检察官针对“烟草业巨头”发动“协同攻击”铺平了道路。各家食品公司关注到儿童肥胖比例正日益增长,并担心被起诉,已经开始逐步缩减针对未成年人的高脂食品和软饮料的销售。

In several countries, government pronouncements and actions have added to the pressure on the industry. The British governmen t?s push to introduce traffic-light labelling comes in the wake of a hard-hitting report from the House of Commons Health Select Committee, whose chairman said: “The devastating consequences of the epidemic of obesity are likely to have a profound impact over the next century.” In France, a law has been passed to impose a 1.5% tax on the advertising budgets of food companies if they do not encourage healthy eating. The industry may claim, with some justification, that ultimate responsibility for bad diet *rests with[4] the individual, and that the amount of exercise you do is just as important as the amount of food you eat. But as long as governments, lawyers and health campaigners continue to pile on the pressure, it will have to work hard to convince them it is (10)doing its bit to stop people piling on the pounds.

有几个国家政府已经发布有关声明并采取了一些举措,这让食品业感到压力倍增。英国国会下院健康特别委员会一份掷地有声的报告,迫使英国政府开始全力引入“红绿灯”标识方案。该委员会主席说:“肥胖症的流行所引发的破坏性后果很可能会对下个世纪产生深远影响。”法国也已通过一项法律,拟对不宣扬健康饮食的食品公司征收1.5%的广告预算税。食品业也许会略显理直气壮地申辩,不良饮食的根本责任应由消费者个人承担,每个人的运动量同进食多少同样重要。不过,只要政府、律师以及健康饮食倡议人士不停止施压,食品业就必须努力让他们确信,为了不让人们变得越来越胖,它正在尽自己的一份绵薄之力。

注释:

[1]engulf:席卷、吞没、吞噬

[2]and the like: 等等,诸如此类

[3]latch on to: 明白,了解。latch的本义为“抓住,占有,插上插销”。

[4]rest with: 在于,归属于,取决于

抛砖引玉:

(1)本句中cried foul应该如何翻译合适?这句话笔者译为“大声疾呼食品公司此举纯属犯规”妥当否?难道这里cry foul就是比赛场上裁判“喊犯规叫停”?

(2)big-sellers中的seller是销售商还是销售商品?big是指大型的还是销路好的或者其它?

(3)light在这个句子里的意思不应该是“轻的”吧?我猜想应该是“原色的,基色的,浅色的”,您认为呢?

(4)builder是“建造者”还是“增洁剂”?比较专业,请指教。

(5)我思来想去,也找不出比“这个数字本身就已经糟糕透顶”更好的译法了,或许还真有更好的?

(6)Come on, guys! 谁能把这句翻译更为贴切、更为通达呢?

(7)越译越晕,我心里明白这个self-reporting的意思,可是到底怎么表达出来才准确呢?

(8)in image terms,啥意思?我就不抛砖了,免得砸着自己,呵呵!

(9)scale up按比例增加;scale down按比例缩减,那么scale back呢?我想,应该跟scale down 差不多吧?

(10)do one’s bits 我在词典上没有查到相应的短语,不过“bit”一词本身是“少许”之意,我想译为“尽……绵薄之力”应当不坏,您看呢?

TEXT 4

一个关乎标准的问题

Feb 9th 2006

From The Economist Global Agenda

More suggestions of bad behaviour by tobacco companies. Maybe

也许,烟草公司对那些不良行为应多提点建议

ANOTHER round has just been fought in the battle between tobacco companies and those who regard them as spawn of the devil. In a paper just published in the Lancet, with the provocative title “Secret science: tobacco industry research on smoking behaviour and cigarette toxicity”, David Hammond, of *Waterloo University[1] in Canada and Neil Collishaw and Cynthia Callard, two members of Physici ans for a Smoke-Free Canada, a lobby group, criticise the behaviour of British American Tobacco (BAT). They say the firm considered manipulating some of its products in order to (1)make them low-tar in the eyes of officialdom while they actually delivered high tar and nicotine levels to smokers.

烟草公司与那些视其为“魔鬼之子”的人之间刚刚又进行了新一轮的交锋。新近出版的《柳叶刀》刊登了一篇题目颇具煽动性的论文《秘密科研——烟草业开展对吸烟行为和香烟毒性的研究》,作者是加拿大沃特鲁大学的戴维?哈蒙德以及加拿大一个名为“无烟加拿大医师”游说团的两名成员尼尔?科里肖和辛西娅?加拉德。他们对英美烟草公司的行为提出了批评,称该公司拟对某些烟草产品进行处理,企图让监督部门误以为其焦油含量低,而实际上这些产品仍会使得烟民吸收高浓度的焦油和尼古丁。

It was and is no secret, as BAT points out, that people smoke low-tar cigarettes differently from high-tar ones. The reason is that they want a decent dose of the nicotine which tobacco smoke contains. They therefore *pull[2] a larger volume of air through the cigarette when they *draw on[3] a low-tar rather than a high-tar variety. (2)The extra volume makes up for the lower concentration of the drug.

正如英美烟草公司所指出,人们吸低焦油含量香烟的感觉不同于高焦油含量香烟,这在过去和现在都不是什么秘密。这是因为他们需要烟草中含有适量尼古丁,抽低焦油品种的香烟时所吸入的空气含量也因此比抽高焦油品种的香烟时高,(译者注:也就是说,尼古丁含量过高,烟就很难吸,不容易抽得动。)而这高出来的空气含量也弥补了瘾性物质(尼古丁)的不足。

But a burning cigarette is a complex thing, and that extra volume has some unexpected consequences. In particular, a bigger draw is generally a faster draw. (3)That pulls a higher proportion of the air inhaled through the burning tobacco, rather than through the paper sides of the cigarette. This, in turn, means more smoke per unit volume, and thus more tar and nicotine. The nature of the nicotine may change, too, with more of it being in a form that is easy for the body to absorb.

不过,一支点燃的卷烟可是一个复杂的玩意儿,并且空气量增加也会带来意想不到的结果,特别是当我们大口吸烟时往往会很快抽完一支烟,此时所吸入的空气更多来自于燃烧的烟草而非卷烟纸侧。因而,这就意味着每多吸一口空气,就会多吸一口焦油和尼古丁。多数尼古丁都以一种易被人体吸收的形式存在,因此尼古丁的性质也可能发生改变。

According to Dr Hammond and his colleagues, a series of studies conducted by BA T's researchers between 1972 and 1994 quantified much of this. The standardised way of analysing cigarette smoke, as *laid down[4] by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), which regulates everything from computer code to greenhouse gases, uses a machine to make 35-millilitre puffs, drawn for two seconds once a minute. The firm's researchers, by contrast, found that real smokers draw 50-70ml per puff, and do so twice a minute. (4)Dr Hammonds's conclusion is drawn from the huge body of documents disgorged by the tobacco industry as part of various legal settlements that have taken place in the past few years, mainly as a result of disputes with the authorities in the United States.

据哈蒙德医生及其同事们称,英美烟草公司的研究员已于1972年到1994年间通过一系列研究对上述大部分问题进行了定量检测。卷烟烟尘分析的标准方法,是由国际标准化组织(ISO,该组织可对包括计算机代码和温室气体在内的所有问题作出规定)制定的,此法利用一台机器喷发出35毫升的烟雾,受试者每分钟吸一次、每次持续2秒即可吸完。以此为对照,英美公司研究员发现,真正的烟民每分钟2次即可吸完50至70毫升烟雾。哈蒙德医生是从烟草业提供的大量文献中得出这一结论的。过去几年烟草业与美国当局一直僵持不下,遂签署了各类法律协议。作为其中的一项内容,烟草业被迫拱手交出这些文献。

Dr Hammond suggests, however, the firm went beyond merely investigating how people smoked. A series of internal documents from the late 1970s and early 1980s shows that BA T at least thought about applying this knowledge to cigarette design. A research report from 1979 puts it thus: “There are three major design features which can be used either individually or in combination to manipulate de livery levels; filtration, paper permeability, and filter-tip ventilation.” A conference paper from 1983 says, “The ch allenge would be to reduce the mainstream nicotine determined by standard smoking-machine measurement while increasing the amount that would actually be absorbed by the smoker”. Another conference paper, from 1984, says: “(5)We should strive to achieve this effect without appearing to have a cigarette that cheats the league table. Ideally it should appear to be no different from a normal cigarette...It should also be capable of delivering up to 100% more than its machine d elivery.”

不过哈蒙德医生表示,英美公司所调查的不仅仅人们的吸烟方式。英美公司上世纪70年代末、80年代初的一系列内部文献表明,该公司至少曾考虑过将这一知识用于卷烟设计。1979年的一份研究报告上这样说道:“可分别或联合应用与设计有关的三个要素,即过滤、烟卷包装纸的通透性以及过滤嘴的通气效果,来控制焦油和尼古丁的释放水平。”1983年一份会议论文也提到,“关键在于,要在提高吸烟者尼古丁实际吸收量的同时,减少可被标准检测方法测定到的含量。”1984年另一份会议论文说:“我们应当努力达到这一效果并能在检测中蒙混过关。理想化的结果是,这种香烟看上去应与一般香烟无任何差异……并且释放的尼古丁及焦油量要比机器释放的高出100%。”

None of the documents discovered by the three researchers shows that BAT actually did redesign its cigarettes in this way, an d the firm denies that it did. However, BA T's own data show that some of its cigarettes delivered far more nicotine and tar to machines which had the characteristics of real smokers than to those which ran on ISO standards. In the most extreme example, in a test carried out in 1987, the “real

intake was only 27% higher.

