Chinese to English: 蔡元培就任北大校长演说
General field: Art/Literary | |
Source text - Chinese
若徒志在做官发财，宗旨既乖⒁，趋向自异。平时则放荡冶游⒂，考试则熟读讲义，不问学问之有无，惟争分数之多寡；试验既终，书籍束之高阁⒃，毫不过问，敷衍三、四年，潦草塞责，文凭到手，即可借此活动于社会，岂非与求学初衷大相背驰乎？ | Translation - English
If one's aspiration is to make a fortune while climbing up the bureaucratic ladder, such a deviant purpose will inevitably lead to a different way of conduct. He will cram his head with lecture notes before exams and indulge in depraved diversions between them, caring about grades only instead of how much he has actually learned. When the exam is over, he will put his books away and ignore them altogether. He will muddle through like this for three or four years and get the diploma, with which to get on in the world. Isn't this an arrant betrayal of his initial intention when he first embarked on studies? |
English to Chinese: Sunday before the War
General field: Art/Literary | |
Source text - English
On Sunday, in a remote valley in the West of England, where the people are few and scattered and placid, there was no more sign among them than among the quiet hills of the anxiety that holds the world. They had no news and seemed to want none. The postmaster had been ordered to stay all day in his little post-office, and that was something unusual that interested them, but only because it affected the postmaster.
It rained in the morning, but the afternoon was clear and glorious and shining, with all the distances revealed far into the heart of Wales and to the high ridges of the Welsh mountains. The cottages of that valley are not gathered into villages, but two or three together or lonely among their fruit-trees on the hillside; and the cottagers who are always courteous and friendly, said a word or two as one went by, but just what they would have said on any other day and without any question about the war. Indeed, they seemed to know, or to wish to know, as little about that as the earth itself, which, beautiful there at any time, seemed that afternoon to wear an extreme and pathetic beauty. The country, more than any other in England, has the secret of peace. It is not wild, though it looks into the wildness of Wales; but all its cultivation, its orchards and hopyards and fields of golden wheat, seem to have the beauty of time upon them, as if men there had long lived happily upon the earth with no desire for change nor fear of decay. It is not the sad beauty of a past cut off from the present, but a mellowness that the present inherits from the past; and in the mellowness all the hillside seems a garden to the spacious farmhouses and little cottages; each led up to by its own narrow, flowery lane. There the meadows are all lawns with the lustrous green of spring even in August, and often over-shadowed by old, fruit-trees - cherry, or apple, or pear; and on Sunday after the rain there was an April glory and freshness added to the quiet of the later summer. | Translation - Chinese
星期天，忧虑笼罩着世界，而英格兰西部一个人烟稀少、宁静偏僻的山谷却一如静静的群山，毫无不安之兆。山民不闻时事，似乎也不问时事。邮政局长接到命令，要他一整天呆在小小的办公室里，这倒使山民觉得新鲜，却只因事关邮政局长而已。
早上有雨，午后放晴，景色灿烂辉煌。极目远眺，直可望见威尔士腹地，还有威尔士山脉那高高的山脊。山谷里的农舍没有聚成村落，而是三三两两或孤零零地座落在山坡上的果树丛中。农舍主人向来谦和友好，有人经过时便搭讪两句，却只是些平日里的家常话，决不问及打仗的事。对于打仗，他们一无所知，或者干脆不闻不问，就像脚下的大地。这片大地美丽常驻，而那天下午却蒙上了一层哀伤，仿佛美到了极致。英格兰不少地方都深得安详平和其中三昧，而此地尤甚。尽管可以望见威尔士的荒凉之地，这里却不显得蛮荒，其土地的耕作、果园、啤酒花园、金灿灿的麦田，都似乎带有历时久远之美，仿佛此地的居民已经在大地上幸福生活了很久，既不愿意改变，也不畏惧凋敝。这种美，不是昨日之日不可留的忧伤之美，而是今日从昨日继承而来的醇厚韵味。这韵味把整个山坡变成了农家大屋和小小农舍的花园，每幢房屋门前，都有条山花烂漫的小径。片片草地都像是修整过的草坪，直到八月，春天的浓绿依旧，不少地方还掩映在桃树、苹果树、梨树等苍老果树的浓荫下。星期天一场雨后，季夏的静谧中，又多了四月的绚烂与清新。 |
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