高级英语课文翻译

Never Give In, Never, Never, Never

Almost a year has passed since I came down here at your Head Master's kind invitation in order to cheer myself and cheer the hearts of a few of my friends by singing some of our own songs. The ten months that have passed have seen very terrible catastrophic events in the world - ups and downs, misfortunes - but can anyone sitting here this afternoon, this October afternoon, not feel deeply thankful for what has happened in the time that has passed and for the very great improvement in the position of our country and of our home? Why, when I was here last time we were quite alone, desperately alone, and we had been so for five or six months. We were poorly armed. We are not so poorly armed today; but then we were very poorly armed. We had the unmeasured menace of the enemy and their air attack still beating upon us, and you yourselves had had experience of this attack; and I expect you are beginning to feel impatient that there has been this long lull with nothing particular turning up!

But we must learn to be equally good at what is short and sharp and what is long and tough. It is generally said that the British are often better at the last. They do not expect to move from crisis to crisis; they do not always expect that each day will bring up some noble chance of war; but when they very slowly make up their minds that the thing has to be done and the job put through and finished, then, even if it takes months - if it takes years - they do it.

Another lesson I think we may take, just throwing our minds back to our meeting here ten months ago and now, is that appearances are often very deceptive, and as Kipling well says, we must "…meet with Triumph and Disaster. And treat those two impostors just the same."

You cannot tell from appearances how things will go. Sometimes imagination makes things out far worse than they are; yet without imagination not much can be done. Those people who are imaginative see many more dangers than perhaps exist; certainly many more than will happen; but then they must also pray to be given that extra courage to carry this far-reaching imagination. But for everyone, surely, what we have gone through in this period - I am addressing myself to the School - surely from this period of ten months this is the lesson: never give in, never give in, never, never, never-in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. We stood all alone a year ago, and to many countries it seemed that our account was closed, we were finished. All this tradition of ours, our songs, our School history, this part of the history of this country, were gone and finished and liquidated.

V ery different is the mood today. Britain, other nations thought, had drawn a sponge across her slate. But instead our country stood in the gap. There was no flinching and no thought of giving in; and by what seemed almost a miracle to those outside these Islands, though we ourselves never doubted it, we now find ourselves in a position where I say that we can be sure that we have only to persevere to conquer.

You sang here a verse of a School Song: you sang that extra verse written in my honour, which I was very greatly complimented by and which you have repeated today. But there is one word in it I want to alter - I wanted to do so last year, but I did not venture to. It is the line: "Not less we praise in darker days."

I have obtained the Head Master's permission to alter darker to sterner. "Not less we praise in sterner days."

Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days;

these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.

译文

绝不屈服，绝不，绝不，绝不

距离上次你们校长盛情邀请我来这里已经快一年了，上次来是为了通过演唱我们自己的校歌来鼓舞我自己以及其他一些朋友的心灵的。在过去的十个月里，世界上发生了许多极为悲惨的事情-----起起伏伏，多灾多难-------但今天下午，这个十月的下午，在座的有谁能对过去这段时间所发生的事情以及我们国家和家园所发生的巨大改进不充满感激之情？是啊，当上次我来这里的时候，我们都非常的孤独，充满了绝望的孤独，这种状况持续了大约五六个月。我们当时的装备很差，而如今我们的装备已不再这么差了；但当时我们的装备的确非常差。我们受到了敌人的巨大威胁，他们的空袭至今仍在我们头顶上轰鸣，你们大家一定经历过这种空袭；我想你们大家一定开始对目前的这种局面感到烦躁，因为这种局面已经持续了很久而毫无转机。

但我们必须学会正确对待这两种情况：不管是短暂激烈的，还是长期艰难地。人们通常都认为英国人总是在最后表现得最好。他们不想从一种危机转入另一种危机；他们不会总是期待战争每一天都会出现好的转机；但当他们慢慢下定决心要结束这一切的时候，那么，即使是要花费几个月，甚至数年的时间，他们也会做的。

让我们把思绪拉到十个月之前我们在此相遇的情景，然后再转到现在。另外一个我想我们可以吸取的教训是，表面的东西往往具有欺骗性。正如吉普林所说的，我们必须“去面对胜利和灾难，并对这两种具有欺骗性的东西保持同样的态度。”

你很难从事情的表面判断它的走势。尽管离开了想象力就做不了多少事情，但想象有时候会让事情看起来比实际情况更糟。那些富有想象力的人会发现很多也许根本就不存在的危险；也许会有更多的危险发生，但这些人同时也要祈求能被赐予额外的勇气来承受这种深远的想象力。但对所有人来说，毫无疑问，我们在这段时期所经历的-------我要告诉你们--------从这10个月的经历中所得到的经验就是：绝不屈服，绝不屈服，绝不，绝不，绝不，绝不------屈服于任何东西，不管它是伟大还是渺小，庞大还是细微-------除了对荣誉和机智外，都绝不屈服。不屈从于暴力，不屈从于表面上气势汹汹的敌人。一年前我们孤军奋战，对许多国家来说，我们的命运似乎终止了，我们似乎完蛋了。我们所有的传统，我们的歌曲，我们学校的历史，这个国家的这一段历史，似乎都要随风而去了。

如今大家的心情已完全不同。其他国家都认为英国已经翻开了新的一页，但其实我们的国家是站在一个缺口上。没有退缩，没有屈服的念头；这些对于英伦三岛以外的人来说都是奇迹般的事情，我们自己从来没有怀疑过，我们发现自己现在正处在这种局势中，就是我所说的，坚持就是胜利。

你们今天唱了一段校歌：你们唱了特别为我所做的那段，你们今天一起重复了那段，我深感荣幸。但其中有一个词我想改一下--------去年我就想改了，但当时没敢改。就是那句：“即使对最黑暗的日子，我们也要赞颂它。”

我已经征得了校长的同意，将“更黑暗”改为“更严峻”。“即使是对更严峻的日子，我们也要称颂它。”

让我们不要再谈及那些更黑暗的日子，而谈及那些更严峻的日子吧。这段时光并不是黑暗的日子；这些是伟大的日子-----我们国家所经历的最伟大的一段日子；我们每个人都该感谢上帝能够允许我们参与其中，我们都各负其责，使这段日子在我们人类历史上留下永恒的印迹。