三名研究人员发现的文献中没有一篇表明英美公司确曾采用这种方法对其生产的卷烟进行了改良,而且该公司也矢口否认这么干过。英美公司内部资料显示,其生产的某些卷烟向机器(具有实际吸烟者特征)释放的尼古丁和焦油量远远超出ISO标准。最为极端的例子是,在1987年进行的一项实验中,“真吸烟”机器从Player's Extra Light牌卷烟中吸收的尼古丁和焦油量比ISO仪器实际检测到的量分别高出86%和114%,而烟雾摄入量仅高27%。

(6)Regardless of how this [b][color=#0000FF]*came about[5], the irony is that low-tar brands may have ended up causing more health problems than high-tar ones.[/color][/b] As one of BA T's medical consultants put it as early as 1978, “Perhaps the most important determinant of the risk to health or to a particular aspect of health is the extent to which smoke is inhaled by smokers. If so, then deeply inhaled smoke from low-tar-delivery cigarettes might be more harmful than uninhaled smoke from high-tar cigarettes.” The firm, meanwhile, points out that the ISO test has been regarded as unreliable since 1967, and says its scientists have been part of a panel that is working on a new ISO standard.

不管事实真相是怎样的,具有讽刺意味的是,低焦油卷烟竟然比高焦油卷烟可能更有损于健康。正如一名英美公司医学顾问1978年所言,“也许,吸烟者吸烟时的深浅度是危及健康或者健康某一特定方面的最重要决定性因素。若果真如此,从低焦油卷烟中深深吸入的烟对人的危害可能比高焦油卷烟中未被吸入的烟更大。”与此同时,英美公司指出,自1967年以来,ISO的试验一直都被认为是不可靠的。并且言称其公司的科学家们已加入某评估委员会,正在研究制定新的ISO标准。

注释:

[1]Waterloo:在比利时中部靠近布鲁塞尔的城镇,为拿破仑1815年6月18日遭到决定性失败的“滑铁卢”;而在加拿大安达略省东南部和美国衣阿华州东北部各有一座城市,一般译名为“沃特鲁”,以示区分。

[2]pull: 深吸; 对烟或饮料大口的吸或喝

[3]draw on: 吸收

[4]lay down: 规定,制定

[5]come about: 发生

抛砖引玉——请对文中划线短句给出您的译法(对应序号):

(1)make them low-tar in the eyes of officialdom

(2)The extra volume makes up for the lower concentration of the drug.

(3)That pulls a higher proportion of the air inhaled through the burning tobacco, rather than through the paper sides of the cigarette. (4)Dr Hammonds's conclusion is drawn from the huge body of documents disgorged by the tobacco industry as part of various legal settlements that have taken place in the past few years, mainly as a result of disputes with the authorities in the United States.

(5)We should strive to achieve this effect without appearing to have a cigarette that cheats the league table.

(6)Regardless of how this came about, the irony is that low-tar brands may have ended up causing more health problems than high-tar ones.

TEXT 5

Stuff of dreams

梦想的精粹

Feb 16th 2006 | CORK AND LONDON

From The Economist print edition

(译者注:本文是关于画展的评论。)

Two exhibitions show how a pair of 18th-century painters, James Barry and Henry Fuseli, inspired the modern visual ★romance with[1] the gothic

两个画展展示的是,两位18世纪画家——詹姆斯?巴里和亨利?富塞利——如何唤起了现代人从视觉上对哥特式艺术的憧憬。

THIS spring the bad boys of British art are ★making a comeback[2]. Not Damien Hirst and his friends, but the original ★enfants terribles[3]—★Henry Fuseli[4] (1741-1825) and James Barry (1741-1806)—who aimed, above all, to depict extremes of passion and terror in what they called the new art of the Sublime.

今春,英国艺术界的坏孩子再次粉墨登场了。我们说的不是达米恩?赫斯特和他的朋友们,而是亨利?富塞利(1741-1825)和詹姆斯?巴里(1741-1806),这两位“莽撞少年”的始作俑者,他们的首要目标就是要用所谓的“新派高尚艺术”去描绘极度激情与恐怖。

Barry and Fuseli are hardly household names; indeed since Victorian times they have been virtually ignored. But in the late 18th century, Fuseli, and for a short time Barry also, were prominent members of the young Royal Academy of Arts (RA) and influential professors of painting there. Barry's ★fall from grace[5] was the most dramatic, but there is much to admire in this irascible Irish artist who, like Fuseli, once taught William Blake. Barry's prolific historical paintings demonstrate his ambition to rival the painters of antiquity and the Renaissance and to practise what the then president of the RA, Sir Joshua Reynolds, always preached—that history painting was the noblest form of art. (1)But Barry found it hard to be bound by rules, and he turned history and myth into a series of ★tableaux[6] that were at once oddly expressionistic and deeply personal.巴里和富塞利这两个名字算不上家喻户晓,实际上自维多利亚时代以来,世人对他们已经不闻不问。不过,在18世纪晚期,富塞利曾经是早期皇家美术学院(RA)的杰出会员和颇具影响力的画师,巴里曾一度也是如此。巴里的失宠于众最富于戏剧性,但跟富塞利一样曾给威廉?布莱克传授过技艺的这位性情暴躁的爱尔兰艺术家,还是拥有许多让人敬佩的地方。他的众多历史性画作都表明,他热望与古代以及文艺复兴时期的画家相抗衡,始终信奉历史画乃是最为尊贵的艺术形式,而这恰恰也是皇家美术学院当时的院长约书亚?雷诺兹爵士所一直倡导的。但是历史画受制于过多约束让巴里感到难以接受,

His melodramatic “King Lear Weeping over the Body of Cordelia”and his sexually charged “★Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida[7]”, now both part of a retrospective of the artist's work in Cork, (2)proved too full of feeling for a British audience raised on portraits and landscape paintings. His only loyal patron was Edmund Burke, who had ★coined[8] a theory of the Sublime.

巴里的情景画《泪洒科蒂利亚亡体的李尔王》以及他那幅洋溢着性爱的《艾达峰上的朱庇特和朱诺》,现已成为科克城(爱尔兰南部港口城市)艺术家作品回顾展的一部分。这两幅画作表明英国观众对肖像画和风景画投注了极大的热情。埃德蒙?伯克是唯一自始至终资助巴里的人,正是他创立了“高尚艺术”理论。

Barry felt he was a persecuted soul, and he painted himself as various ill-fated characters, most bizarrely ★Philoctetes[9], the sailor whom Odysseus abandoned on the island of Lemnos because he smelled so bad. As if that weren't enough, Barry also incited his RA students to revolt and then allegedly accused Reynolds of financial impropriety. When he became too unbearable, Barry became the first artist to be expelled by the academy.

巴里认为自己的灵魂受到了戕害,便将自己画成形形色色充满晦气的人物,其中最为怪异的是菲罗克忒忒斯,那位由于臭气熏天而被奥德修斯抛弃在利姆诺斯岛上的水手。似乎这还不够,巴里还鼓动他在皇家美术学院的学生造反,而且据说后来甚至指控雷诺兹在财政上存在违法问题。巴里变得越来越让人忍无可忍,于是成了第一个被学院开除的艺术家。

Barry knew Fuseli, and (3)he makes a minor appearance in “Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination”, the ★brainchild[10] of an engaging British ★polymath[11], Sir Christopher Frayling, who heads the Arts Council of England and the Royal College of Art. Sir Christopher has long been fascinated by the horror ★genre[12]—he once presented a popular television programme on the topic—and his favourite painting is Fuseli's “The Nightmare”(pictured above), an unsettling image of a sleeping maiden, with an ★incubus[13] ★perched[14] on her stomach and a ★ghoulish[15] horse peering through a curtain.

巴里认识富塞利,作为特邀嘉宾参加了《哥特式梦魇——富塞利、布莱克和浪漫主义幻想》画展。那次画展是由英格兰艺术理事会和皇家艺术学院主席、富于号召力的英国人克里斯托弗?弗雷林爵士策划的。克里斯托弗爵士长期以来痴迷恐怖艺术——曾以此为主题推出一档颇受欢迎的电视节目——他最钟爱的画作是富塞利的《梦魇》(上图),画中描绘的是一位熟睡的女人,腹部上栖息着一个梦淫恶鬼,而布帘后面一匹长得像食尸鬼一般的马正探头窥视,整幅画看了让人感到心神不宁。

Sir Christopher sees this painting, together with Fuseli's scenes from Milton and Shakespeare, as part of a search for national myths in the late 18th century. (4)Indeed, his interpretation illuminates an Enlightenment world that hovered between reason and ★bigotry[16], and where a quasi-scientific interest in the ★occult[17] and the emerging genre of the novel fed a public that was hungry for “tales of wonder”. 克里斯托弗爵士认为,富塞利的这幅画以及取材于密尔顿和莎士比亚作品的那些画作,乃是探寻18世纪民族神话的一部分。事实上,他的这一评注为纠缠在理智与偏见之间的“教化世界”带来了曙光。在这样一个“教化世界”中,对玄妙之事的半带科学性的热诚和涌现出的相关小说流派,让大众对“惊愕故事”的渴求得到了极大满足。

Unlike Barry, Fuseli—a former preacher who was forced to leave his native Zurich—looked rationally at the London art scene. He saw that (5)the only way to compete for “wall power”at the all-important annual exhibition of the RA was to carve out his own niche, the more eye-catching and ★esoteric[18] the better. In 1782 Fuseli exhibited “The Nightmare”for the first time, drawing record crowds of up to 3,000 people a day. Perplexed critics asked what the painting was about. In an age when art was supposed to depict an actual person or event, (6)it came as a shock that this was a painting not of a nightmare, but of the nightmare as a generalized experience.

