Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborh

游客2023-12-13  7

问题     Possession for its own sake or in competition with the rest of the neighborhood would have been Thoreau’s idea of the low levels. The active discipline of heightening one’s perception of what is enduring in nature would have been his idea of the high. What he saved from the low was time and effort he could spend on the high. Thoreau certainly disapproved of starvation, but he would put into feeding himself only as much effort as would keep him functioning for more important efforts.
    Effort is the gist of it. There is no happiness except as we take on life-engaging difficulties. Short of the impossible, as Yeats put it, the satisfaction we get from a lifetime depends on how high we choose our difficulties. Robert Frost was thinking in something like the same terms when he spoke of "the pleasure of taking pains". The mortal flaw in the advertised version of happiness is in the fact that it purports to be effortless.
    We demand difficulty even in our games. We demand it because without difficulty there can be no game. A game is a way of making something hard for the fun of it. The rules of the game are an arbitrary imposition of difficulty. When someone ruins the fun, he always does so by refusing to play by the rules. It is easier to win at chess if you are free, at your pleasure, to change the wholly arbitrary rules, but the fun is in winning within the rules. No difficulty, no fun.

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答案     全力以赴是其精髓所在。除非我们能面对那些需要我们全身心投入的艰难困苦,否则就没有幸福可言。正如爱尔兰诗人叶芝所言,除去那些不可能的情形以外,我们一生中所获取的满足取决于我们选择愿意面对的困难的程度。当罗伯特?弗罗斯特提到“以苦为乐”时,他也表达了相似的观点。广告中所宣扬的那种幸福观,其致命的缺陷就在于它宣称一切幸福皆唾手可得,不费吹灰之力。
    即使在游戏中,我们也需要有困难。我们之所以需要它,是因为如果没有困难便毫无游戏可言。游戏是这么一种方式,即一种为了享受其中的乐趣而使事情变得不那么轻而易举的方式。游戏的种种规则就是将困难武断地强加于人。当有人破坏了这种乐趣时,通常都是由于他不按游戏规则来行事。这犹如下棋,如果你不受规则约束,随心所欲地改变那些全然武断的游戏规则,那么你会更容易赢棋。然而,下棋的乐趣在于按照规则取得胜利。没有困难,就没有乐趣。

解析 1.第二段第一句“Effort is the gist of it.”中代词it指代上文中the active discipline,翻译时要仔细理解上下文内容,否则表达会有偏差。
2.第二段第二句“There is…take on…life-engaging difficulties.”中take on的意思是“呈现,具有,承担”,life—engaging可译为“全身心投入的”。
3.第二段第三句“Short of the impossible,…choose out difficulties.”中,short of在文中译为“除了……以外”。
4.第二段第四句中的the pleasure of taking pains可译为“以苦为乐”。
5.第二段第五句“The mortal flaw…purports to be effortless.”中的mortal flaw指“致命的缺陷”,动词purport译为“声称,宣扬”。
6.第三段第四句“The rules…arbitrary imposition of difficulty.”中an arbitrary imposition是指“(困难的)武断施加”。
7.第三段第五句中ruin the fun即“扫兴”的意思。
8.第三段第六句中at your pleasure可译为“随心所欲”。
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