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现代英文选评注 A Mountain Adventure登山遇险记
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Gerald Warner Brace (1901—1978)
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本文选自《贾氏家传》(The Garretson Chronicle, by Gerald Warner Brace, W. W. Norton & Co., 1947)之第二十六章。《贾氏家传》是一部传记体的长篇小说,作者白瑞斯,是美国作家,其文字明净洗炼,瘦硬遒劲,铸字炼句,具见功力,堪与本世纪任何大家相比。《贾氏家传》全书于描写人物,讨论思想之处,亦皆陈义深远、语句精警,论者比之于Santayana的The Last Puritan(按
:两书题材体例亦颇相近)。
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My friend Tommy Tucker was a senior at Harvard. I used to go to some of the football games with him, and one day we made a plan to go off together with Tommy’s roommate John Somes, to climb Mount Washington. John Somes was a veteran mountaineer and had been up Washington several years before. He said that out west they’d hardly call it a mountain.
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● senior:大学四年级生。Mount Washington:在美国东北部之New Hampshire,为白山山脉(White Mts.)之最高峰,高达6,293尺,约台湾玉山最高峰之半。
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● veteran:老资格。mountaineer:登山专家。out west:在(美国)西部。they:泛指美国西部的人。照文法的规定,“代名词”一定要明确地代表“名词”,像这样含混的they是悬为禁忌的;但是这种说法在日常会话中常听得到,写小说的要传状说话的人的口吻,只好不顾文法书的规定了。
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● 美国西部一万尺以上的高峰很多,这种六千多尺的山,算不了什么山。they’d之’d为would之缩写,隐含虚拟语气:假如他们看见了这座山,也不会叫它是山的。
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We loaded sweaters and windbreakers and knapsacks into the Ford and started north on a bright October afternoon. Motoring twenty years ago was a more rugged adventure than it is now: we had to force a passage through cobbled streets and jammed-up traffic and then jounce everlastingly over the high-crowned washboard roads in the open country, determined to maintain a twenty-five-mile-an-hour average.
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● loaded:装,放。sweaters:羊毛衫。windbreakers:厚夹克(jacket),防风御寒运动外套。knapsacks:背包,可背在肩上的帆布包或皮包。
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● Motoring:坐汽车长途旅行。rugged:艰苦。
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● 在二十年代坐汽车旅行,比今日苦得多。(这里的adventure,不作“探险”解,只是一种不平凡的经历而已。)他们三人坐车从波士顿出发,先经过的是市区,市区的街道是用石卵铺的(cobbled),行人车马(traffic)很挤(jammed-up),我们非冲出一条路来不可(force a passage)。市区过后,进入乡区,乡区开阔(in the open country),然而道路崎岖,路中间凸起(high-crowned),若有棱骨,好像搓衣服的板(washboard)似的。jounce:颠簸。everlasting:不停的。
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● determined是过去分词,形容主语we。车子假如慢慢地开,也许可以平稳得多,但是他们决心要保持平均(average)每小时廿五英里的速度,只好先在市区里直冲,后在乡区颠簸着走了。
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To achieve a hundred miles in four hours in a Model T was fine work, but exhausting. Yet on this day the air lay sweetly over the golden countryside, full of balm and peace and the faint taste of leaf smoke. We sang and laughed and drank the rare and mellow distillations of Indian summer, our hearts grew light, our heads giddy with joy: the flames of the northern maples made great chords of splendid music in our spirit. We hailed the northward adventure, the lifting of each higher hill, the spreading miles of forest, the coming of dark spruce, the first glint of rock peaks in the silvery blue, and then the long slow waning of the sun, the golden flow of light from the southwest level across the colored land, the intensity of it, deepening and brightening toward night, the palpable gold on the leaves and grasses, the blue wells of shadows, valleys lost now in dusk and high hills still glowing in smokeless mantles of fire. We turned silent and watched the slow evening climb the slopes of brightness. In the far north a peak gleamed like a luminescent spearhead of pearl, purer than white itself.
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● Model T:福特公司的T型车,三四十年前在美国很流行。achieve:做成功。exhausting:使人筋疲力尽。
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● 车行虽吃力,好在道旁景物很美:时已深秋,田野中满目金色。空气中似含香味(sweetly),笼罩大地,一片温馨(balm原义是止痛的油膏)宁静之气,充塞宇宙之间,还可以淡淡地闻到乡民焚烧落叶的清香。
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● Indian summer:秋天里的亢爽温暖的天气,中文所谓十月小阳春。distillations:蒸馏所得的液体;精华(有许多的酒也是蒸馏出来的,这里还使读者联想到酒)。rare:稀薄的。mellow:圆熟的;和醇的。drank:吸收,领略,享受。“我们唱着笑着,欣逢这种亢爽温暖的秋天好天气,更领略到一种清淡醇和的味道,中人欲醉,似乎天气的精华也给我们吸收进去了。”
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● light:轻松的。giddy:眩晕(照应上句的“酒”)。
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● maples:枫树。northern:长在北方的(车子正往北开)。flames:枫树不是红似火吗?chords:音乐里的和弦(如do, mi, so三个音便成和弦)。音乐里几声雄壮的和弦,很有撼人心魄的力量,现在火红似的枫叶,在他们心里所起的效果,亦复如此。
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● hailed:向(人或物)欢呼;这里未必叫出声音来,只是心里非常高兴而已。他们驾车北上,渐入佳境,如入山阴道上,应接不暇,触目所及,无非美景奇观,他们每看见一样新的景致,心里就要喝一声彩。这一句很长,列举眼前的各种景致,精彩的phrases一个一个出现,汽车就向山区迈进,而时间也渐近黄昏了。
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● the lifting of each higher hill:山一个比一个高,一个一个地抬头显露出来。spruce:虎尾枞。这种树出现,恐怕是已近山区了。glint:发晶光。peak:山峰。先看见的还是些小山,现在初次看见蒙着一层银色的碧空之中,露出一排山峰,峰尖岩石闪闪发光。
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● the long slow waning of the sun:日光渐渐转弱。slow前面有一long字,此字意义与slow相仿,不过有了此字,更可把slow衬托出来。the southwest level:深秋黄昏时候的太阳,应该在西南方;level大约是地平线。太阳从那边照过来,凡经照耀之处,犹如金光流注;地上本自有其色彩(colored),经此一照,更显得鲜艳夺目。
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● the intensity of it:日色渐暮,金光更显浓盛。deepening:色彩更深更浓。brightening:日落前的回光返照,特别显得明亮。palpable:手可以摸得出来的。草上叶上的金光,本是幻象,可是现在看来,宛然真金。well:井。回光返照将过,黑夜渐临,低洼之处,黑影渐浓,作深青之色,望之黝然如井。dusk:暮色。mantles:外罩。暮色降临,山谷已消失不见,唯霞光照处,山头仍通体透红,如披火袍,唯不发烟耳。
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● 这句很长,可是只要仔细一看它里面所叙景物之多,这样一句话能包括这许多东西,描写这么长的一段路程,笔墨可说十分经济。
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● We turned silent:黑夜已临,人亦转趋沉寂,没有刚才那么高兴了。黑夜来时,先从山脚下黑起,沿坡而上(climb),最后太阳西沉,山头上也是一片黑暗。
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● 可是他们还没有算正式入山。远望极北之处,尚有一峰矗立,状甚尖锐,犹如矛锋(spearhead),隐隐发光,色润如珠,其皎洁胜过一般之所谓白色也。
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