当过传教士后来被迫离开祖国瑞士的富塞利跟巴里不一样,他较为理智地看待伦敦艺术境况。他发现,要想在至关重要的皇家美术学院年度画展上争取到“支持力量”,只有标新立异,越引人注目、越生涩越好。1782年,富塞利首次展出《梦魇》一作,每天观摩者创纪录地达到3000人。批评家们对画中所要表现的主题感到百思不得其解。在一个艺术被认为应该是描写真人真事的年代,这幅画的诞生让世人感到震惊:它并不单单是对一般恶梦的简单描绘,而是对恶梦体验的一次真实再现。

Interestingly, it was not until 1793 that anyone suggested publicly that the painting of a scantily ★clad[19] woman stretched out on a bed might be about sex. In a post-Freud world, it is impossible to look at “The Nightmare”and see anything else.(7)There is a soft-porn ★perversity[20] about many of Fuseli's muscular super-heroes and ★nubile[21] ★nymphs[22], particularly his Titania from “A Midsummer Night's Dream”. The ★erotic[23] drawings and prints by him and his pupil Theodor von Holst are so explicit that the Tate has hung a veil between them and Fuseli's popular fairy paintings nearby, which are a favourite with children.

有意思的是,直到1793年才有人公开指出,这幅画上的女人几乎一丝不挂地躺在床上,因此可能与性有关。在后弗洛伊德时代,盯着《梦魇》而又不想入非非是不可能的。富塞利画中肌肉结实的超级英雄和含苞欲放的美丽少女,尤其是取材于《仲夏夜之梦》的泰坦尼亚,模糊的色情描绘让人多少有些心慌意乱。由于富塞利及其学生霍尔斯特的素描和版画色情描绘过于直接,泰特美术馆就悬挂起一块幕布,将在这些画与近旁富塞利那些迎合大众的、尤其是孩子们最爱看的仙女画隔开。

Unsurprisingly, Fuseli's work was ★vilified[24] by the V ictorians, and he came back into favour only when the Surrealists—(8)★enthralled[25] by his weird mix of deviance, death and dreams—claimed him as a hero. Today, the artist who bred his own moths in order to depict them accurately in his fairy paintings hangs in the same gallery as those other attention-seekers, Mr Hirst and Tracey Emin; it is almost as if he were their long-lost ancestor.

富塞利的作品遭到了维多利亚女王时代艺术家们的非难,这是意料之中的事。直到超现实主义者――集反社会、死亡、幻想等诡异元素于一身的富塞利令他们着迷――称之为英雄的时候,他这才重新受宠。如今,这位为了准确描绘仙女画中的飞蛾而亲自养殖的艺术家,同其他那些万众瞩目的人如赫斯特、特雷西?艾明一样,也进入了美术陈列室,看上去就像是这些人的鼻祖。

While Fuseli's rehabilitation is admirable, the Tate's obsession with inclusiveness dilutes Sir Christopher's ideas. (9)Viewers are overloaded with ★mawkish[26] pictures that the curators call “Gothic gloomth”, borrowing a phrase from Horace Walpole. Instead of rising to Sir

Friedrich, the Tate has taken a ★parochial[27] view, showing virtually every mediocre British artist who ever ★dabbled[28] in gothic fantasy. Thankfully James Gillray is also there, and his ★biting[29] caricatures lift the spirits.

虽然富塞利的重振旗鼓令人肃然起敬,但坚持包罗万象的泰特美术馆还是弱化了克里斯托弗的观念。众多索然无味的绘画充斥着观众的视野,美术馆长们引用贺瑞斯?沃波尔的一条成语,把这些画称作“哥特式晦暗”。克里斯托弗爵士崇尚的主题广泛,将富塞利、布莱克同包括戈亚、卡斯帕?戴维?弗雷德里希在内的欧洲其他杰出画家有机结合在一起,但泰特美术馆却反其道而行之,几乎展出了所有和哥特式幻想沾点边、不入流的英国艺术家的作品,其眼界之狭窄可见一斑。令人欣慰的是,这里面也包括了詹姆斯?基尔雷,他的讽刺画发人深省,令人精神振奋。

The last room is one of the best.(10)Here Sir Christopher has added his cross-cultural ★hallmark[30]: a series of horror film clips that invoke Fuseli's “The Nightmare”as the ultimate shock-horror icon. And at the exit, Angela Carter's words, “We live in gothic times”, are emblazoned on the wall. The spirit of Barry and Fuseli lives on.

最后一间是最好的展室之一,克里斯托弗爵士的“跨文化”印记在此得以展现,那就是一系列以富塞利《梦魇》为最终惊悚形象的恐怖电影短片。并且,在展室出口处的墙上,安吉拉?卡特的名言“我们生活在哥特式时代”也赫然在目。巴里和富塞利的精神常驻人间。

★★★注释★★★

[1]romance with:对……的迷恋、向往

如:a childhood romance with the sea 儿时对大海的浪漫向往(憧憬)

[2]make a comeback: 恢复、复原(指名誉、地位、知名度、流行性)

如:The film star made an unexpected comeback. 这位电影明星出人意料地复出了。

[3]enfant terrible:莽汉(因其令人惊愕的不合传统的行为、工作或思想而使他人困窘或惊慌的人);复数形式为enfants terribles 如:The radical painter was the enfant terrible of the art establishment.激进派画家是艺术当权派的可怕莽汉

[4]亨利?富塞利,生于瑞士的英国画家,作品包括恶梦(1781年),风格怪诞恐怖,对20世纪二三十年代的超现实主义者有一定影响

[5]fall from grace: 失去天恩,堕落(名誉、地位的贬低)

[6]tableaux: 舞台造型,(由活人扮演的)静态画面、场面

[7]Jubiter:朱庇特(古罗马的保护神);另:木星

Juno::罗马万神庙里最主要的女神,朱庇特的妻子亦是其姐姐,主司婚姻和妇女的安康;

Mount Ida:艾达峰,克里特岛中部一山峰,海拔2,457.7m(8,058英尺)。它是该岛的最高点,在古代它与人们对宙斯的崇拜有密切的相关。

[8]coin:设计,杜撰(新词语)

如:Do not coin terms that are intelligible to nobody.不要生造谁也不懂的词语。

[9]Philoctetes:菲罗克忒忒斯,希腊神话中人物,在特洛伊战争中用其父大力神Hercules所遗之弓和毒箭杀死特洛伊王子Paris的英雄

[10]brainchild:指计划,想法,创作等脑力劳动的创造物

[11]polymath:学识渊博的人

[12]genre:类型,流派(文艺作品)

[13]incubus:阴库巴斯恶鬼,梦淫妖(据说会趁女人熟睡压而在女人身上并与其交配的恶鬼);梦魇;沉重负担

[14]perch:v. 栖息,栖止

如:Birds perched on the branch.鸟停在树枝上。

[15]ghoulish:adj.食尸鬼似的,残忍的ghoul:n.食尸鬼;盗尸者

[16]bigotry:n.固执,顽固,偏见

[17]occult:n.神秘学,神秘之事,玄妙之事

[18]esoteric:adj.深奥的,秘传的,不公开披露的

如:Some words are really too esoteric for this dictionary. 有些单词实在太生僻了,未收入本词典内。

如:The woods on the mountain sides were clad in mist.高山坡上的小树林都笼罩在一片薄雾中。

[20]perversity:n.反常;刚愎,任性;错乱

[21]nubile:adj.适于结婚的,到结婚年龄的;性成熟的

[22]nymph:n.美少女;居于山林水泽的仙女;罗马神话中宁芙女神

[23]erotic:adj.性欲的,好色的,色情的

[24]vilify:v.污蔑;诋毁;诽谤;辱骂

[25]enthrall:v.迷住,着迷

如:The boy was enthralled by the stories of adventure.这孩子被冒险故事迷住了。

[26]mawkish:adj.自作多情的,多愁善感的;令人作呕的,令人厌恶的

[27]parochial:adj.教区的;眼界狭窄的,地方性的

[28]dabble:v.涉水,涉足dabble in:涉猎,涉足;不经意做……

如:She just dabbles in chemistry.她只不过是随便搞一下化学。

[29]biting:adj.尖锐的,尖刻的;刺痛的

如:His remark has a biting edge to it.他的评语非常尖锐。

[30]hallmark:n.标记;特点

如:The sense of guilt is the hallmark of civilized humanity.犯罪感是文明人显而易见的特征。

[31]emblazon:v.用纹章装饰,醒目装饰;颂扬

★★★砖已抛,玉何在?★★★(见文中划线部分)

(1)But Barry found it hard to be bound by rules, and he turned history and myth into a series of tableaux that were at once oddly expressionistic and deeply personal.

(2)proved too full of feeling for a British audience raised on portraits and landscape paintings.

(3)he makes a minor appearance in “Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination”

(4)Indeed, his interpretation illuminates an Enlightenment world that hovered between reason and bigotry, and where a quasi-scientific interest in the occult and the emerging genre of the novel fed a public that was hungry for “tales of wonder”.

(5)the only way to compete for “wall power”at the all-important annual exhibition of the RA was to carve out his own niche, the more eye-catching and esoteric the better.

(6)it came as a shock that this was a painting not of a nightmare, but of the nightmare as a generalized experience.

(7)There is a soft-porn perversity about many of Fuseli's muscular super-heroes and nubile nymphs, particularly his Titania from “A Midsummer Night's Dream”.

(8)enthralled by his weird mix of deviance, death and dreams

(9)V iewers are overloaded with mawkish pictures that the curators call “Gothic gloomth”, borrowing a phrase from Horace Walpole. (10)Here Sir Christopher has added his cross-cultural hallmark: a series of horror film clips that invoke Fuseli's “The Nightmare”as the ultimate shock-horror icon.

TEXT 6

Travelling with baggage

背着行囊去旅行

Feb 16th 2006

From The Economist print edition

(1)FEW modern travel writers excite more hostility and awe than Sir ★Wilfred Thesiger[1], who died in 2003. Despising the “drab uniformity of the modern world”, Sir Wilfred ★slogged across [2] Africa and Asia, especially Arabia, on animals and on foot, immersing himself in tribal societies. He delighted in killing—lions in Sudan in the years before the second world war, Germans and Italians during it. He disliked “soft”living and “★intrusive[3]”women and revered murderous savages, to whom he gave guns. He thought educating the working classes a waste of good servants. He kicked his dog. His journeys were more notable as feats of ★masochistic[4] endurance than as exploration. Y et his first two books, “Arabian Sands”, about his crossing of the Empty Quarter, and “The Marsh Arabs”, about southern Iraq, have a ★terse[5] brilliance about them. As records of ancient cultures on the ★cusp[6] of ★oblivion[7], they are unrivalled.

现代游记作家鲜有人能比2003年去世的威福瑞?塞西格爵士更令人敬畏。威福瑞爵士厌恶这个“单一乏味的现代世界”,于是或兽力或徒步,长途跋涉,穿越非洲和亚洲,特别是阿拉伯半岛,完全将自己沉浸在了部落社会中。在德国人和意大利人参加的二战前的那段岁月里,他住在苏丹,喜欢捕猎狮子。他讨厌“温和”的生活,憎恶“不安本分”的女人,敬重残暴的原始人并向他们赠送

莫若说是因为他那种“受虐狂”的表现。不过,他的头两本著作,一本叙述横穿阿拉伯半岛南部沙漠“空白之地”的《阿拉伯沙地》和另一本描写南伊拉克的《沼地阿拉伯人》,简洁明了地记录了他光辉的旅程。相比湮没于历史深处的那些古文化记载,这样的旅程同样无与伦比。

Sir Wilfred's critics invariably sing the same chorus. They accuse him of hypocrisy, noting that his part-time primitive lifestyle required a private income and good connections to obtain travel permits. They argue that he ★deluded[8] himself about the motives of his adored tribal companions. In Kenya, where he lived for two decades towards the end of his life, his Samburu “sons”are calculated to have ★fleeced him of[9] at least $1m. (2)Homosexuality, latent or otherwise, explains him, they conclude, pointing to the photographs he took of beautiful youths.

非议威福瑞的人从来都异口同声地指责他是伪君子,说他的半原始生活方式少不了私人收入支持,而且要想获得旅行批准,他还得处理好人际关系。他们坚持认为,威福瑞说自己旅行的动机是仰慕部落社会里的同伴,这是自欺欺人。威福瑞晚年曾在肯尼亚生活了二十年,据估算,他在桑姆布鲁部落认养的几个“儿子”至少从他那里骗取了100万美元。批评人士指着威福瑞拍摄的一些漂亮年轻人的照片,断定威福瑞的所作所为完全因为他是同性恋,无论明不明显。

This may all be true, but it does not diminish his achievements. (3)Moreover, he admits as much himself in his autobiography and elsewhere. In 1938, before his main travels, for example, Sir Wilfred wrote of his efforts to adopt foreign ways: “(4)I don't delude myself that I succeed but I get my interest and pleasure t rying.”

也许大家说的都没错,但是这并不会抹杀他的功绩。况且,在他的自传和别的地方,对这些话他并未作任何辩解。比如,他曾写到,1938年在一系列重要旅程开始前利用过外交途径,“到底成功与否,我不想欺骗自己,但是趣味和快乐终究来之不易。”

In this authorised biography, Alexander Maitland adds a little colour to the picture, but no important details. He describes the beatings and sexual abuse the explorer suffered at his first boarding school. Quoting from Sir Wilfred's letters, he traces the ★craggy[10] traveller's devotion to his dead father, his mother and three brothers. At times, Sir Wilfred sounds more forgiving, esp ecially of friends, and more playful than his reputation has suggested.(5)As for his sexuality, Mr Maitland refers ★coyly [11] to occasional “★furtive[12] embraces and ★voyeuristic[13] encounters”, presumably with men. Wearisome as this topic has become, M r Maitland achieves nothing by skirting it; and his allusion to Sir Wilfred's “almost-too precious”relationship with his mother is annoyingly vague.

在威福瑞授权出版的这本传记中,亚历山大?梅特兰也就此添油加醋说了一通,不过没什么引人注目的详细描写。书中记述了这位探险家最初上寄宿学校时曾经遭受的责打和性虐待。梅特兰引用威福瑞信中的话说,这位经历坎坷不平的旅行者热爱自己去世的父亲、母亲还有三个兄弟。威福瑞有的时候似乎要比传言中说的更为宽容,尤其是对朋友,而且也更为顽皮。至于他的性取向,梅特兰只是蜻蜓点水地提到,威福瑞大概曾和男人,偶尔“偷偷摸摸地拥抱一下或者有一点窥淫爱好”。尽管这一话题已经让人感到厌倦,梅特兰若想回避,就只能一无所获。并且,他暗示威福瑞与其母亲的关系“几乎过于做作”,也让人摸不着头脑,厌烦不已。There may be a reason why Mr Maitland struggles for critical ★distance[14] He writes that he and Sir Wilfred were long-standing friends, but he fails to mention that he collaborated with the explorer on four of his books and later inherited his London flat. If M r Maitland found it so difficult to view his late friend and benefactor objectively, then perhaps he should not have tried. An earlier biography by Michael Asher, who ★scoured[15] the deserts to track down Sir Wilfred's former fellow travellers, was better; (6)Mr Maitland seems to have interviewed almost nobody black or brown.

梅特兰力求为威福瑞正名或许是有原因的。他在书中虽然说和威福瑞是多年好友,却对曾与这位探险家合作出版四本书以及后来继承他在伦敦的一处寓所一事只字未提。设若梅特兰自觉难以实事求是地评价他的这位已故至交和恩人,也许他就不应该多此一举。在梅特兰之前也有一篇威福瑞的传记,写得相对就好一些。作者是迈克尔?阿舍,他曾到沙漠中四处寻觅威福瑞以前的旅行同伴,而梅特兰却好象几乎完全是闭门造车。

His book is, however, (7)a useful companion to the explorer's autobiography, “The Life of My Choice”. Hopefully, it will also refer readers back to Sir Wilfred's two great books, and to sentences as lovely as this: “Memories of that first visit to the Marshes have never left me: (8)firelight on a half-turned face, the crying of geese, duck ★flighting[16] in to feed, a boy's voice singing somewhere in the dark, canoes moving in procession down a waterway, the setting sun seen crimson through the smoke of burning reed-beds, narrow waterways that wound still deeper int o the Marshes.”

话说回来,梅特兰的这本书还是对威福瑞自传《我所选择的人生》起到了有益的助阵作用。但愿这本传记也能让读者重新想起威福瑞那两本伟大著作,想起这些动人的语句:“沼泽地的第一次旅行始终萦怀:映照在侧头而望的脸上的火光,群鹅的鸣叫,结对飞入觅食的鸭子,黑暗某处男孩的歌声,顺水而行的独木舟,透过芦苇垫燃烧发出的浓烟看到那绯红的落日,狭窄的河道蜿蜒而入沼泽深处。”

★★★NOTES注释★★★

[1]Wilfred Thesiger:威福瑞?塞西格,毕业于牛津大学,既是一名冒险家,也是一名出色的军人。出生于非洲,大学毕业后他回到了家乡。一生中到过世界上许多人们难以想象的,荒凉的地方,特别是非洲东部地区和中东地区。他的自传《四分之一空间》,《阿拉伯沙地》,影响了一代代旅行作家。

[2]slog:v.艰难行进,长途跋涉;拼命苦干

如:slog across the swamp;沉重缓慢地走过沼泽地

slogged through both volumes. 缓慢吃力地读完了那两卷

slogged away at Latin.苦读拉丁文

[3]intrusive:adj.打扰的,插入的

[4]masochistic:adj.性受虐狂的,受虐狂的

[5]terse:adj.简洁的,简明的(brief and to the point)

[6]cusp:n.尖顶,尖端,尖角

[7]oblivion:n.遗忘,忘却;湮没,埋没

如:to be buried in oblivion被人遗忘

The city has long since passed into oblivion.该市早已湮没。

[8]delude:v.欺骗,蒙蔽(into)=deceive

如:fraudulent ads that delude consumers into sending in money.欺骗顾客花钱的虚假广告

附注——近义词比较:

deceive,betray,mislead,beguile,delude,这些动词都有“通过狡诈的手段把他人导入错误、危险或不利的位置”的意思。1)Deceive是有意隐瞒或歪曲真相的意思:

“There is a moment of difficulty and danger at which flattery and falsehood can no lon ger deceive”(Letters of Junius). “在艰难和危险的时刻,奉承和欺骗不再能蒙蔽人”(朱尼厄斯的信)。

2)Betray含有不忠或背叛的意思:

“When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself” (Isaac Bashevis Singer).

“你背叛别人的时候,你也背叛了你自己”(伊萨艾克?巴谢维丝?辛格)。

3)Mislead意为引入错误的方向或引向错误的思维、行动:

“My manhood, long misled by wandering fires,/Followed false lights” (John Dryden).

“游移的火焰长久地误导,我的成年时期跟随着虚妄的光”(约翰?德莱顿)。

4)Beguile含有通过友好的方法引诱、欺骗的意思:

They beguiled unwary investors with tales of overnight fortunes. To

他们以一夜之间可以发大财的承诺,诱骗了掉以轻心的投资者。

5)Delude指欺骗到一个程度,致使受骗人无法分辨真伪,或做出可靠的判断:

The government deluded the public about the dangers of low-level radiation.

政府欺骗公众,关于低强度辐射的危险性。

[9]fleece:vt. (常与of连用)骗取,诈取(金钱);(原意是指剪羊毛,薅羊毛)

如:They fleeced us of $100 at that hotel.那家旅馆敲了我们一百美元。

[10]craggy:adj.陡峭的,崎岖不平的

[11]coyly:adj.羞怯地;害羞地

[12]furtive: adj.偷偷的;秘密的

如:The man's furtive manner gave rise to the suspicion of the theft among the policemen."那个男人鬼鬼祟祟的样子,引起警察怀疑盗窃案是他作的案。"

[13]voyeuristic:adj.喜好窥阴的

[14]distance:n.分歧,不和,不同意:

如:The candidates could not be at a greater distance on this issue.在这个问题上,候选人之间分歧很大。

[15]scour:vt. 搜索;仔细或彻底的查看:

如:The detective scoured the scene of the crime for clues.那个侦探在犯罪现场仔细搜索线索

[16]flight:vi.成群飞行;迁徙

★★★砖已抛,玉何在?★★★

请您试试文中划线语句的翻译:

(1)FEW modern travel writers excite more hostility and awe than Sir Wilfred Thesiger, who died in 2003.

(2)Homosexuality, latent or otherwise, explains him, they conclude, pointing to the photographs he took of beautiful youths.

(3)Moreover, he admits as much himself in his autobiography and elsewhere.

(4)I don't delude myself that I succeed but I get my interest and pleasure trying.

(5)As for his sexuality, Mr Maitland refers coyly to occasional “furtive embraces and voyeuristic encounters”, presumably with men. (6)Mr Maitland seems to have interviewed almost nobody black or brown.

(7) a useful companion to the explorer's autobiography, “The Life of My Choice”.

(8)firelight on a half-turned face

Bridge across the Bosporus

Feb 23rd 2006

From The Economist print edition

MORE than 80 years after being ★supplanted[1] by the Turkish republic, the Ottoman empire will not die. Bloodshed in the Balkans; Arab and Kurdish nationalism across the Middle East; ★Turcophobia[2] in Armenia; (1)all are echoes of a dynasty that survived for 600 years ▲and whose dominions e____ ①____ from the Danube through the Levant to Algiers. Few historians have dared compress the story of this extraordinary enterprise into a single volume. “Osman's Dream”shows why.

Osman led one of several Turcoman tribes, of Central Asian descent, that were competing for control of Anatolia at the beginning of the 14th century. (The dream in question was interpreted to mean that Osman would found an imperial house; (2)“Ottoman”is the European corruption of his name▲). By the mid-16th century, Osman's descendants had killed off the Byzantine Empire and t____ ②____ its capital, Constantinople (renamed Istanbul), into the world's greatest mosque city. They also had control of the Muslim holy places, Mecca and Medina, in Arabia.

The empire's expansion was driven in part by Islamic notions of a just war against the ★infidel[3], but the Ottomans were also notable for their relative tolerance. Jews fleeing the ★Spanish inquisition[4] were welcomed to Istanbul. Christian converts became key figures in the bureaucracy, armed forces and the ★harem[5]. Even at the empire's peak, however, the tide of history was turning in Europe's f__ ③.___ Challenged by the Europeans' intellectual and military ★prowess[6], hampered by the fiscal ineptitude of its leaders, and powerless to suppress the petty nationalisms that infected its Balkan possessions, (3)the empire began to unravel—at times abruptly, at others imperceptibly. ▲

With her doctorate in the ★fiendishly[7] complex discipline of Ottoman studies, (4)Ms Finkel is ideally placed to make sense of this. ▲But “Osman's Dream”leaves one with the impression that the author's scholarship—she includes a 30-page bibliography—could have been put to better use. Her apparent desire to record every event of significance sometimes r___ ④___ in a dispiriting succession of military campaigns and diplomatic intrigues; (5)one would have preferred a ★pruning[8] of the ★thicket[9] of events and more discussion of what it all means.▲

(6)The author offers glimpses of a more satisfying book. ▲She includes a suggestive aside on the blending of French and Persian inspirations in the Ottoman palace-building of the early 18th century—as good an emblem for the empire's strained multiculturalism as you could wish for. There are ★tantalising[10] allusions to both the fascination and the repulsion which animated the later Ottomans' ★ambivalence[11] t___ ⑤___ Europe. And one wishes that (7)Ms Finkel had developed her intriguing defence of the empire in the 19th century, “multi-confessional, geographically incoherent and economically backward”▲, in the face of demands, on the part of ★impertinent[12] Europeans, that it reform internally.

The limitations of Ms Finkel's approach are most apparent in her ★perfunctory[13] treatment of the empire's final, ★tumultuous[14] years. She deals no more than cursorily with the Armenian massacres during the first world war, preferring to observe that scholarship has suffered from the highly-charged contemporary d___ ⑥___ over whether the killings constitute genocide. This point would have made a worthwhile ★footnote[15].(8) As a substitute for an account of what happened, it is a ★cop-out[16].▲

★★★NOTES★★★

[1]supplant:vt.取代,排挤

如:The word processor has largely supplanted electric typewriters. Word处理程序已很大程度上取代了电动打字机。

It is my view that the new historical disciplines complement rather than supplant traditional history.我认为这些新的历史学科对传统历史学起到了补充而非排挤作用。

▲近义词辨析▲

replace,supplant,supersede

这些动词在用来指把某人或某物辞退或搬走并用他人或他物代替他、她或它时具可比性。

Replace是指成为或提供代替他人或他物的物或人的相等物或替换物,尤其是对已经丢失、耗尽、用竭或被辞退:

“A conspiracy was carefully engineered to replace the Directory by three Consuls” (H.G. Wells).

“细心策划密谋以三个执政官取代督政府”(H.G,威尔斯)。

“I succeed him [Benjamin Franklin, as envoy to France] ; no one could replace him” (Thomas Jefferson).

“我接替他[本杰明?富兰克林,作为派往法国的特使];没有人能够取代他”(托马斯?杰弗逊)。

Supplant通常指用阴谋诡计或卑鄙的手段来取代他人的位置:

“The rivaling poor Jones, and supplanting him in her affections, added another spur to his pursuit”(Henry Fielding). “对抗的可怜的琼斯,以及用她的影响取代他的位置的举动进一步刺激了他的追求”(亨利?费尔汀)。

Supersede 是指用另一个被认为更优秀、更有价值、更有用或者更年轻的人或物代替某人或某物:

“In our island the Latin appears never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech”(Macaulay). “在我们的岛上古老的盖尔语似乎永远被拉丁语所取代”(麦考利)。

“Each of us carries his own life-form—an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other”(Carl Jung).我们每个人都有自己的生活方式-一种无法查明、不能被其它任何一种方式取代的方式”(卡尔?荣格)

[2]turcophobia:n.憎恶土耳其风俗习惯的人, 憎恶土耳其的人

-phobia:后缀;表示“对某一特定事物的强烈的、不正常的或不合逻辑的恐惧”:

如:xenophobia 仇外,惧外;

Americanophobia 对美国(或美洲)文化的憎恶,美国(或美洲)文化仇视心理

Anglophobia反英, 恐英病

technophobia技术恐惧(指对技术对社会及环境造成不良影响的恐惧)

thanatophobia [心]死亡恐怖(症),死亡恐惧(症)

[3]infidel:adj. & n. 不信教的(人);异端的(人)

[4]Spanish inquisition:西班牙宗教法庭,1480-1834年的天主教法庭,以残酷迫害异端著称。1543年将数以万计再洗礼教派教徒在火刑柱上烧死。西班牙国王伊莎贝拉一世创建。

参考文献:https://www.sodocs.net/doc/34348452.html,/200406/ca416233.htm

[5]harem:n.(伊斯兰教国家中的)闺房,后宫;女眷们

[6]prowess:n. 卓越的技能;杰出的才能;本领

如:He is a football player of great prowess. 他是一名技能卓绝的足球选手。

The young student from the theatrical school showed great prowess at acting in the play.这个戏剧学校的学生在这出戏中显示出了非凡的演技。

[7]fiendishly:adv.恶魔似地, 极坏地;

fiendish:adj.极凶的,极大的;极为讨厌或糟糕的

如:a fiendish blizzard 极大的暴风雪 a fiendish problem 极大的难题

[8]prune:vt.(常与down, off, away连用)修剪(树、花木);(常与of连用)删改;删除

如:prune the slang from a speech删去演说中的俚语

[9]thicket:n.密集生长的灌木或矮树;错综复杂,盘根错节

如:the thicket of unreality which stands between us and the facts of life 在我们和生活的现实之间存在着无法穿越的虚幻

[10]tantalise:(美语tantalize)vt.挑逗,逗弄

如:The very thought that a human being would deliberately starve herself for any reason provoked, intrigued, and tantalized the public.(“Psychobiology and Treatment of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa”by Katherine A Halmi)有人认为,不管出于何故,一个人会故意忍饥挨饿。这种想法让公众既生气,又好奇,还有点着急。(凯瑟琳?A?哈尔米《神经性食欲缺乏和易饿病的精神生物学研究和治疗方法》)

[11]ambivalence:n.矛盾心理,双重人格;摇摆,举棋不定(towards)

ambivalent adj.(对人、事物)有矛盾心理的

如:There is an ambivalent feeling towards rural workers.人们对于民工的心情是复杂的。

[12]impertinent:adj.无关的,不切题的;无礼的,鲁莽的

如:He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit.他认为一个奴隶如此多嘴多舌,是不合礼仪的,很显然这个奴隶还很不安分。(“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”by Frederick Douglass)

★近义词辨析★

irrelevant,extraneous,immaterial,impertinent

这些形容词共有的核心意思是“与所考虑的问题没有关系的”

an irrelevant comment; 一句不相干的评语;

a question extraneous to the discussion; 与讨论不相关的问题;

an objection that is immaterial after the fact; 和该事实无关的反对意见;

mentioned several impertinent facts before finally coming to the point.在最后谈到要点之前先说了几个不相关的事实

[13]perfunctory:adj.草率的,敷衍的,马马虎虎的

如:The operator answered the phone with a perfunctory greeting.接线员接通电话,象征性的打了招呼

[14]tumultuous:adj.骚乱的,喧嚣的,吵闹的,无序的;狂暴的

如:These details have also had a tumultuous effect on the nation of Bolivia. (“Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life”by Jon Lee Anderson)这些详细资料也引起了波利维亚的动乱。(乔恩?李?安德森《切?格瓦拉:革命人生》)

[15]footnote:n.(缩写fn.)脚注(放在书或手稿的页底的注释,对文中的标明的一部分加以评论或引出参考书目);无足轻重的事(与某一大的范畴或事件有关但不重要的事)

如:a political scandal that was but a footnote to modern history.一件对现代历史无足轻重的政治丑闻

[16] cop out:逃避,躲开;临阵退缩cop-out n.逃避,自首,托词;违约者

如:Y ou've got to take it up. Don't try to cop out of it by telling me you're too busy!"这件事你一定得做,不要推诿说你忙不过来。" Jimmy was known to the team as a cop-out because he never showed up for important games.(A Concise Collection of College-student’s Slang) 队里都知道吉米是个喜欢临阵脱逃的人,凡是重要比赛都不见他人影。

★★★砖已抛,玉何在?★★★(参见文中带▲标记的部分)

(1)all are echoes of a dynasty that survived for 600 years

(2)“Ottoman”is the European corruption of his name

(3)the empire began to unravel—at times abruptly, at others imperceptibly.

(4)Ms Finkel is ideally placed to make sense of this.

(5)one would have preferred a pruning of the thicket of events and more discussion of what it all means.

(6)The author offers glimpses of a more satisfying book.

(7)Ms Finkel had developed her intriguing defence of the empire in the 19th century, “multi-confessional, geographically incoherent and economically backward”, in the face of demands, on the part of impertinent Europeans, that it reform internally.

(8)As a substitute for an account of what happened, it is a cop-out.

全部译文,欢迎指正,共同交流

博斯普鲁斯大桥

奥斯曼帝国虽已被土耳其共和国取代逾80年之久,但它永远都不会销声匿迹。巴尔干半岛上血流成河,中东弥漫的阿拉伯和库尔德民族主义情绪,亚美尼亚人对土耳其的憎恶,无不显现出一个存续了600年、疆域囊括从多瑙河经黎凡特(地中海东部自土耳其至埃及地区诸国)至阿尔及尔广阔土地的王朝所遗留下来的痕迹。一直以来,几乎没有哪位历史学家能贸然地用一本书来记述这一超凡之事。《奥斯曼之梦》对此作出了解释。

14世纪初,几个从中亚衍生而来的土库曼人部落,为控制安纳托利亚(译者注:土耳其的亚洲部分,一般认为等同于小亚细亚)而干戈相向,此时奥斯曼成了其中一个部落的首领。(曾有人认为奥斯曼的“梦想”就是要兴建一座王宫;“Ottoman”一词是欧洲人在使用奥斯曼名字时的讹误。)到16世纪中叶,奥斯曼的后人消灭了拜占庭帝国,并将其首都君士坦丁堡(后改名为伊斯坦布尔)建设成为世界上最著名的清真寺城市。与此同时,阿拉伯半岛上的穆斯林圣地麦加和麦地那也为其所统治。

伊斯兰教主张发动一场反对异教徒的正义战争,这对奥斯曼帝国的扩张起到了一定的推动作用,但是奥斯曼人同样以善于包容而著称。从西班牙宗教法庭逃离出来的犹太人在伊斯坦布尔受到欢迎,基督教信徒也在帝国官僚机构、武装部队乃至后宫中扮演举足轻重的角色。然而,历史的潮流还是转而朝着有利于欧洲的方向发展,即便是在帝国鼎盛时期也是如此。聪明才智和军事才干不如欧洲人,受制于自身领导人拙劣的财政管理能力,对巴尔干半岛上蔓延的一小撮民族主义分子又无能为力,奥斯曼帝国开始分崩离析——有时会发生一些突如其来的震荡,但多半却在不知不觉中衰微。

芬克尔女士拥有奥斯曼帝国历史研究的博士学位,对奥斯曼曾进行过极为复杂、严谨的研究。从理论上讲,弄清“奥斯曼梦想”的真实含义当然非她莫属。不过,《奥斯曼之梦》一书却让人觉得作者的学识并未得到充分发挥——书后列出了长达30页的参考书目。作者显然希望把所有重要事件都一一记录下来,结果有时无外乎对那些战争和外交阴谋活动的简单罗列,令人味同嚼蜡。其实,我们只需扼要叙述一下那些错综复杂的事件,更多的笔墨应当放在对其意义的讨论中。

相比之前,这本书还是有不少出彩之处。作者在文中特意提到,18世纪初期奥斯曼兴建王宫时,曾融合了法国人和波斯人的灵感——这种糅合再好不过地寓示了奥斯曼帝国牵强的多文化主义色彩。书中引经据典描述了奥斯曼人对外来文化的着迷和排斥,生动再现了奥斯曼人后期对欧洲的矛盾心态,很是引人入胜。芬克尔女士辩解说,对于作为旁观者的欧洲人而言,19世纪的奥斯曼帝国“教义信仰多样化、地域不连贯,甚而经济倒退”,完全是为形势所迫。这一观点令人感到好奇,有人希望芬克尔女士应当进一步展开阐述。(文中的that it reform internally令人匪夷所思,尤其是主语为单数it,而reform又给出复数形式,为什么呢?)

芬克尔的记述方式还是有其局限性的,最明显的是关于奥斯曼帝国末期动荡岁月的描写过于草率。她对第一次世界大战期间亚美尼亚大屠杀一事只是一笔带过,却对当代学术界关于这场杀戮是否等同于种族屠杀的激烈争议详加评述。这一点若作为脚注应当合情合理,可用来取代对事件真相的记述,就只能是一种回避事实的托词而已。

译后小记:

本文是一篇书评,我没有读过《奥斯曼之梦》,对奥斯曼帝国也只是略有所知,因此翻译起来很是艰难。一些语句我不敢擅自意译,生怕理解出错,误入“歧途”。但为了译文通顺,我尽量加入了一些自己的理解,不妥之处望高手支招。[/replyview]

完型填空答案:

[replyview]①extended ②turned ③favour ④results ⑤towards ⑥dispute

TEXT 8

Ready, fire, aim

预备!开火!瞄准!!

Feb 16th 2006

From The Economist print edition

Foreword:A vice-president, a ★quail[1] and the first glimmer of class warfare in hunting

POLITICALGRA VEY https://www.sodocs.net/doc/34348452.html, is (1)a goldmine for both trivia addicts and congenital time-wasters.▲Do you want to find out about American politicians who were killed in duels (17 a______①_____ to the site)? Or about politicians who were murdered (86)? Or politicians who have been to outer space (6)? Or politicians who died while hunting or fishing (14)? Just point and click. But as yet the site doesn't have an entry for politicians who almost kill the poor ★saps[2] they are hunting or fishing with.

对于喜欢捕风捉影的人和那些天生爱好浪费时间的人而言,政治墓园网站(https://www.sodocs.net/doc/34348452.html,)是一个极佳去处。您想知道有多少美国政治家在决斗中丧生吗(该网站认为是17人)?有多少政治家遭谋杀(86人)?有多少政治家曾去过外太空(6人)?又有多少政治家在打猎或钓鱼时不幸身亡(14人)?点击便知。不过迄今为止,有关那些差点杀死同去狩猎或者钓鱼的“可怜虫”的政治家人数,这家网站还没有登记。

No doubt (2)the good people ▲at politicalgraveyard will soon update their site. Ever since Dick Cheney took aim at a quail on February 11th and hit a 78-year-old lawyer i_________②, America has been talking of little else. This is not only because Mr Cheney's tragicomic accident seemed to sum up his style of shooting first and asking questions later (hence a torrent of jokes about Mr Cheney's insistence that he was right to shoot despite the failure to find quail in the bushes). It is also because he handled the incident with astonishing ★ineptitude[3]. 政治墓园网站指定要更新他们的网页了。2月11日,迪克?切尼瞄准一只鹌鹑,结果却击中一位78岁的律师。自那以后美国人无不对此议论纷纷。切尼先生令人啼笑皆非的遭遇,似乎充分表明他惯于先斩后奏(因此这事也一时传为笑柄,都说他有权开枪射击,即便是灌木丛中没有鹌鹑),不过人们关注的焦点并非仅此而已,他在处置这一突发事件中所表现出来的无能也让人感到惊讶。Harry Whittington's wounds were s________③: he was pepper-sprayed in the face, neck, chest and rib cage, and rushed to intensive care. But Mr Cheney didn't bother to tell the public that their vice-president had ★winged[4] a lawyer until the next day (when he got his host to phone her local paper, the ★Corpus Christi[5] Caller-Times) and he didn't give a television interview until February 15th, a day after his v_________④suffered a mild heart attack. As one ally puts it, “(3)Dick is beyond PR.”▲

哈里?惠廷顿伤得不轻,面、颈、胸和胁部都被散弹击中,当时已立即被送往重症救护中心。不过切尼却直到事发次日才不情愿地告知公众,他们的副总统开枪误伤了一名律师(他让牧场女主人打电话给当地的《圣餐号召者时报》透露实情),并且直到2月15日(也就是事发后第四天)才接受电视采访,而此时受害者出现轻微心脏病症状已近一天。正如切尼的一位支持者所说,“迪克没有处理好公共关系。”

The media has ★pored over[6] every aspect of the incident: the fact that Mr Cheney had failed to buy the proper st amp for his licence (he subsequently sent $7 to the requisite authorities); that his host was a lobbyist; that the White House initially tried the st rategy of t________⑤the shooting as a joke. But one thing was almost entirely ignored—(4)the fact that Mr Cheney was spending his weekend slaughtering innocent birds in the first place.▲

媒体对整个事件方方面面都很关注:如切尼的捕猎许可证上缺少一个需要购买的印章(高地猎禽印章——译者注)(他后来已经给管理部门送去了7美元);那个牧场女主人是个政治说客;白宫起初曾试图把这一事件当作笑话来处理。尽管如此,人们还是完全忽视了一个问题——事情归根究底在于切尼周末去打猎了。

In many European countries, no ambitious politician would want to be seen with a hunting rifle in his hands and a ★cuddly[7] animal in his sights. In America, politicians ★go to great lengths[8] to get seen doing just that. The classic example of the shooting photo-op was (5)John Kerry's appearance in rather too ★pristine[9] duck-hunting gear▲in October 2004. But even left-wingers like Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich ★(6)defer to[10] the hunting vote.▲

在许多欧洲国家,没有哪一个胸怀大志的政治家希望别人发现,自己手中拿着一支来福枪,对着视线中某个小生灵。可是在美国,政治家们却想方设法让自己在众人面前露脸。2004年10月约翰?克里站在一架有点土气的跟踪野鸭装置前的照片可谓经典。不过,即使是霍华德?迪恩和丹尼斯?库希尼奇这样的左翼人士,也对狩猎持赞同意见。

And why not? Hunters like to boast that their sport is as American as baseball and apple pie, a tradition shared by young and old, rich and poor, conservatives and l_______⑥. The US Fish and Wildlife Service claims that 80m Americans aged 16 or over—nearly 40% of the adult population—“enjoyed some recreational activity relating to fish and wildlife”in 2001, the latest year for which figures are a__________⑦. About 13m Americans shoot, and they spend some $20.6 billion a year on their pastime. (7)There is a hunting channel.▲There are ★camouflaged[11] Bibles for people who want to read scripture before blasting off. There are also powerful lobbies, from the N ational Rifle Association to the ★Safari[12] Club International. The Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation has more than 300 members.

况且,何乐而不为呢?猎人们不无自豪地说,这项运动跟棒球、苹果点心一样,是一项传统,无论老少、贫富,还是保守或自由人士都喜闻乐见。美国鱼类和野生物部称,2001年首次统计显示,有8000万16岁以上的美国人——约占成人总人数的40%——“喜欢某种与鱼类和野生物有关的娱乐活动”。目前,大约有1300万美国人会打猎,他们每年花掉约206亿美元用于此项消遣。现在,只要你想打猎,就有人给你安排好;还有人为你准备了假《圣经》,让你在开火前能装模作样地诵读一遍;还有一大批有着三寸不烂之舌的说客,有来自全国步枪协会的,也有来自国际狩猎俱乐部的。国会运动员基金会的成员已超过300人。

But(8)the reality is not quite so ★tally ho[13]▲. The proportion of the population that goes hunting has been shrinking for the past 20 years. The number of hunters fell by 7% in the decade ending in 2001; the number of small-game hunters, including quail hunters, fell by 29%. The main cause of this is e__________⑧. Every year America loses 1.5m acres of wildlife habitat and 1m acres of farm and ranchland to development and ★sprawl[14]. But the real worry for hunters is, or should be, class.

不过,实际情况还是有所不同的。近20年来,进行捕猎的人数所占人口比例持续下降,2001年之前的10年内,捕猎人减少了7%,而捕猎小动物如鹌鹑的人数更是减少了29%。这主要是由经济情况造成的。美国每年有150万英亩野生物栖息地和100万英亩农牧场被经济扩张所蚕食鲸吞。然而,真正让狩猎者感到担忧的,还是或者说应该是,捕猎过程中的等级问题。

1、according

2、instead

3、serious

4、victim

5、treating

6、liberals

7、available

8、economics

★★★NOTES注释★★★

[1]quail:n.鹌鹑

vi.(与at, before连用)畏惧;畏缩;沮丧:

如:He quailed at the thought of meeting the President.他对会见总统的打算感到害怕。

[2]sap:n.(俚语)笨蛋,傻瓜;精力,活力;树汁,体液

vi.挖坑道;vt.使衰竭,消耗

[3]ineptitude:n.不称职,不适当的动作(adj. inept)

[4]wing:vt.打伤……翅膀,打中……要害

[5] Corpus Christi:n.【罗马天主教】圣餐节:三一节(星期日)后的第一个星期四、食圣餐的日子

[6]pore over:v.注视,凝视

如:He pored over the classified ads in search of a new job.他仔细阅读分类广告栏以寻找新的工作

[7]cuddly:adj.令人想拥抱的,喜爱抚的

[8]go to great lengths:竭尽全力go to great pains 费大力气

[9]pristine adj.纯洁的,质朴的;古时的,原来的

[10]defer to:v. 服从,遵从(出于尊敬他本人或由于承认他的权威、学识或判断力,听从他的意见,遵从他的愿望,服从他的决定)如:Do you always defer to your parents wishes? 你总是顺从父母的意志吗?

★近义词辨析★

yield,relent,bow,defer,submit,succumb

这些动词都表示让步于不能再反对或抵抗的人或事。

1)Y ield的应用最为广泛:

如:yield to an enemy; 对敌投降;

yield to reason;屈服于理由;

yieldto desire. 屈服于欲望。

“The child . . . soon yielded to the drowsiness”(Charles Dickens). “这孩子…一会儿就支持不住昏昏欲睡了”(查尔斯?狄更斯)2)relent 是指出于对处于自己权威和影响下的人的尊重而缓解某一制度或决定的苛刻或严格:

“The captain at last relented, and told him that he might make himself at home”(Herman Melville). “最后,船长缓和下来,告诉他随便些”(荷曼?麦尔维尔)。

3)Bow表示因失败或通过礼貌而让步:

“Bow and accept the end/Of a love”(Robert Frost). “屈服并接受爱情的结局”(罗伯特?弗罗斯特)

4)defer是指出于尊重或对他人权威、才学或判断的认可而让步:

“Philip . . . had the good sense to defer to the long experience and the wisdom of his father”(William Hickling Prescott). “菲利浦…很明智地在他父亲的丰富经验和智慧面前作出了让步”(威廉姆?希克林?普莱斯哥特)。

5)Submit表示经过无用或不成功的抵抗之后,出于被迫而放弃:

“What must the King do now? Must he submit?”(Shakespeare). “现在国王必须做什么? 他必须投降吗?”(莎士比亚)。

6)Succumb 强烈暗示屈服不可一世的或无法抵抗的事物:

“I didn't succumb without a struggle to my uncle's allurements”(H.G. Wells). “我对叔叔的诱惑未作任何反抗便屈服了”(H.G.威尔斯)

[11]camouflage:vt.伪装,掩饰

如:The military vehicles were camouflaged.军车被伪装起来了。

[12]safari:n.旅行,探险(复数:safaris)

[13] tally n. 符木(古时用,上有刻痕记载交货、欠款等的数量), 记账, 得分, 标记牌, 标签, 符合, 对应物, 计数器

ho:interj.嗬!(用来表示惊讶或高兴以引起注意或催促前行)

如:Land ho! Westward ho!停下!向西!

[14] sprawl vi.摊手摊脚地坐卧,平躺,倒卧;不规则的伸展;蔓延

如:sprawling on the sofa平躺在沙发上

suburbs that sprawl out into the countryside乱七八糟向乡间扩展的市郊

TEXT 9

Memoirs of a quail-shooting man

一位鹌鹑捕猎者的自述

The biggest d________①in hunters is taking place among the working class—among the “Deer Hunter”crowd in the small towns of the north-east, the ★rednecks[15] of the South and the cowboys of the West. Their places are being taken by moneyed professionals, (1)the sort of people who weren't brought up to hunt▲but who discovered that it is a good way to ★flash their money[16] and make connections. The number of hunters with household incomes above $100,000 increased by more than a q________②in the 1990s. There are so many ★nouveaux chasseurs strutting around[17] the canyons of Manhattan that both Holland & Holland and Barbour have opened shops there.

捕猎人数减少最多的是工人阶层,包括东北部小城镇上的“猎鹿一族”、南部的乡下佬以及西部牛仔。腰缠万贯的职业猎人霸占了他们的捕猎领地,这种猎人原来压根不曾想过要去打猎,但后来却发现打猎对于炫耀财富并疏通人际关系而言,是一条不错的门路。20世纪90年代,家庭收入10万美元以上的猎人总数增长了四分之一还多。猎人中的这些新贵趾高气扬地在曼哈顿峡谷中悠哉游哉,引得Holland&Holland和Barbour两大品牌都在那里开张营业了。

Mr Cheney's own expedition was a lot closer to “Gosford Park”than “The Deer Hunter”—a group of fat old ★toffs[18] (2)waiting for wildlife to be ★flushed[19] towards them at huge expense▲. There has also been a big increase in so-called “exotic hunting”, where guests not only go after i_________③species such as wolves and bears, but also blast away at imported zebras and giraffes. (3)Convenience is essential for the hedge-fund crowd. ▲Most exotic hunts take place in ranches from which the animals can't escape (Texas has 600). Exotic hunters can shoot elephants from cars or from the backs of other elephants, sometimes the orphaned calves of the victims of previous hunts. For the truly lazy there is “just-in-time shooting”, where animals are trained to turn u p at certain hours, and “internet shooting”, where you can g________④the gun from your desk. All this removes much of the inconvenience from hunting. (4)It also removes its main justification—that it is the most natural way of culling local wildlife. ▲

切尼先生看上去更像是“高斯福特公园族”而不是“猎鹿一族”。所谓高斯福特公园族是指一群上了年纪的、大腹便便的纨绔子弟,悠然自得地等着出高价雇来的人将猎物赶进他们的射程。还有一种所谓的“异国情调式打猎”也越来越受青睐,其间猎人不仅可以捕猎土产猎物如狼、熊等,还可以猎杀从国外引进的斑马、长颈鹿。对在围场打猎的人来说,方便是第一位的。大多数“异国情调式打猎”都在猎物无法逃走的牧场进行(在得克萨斯州有600个这样的牧场)。异国情调式猎人可以坐在汽车上或是躲在其他大象的身后射杀大象,有时也射杀一些已经中弹的落单小牛。要是实在懒得动,可选择“准时射击”,也就是把猎物训练好,让它们能在特定的时候出现在枪口之下。另外,还有一种“互联网控制射击”,猎人坐在电脑桌前可以遥控猎枪。如此种种,省却了打猎中的很多不便,却也让享受这种方便的猎人们无法自圆其说——他们坚持认为打猎是土产野生物优胜劣汰最合乎情理的方式。(言下之意,就原来意义上的打猎而言,猎物存在于大自然之中,有的有能力逃过猎杀,有的则难免落网,这倒有点像优胜劣汰。然而无论是围猎还是遥控射猎,被猎杀的动物要么无处可逃,要么被迫自投罗网,何言优胜劣汰呢?)

America's anti-hunting movement is tiny by British standards. But (5)it is gathering momentum,▲with the mainstream Humane Society taking an increasingly tough line and even conservatives protesting about exotic hunting. (The examples above are taken from “Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy”, a remarkable book by Matthew Scully, one of Mr Bush's former speechwriters.) The ★squall over [20]Mr Cheney's behaviour in Quailgate will probably die down, providing Mr Whittington survives. But the d________⑤over hunting will go on growing.

美国的反狩猎行动相比英国还有些微不足道,不过随着动物保护协会的声势日益高涨,并且连保守派也开始反对异国情调式捕猎,(上述例证引自《统治权——人类之力量、动物之苦难和仁慈之感召》一书,这本好书的作者马修?斯佳丽曾是布什总统的演讲撰稿人之一。)反狩猎行动已经蓄势待发了。假如惠廷顿先生没有生命危险,切尼在鹌鹑门所作所为引发的喧嚣也许将渐渐消逝,不过关于狩猎的争论将会日趋激烈。

完型填空答案:

1、decline 2.quarter 3.indigenous 4. guide 5.debate

★★★NOTES注释★★★

[15] redneck n.【无礼用语】【俚语】红脖子,乡下佬(对属于农村劳动阶层、从事露天劳动,特别是美国南方这一阶层白人的贬称);红脖子(被认为是持有狭隘保守,经常是有偏见的社会政治观点的人)

[16]flash their money 炫耀他们是有钱人

flash vt.& n.【俚语】招摇(庸俗华丽的或炫耀式的展览)=flaunt

“The antique flash and trash of an older southern California have given way to a sleeker age of cultural hip”(Newsweek)“旧南加州往日的炫丽与糟粕,早已被文化嬉皮的时髦时代取代”(新闻周刊)

[17] nouveaux adj.新近到达的,新近产生的

chasseur n.(法语)猎人

strut vi.昂首阔步,神气十足地走

[18]toff:n.有钱人,花花公子

[19]flush:v.惊起,从隐蔽处赶出

[20]squall:vi.狂风吹袭;狂叫,狂吹n.尖叫声

补充背景材料:

Gosford Park:《高斯福德庄园》是一部电影的片名,又译作《迷雾庄园》,故事发生在30年代的英国,高斯福德庄园名流云集。富有的庄园主威廉?麦考德和妻子西尔维娅邀请了一些朋友举办狩猎会。客人包括西尔维娅的姨妈康斯坦丝伯爵夫人,西尔维娅的姐夫安东尼?梅瑞蒂斯,大明星艾维?诺威鲁,以及美国电影制片人莫里斯?魏斯曼——他来英国为他的下一部“陈查里”电影作准备。热闹的庄园里还有一群人,他们构成了与上流社会相对的另一个群体。这是庄园以及各位来宾的仆人侍从。男管家詹宁斯统管男仆,不过他的工作可不轻松,这其中有几个令人头疼的“特殊人”:英俊潇洒的帕克斯自小在孤儿院长大,性格孤僻,我行我素;魏斯曼的侍从亨利也搅得庄园颇为不安。女管家威尔森太太则指挥着一干女仆,其中最突出的是年轻活泼的艾丽丝。

伯爵夫人的女仆玛丽是个天真的女孩,她好奇地观察着这座庄园里的各色人等,逐渐发现原来上流社会和仆人的世界之间并没有截然分离的界线,相反,这两个世界由于种种复杂的关系产生了千丝万缕的联系,庄园轻松闲适的气氛下其实埋藏着令人不安的因子。

麦考德先生的富有使不少人都得依附于他,其中包括伯爵夫人和梅瑞蒂斯。但麦考德似乎并不受欢迎,女厨克劳福特太太就对他颇有怨词。性格乖戾的伯爵夫人亦不招人喜欢。西尔维娅表面上高贵优雅,其实她已经有了外遇。梅瑞蒂斯曾经是战争英雄,但如今已破产,正急切地需要麦考德为他投资。亨利是个投机分子,他来到庄园后立刻就开始追逐上流社会的富婆,另一方面也不忘与女仆们调情。帕克斯由于种种原因成了众人瞩目的对象之后,自然对亨利的放纵十分不满。女仆艾丽丝则与麦考德先生关系暧昧……

麦考德先生的死把庄园带入了惊恐的气氛中:他被人谋杀在书房里。庄园里的不少人似乎都有杀人的动机,这起案件一时间扑朔迷离。警察局的探长汤普森奉命前来调查,但这个装模作样的家伙看起来没多大本事,或许他们真需要一位“陈查里”来侦破这起谋杀案……

the Deer Hunter:同样是一部电影,可译为《猎鹿人》、《猎鹿者》、《越战猎鹿人》等,剧情:宾夕法尼亚州三个年轻的钢铁工人迈克尔(Michael),史蒂文(Steven)和尼克(Nick),在越南战争时来到了越南。在离开美国时,史蒂文与已怀孕的安吉拉(Angela)结了婚,他们的婚礼也是这三个年轻人的告别聚会。婚礼结束后,三个人一同去打猎,迈克尔以神奇的枪法击中了一头雄鹿,但他仍神情抑郁,因为在他心中这就等于在拿生命做赌注。在战场上,他们三人没过多久就都成了越南士兵的俘虏,越南士兵逼迫他们用左轮手枪玩俄罗斯轮盘赌,尼克被吓得半死,迈克尔却很镇定,他还乘机抢了越南士兵的枪,与同伴一同逃出了俘虏营,但逃出后大家又失散了。迈克尔和史蒂文回到了美国,史蒂文终身残废,住在疗养院中不愿回家,迈克尔虽然无恙,但精神上已不复当年,他与尼克的女朋友琳达同居。当迈克尔得知尼克还活着,并且住在西贡时,他来到了越南并找到了尼克,但此时的尼克已麻木不仁,尼克在迈克尔面前玩俄罗斯轮盘赌,这一次他饮弹而亡。

《猎鹿人》是反思越战的经典之一,影片并没有下大笔墨去描绘战争的惨烈场面和宏大气势,而是将重点放在表现战争对人内心造成的影响与创伤,以和平年代的亲情友情反衬出战争对人异化的恐怖可憎。德尼罗、斯特里普和沃肯等几位主要演员在片中的表现可圈可点,他们精准却不夸张的表演很好地诠释出战争给人带来的悲哀。值得一提的是片中另一位演员约翰·卡泽勒,他在未拍摄完前因患骨癌去世,没有看到《猎鹿人》最终的辉煌成就,也未能与未婚妻梅丽尔·斯特里普结为百年之好,相当令人遗憾。不过值得欣慰的是,这位神情忧郁的演员却为影迷留下了5部记忆深刻的影片,除了本片,其余分别是:科波拉的《教父1、2》与《对话》,以及西德尼·吕美特的《炎热午后》(Dog Day Afternoon, 1975)。

TEXT 10

Ominous

Feb 23rd 2006

From The Economist print edition

FOR most of the past three years, the highly pathogenic bird flu k________①as H5N1 has been found mainly in Asia. Suddenly it has arrived in many countries in Europe, triggering widespread alarm. The detection of the virus in wild birds across Europe is certainly a cause for concern, particularly to Europe's poultry farmers▲, who are rightfully worried that the presence of the virus in wild birds will increase the risk to their flocks. However, in the m_________②of a European debate about the benefits of vaccinating chickens and whether or not poultry should be brought indoors, there is a danger that far more significant events elsewhere will be ★overlooked[1].

In particular, most attention should be f________③on the fact that bird flu is now widespread in the poultry flocks of two nations in Africa —Egypt and Nigeria—and in India. And on the fact that, in Nigeria, the disease is continuing to spread despite great efforts undertaken by the government. An outbreak in Afghanistan also appears to be inevitable.

Arguably, these matter much more than the (also inevitable) arrival of the disease in Europe▲. Poor countries with large rural populations are in a far weaker position to handle, and ★stamp out[2], outbreaks of bird flu in poultry, through both ★culling[3] and the prevention of the movement of animals in the surrounding areas. In Africa and India, chickens and ducks are far more likely to be found ★roaming[4] in people's backyards, where they can mingle with humans, other d________④animals and wildlife, thus spreading the disease. In Europe, by c_______⑤, most poultry are kept in regulated commercial farms.

The opening up of a new African front for the bird-flu virus▲is a problem because eradication there will be tremendously difficult. There is a high risk that the disease will spread to other countries on the continent and it could easily become endemic—as it has in Asia. This offers the virus huge new scope to mutate▲and become a disease that can pass between humans. The virus is certainly mutating—genetic changes have already affected its biological behaviour, although apparently not yet its transmission between humans. Experts are unsure as to how much, and what kind, of genetic changes would be required for the virus to become a global health threat. N_____⑥do they know how long this process might take.

But to ★dwell on[5] the increased risk of a pandemic of influenza is to miss a serious point about the direct risks posed by the loss of a large

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