The Delicate Art of the Forest 讲解

Lesson One

The Delicate Art of the Forest

林中高招 Mark Twain

Text

1 Cooper's gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little box of stage-properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. Cooper

COOPER

Grammar As it was = as it was not rich = though it was not rich

Vocabulary

delicate Marked by sensitivity of discrimination: a critic's delicate perception.

invention the act of producing something new for the first time endowment /en`daumEnt/ n. 1. The act of supplying with income, or a talent. 2.Funds or property donated to an institution, an individual, or a group as a source of income. 3. A natural gift, ability, or quality. stage-property things, objects used on stages except scenery, costumes cunning Marked by or given to artful subtlety and deceptiveness device A plan or scheme, especially a malign one. artifice skillful tricks savage Not civilized; barbaric

circumvent outwit; to defeat or outwit by cleverness or stratagem; to surround or encircle with enmity

moccasin A soft leather slipper traditionally worn by Native Americans twig Any small, leafless branch of a woody plant

handy Readily accessible

vessel A craft, especially one larger than a rowboat, designed to navigate on water

steer a. To direct the course of. b. To maneuver (a person) into a place or course of action.

skipper The master of a ship

undertow The seaward pull of receding waves after they break on a shore. sailorcraft

cannon A large, mounted weapon that fires heavy projectiles. Cannon include guns, howitzers, and mortars. promptly immediately

daisy Slang One that is deemed excellent or notable.

trail A mark or trace left by something that has moved or been dragged by.

stump To clear stumps from; To bring to a halt; baffle slush Soft mud; slop; mire.

vacate To cease to occupy or hold; give up 译文

库伯的发明天份并不怎么样，虽然如此，他却不厌其烦地运用它，而且还自鸣得意。他还真的用它干了几件十分惬意的事。在他的舞台道

具盒里，只有七八个高招、秘诀和妙计，能够让他的土人和林子中的人相互蒙来蒙去。他最大的快事就是摆弄这些天真的把戏，看（欣赏）它们起作用。

Key words

Cooper's gift (invention/ endowment) was not rich; but he liked to work it, and did some quite sweet things with it. His stage-properties (for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with) are only six or eight cunning devices (tricks, artifices), and he was happy to work them and see them go. Text

A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of the moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. 译文

其中一个他喜欢的，就是让一个穿鹿皮鞋的人踩着另一个也穿鹿皮鞋的敌人的脚印，借以掩盖自己的行踪。干这个让库伯不知磨烂了多少双鹿皮鞋（靴筒）。 Text

Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was his broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. 译文

另一个他常常从他的盒子里拿出来的道具就是他的断树枝。他比什么都喜欢干树枝，所以不遗余力地使用它。他的书要是有哪一章没有人踩上干树枝，惊动周围二百码内的印地安人和白人，那就谢天谢地了。每回库伯笔下的人碰到危险，而一分安静一分金的时候，他保准要踩上一根干树枝。 Text

There may be a hundred handier-things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leatherstocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series. 译文

尽管附近有上百种东西可以踩，但那称不了库伯的心。库伯要他最后找一个干树枝。要是他找不到，就去借一个。照他这样，《皮袜子故事集》干脆就叫它《断树枝丛书》好了。

The Leather Stocking Tales

The Leatherstocking Tales, a series of five popular novels by James Fenimore Cooper, constitute an epic of the American wilderness. Natty Bumppo, the central character, embodies the spirit of the frontier in The Deersayer (1841), where he is an idealized youth, and in The Prairie (1827), in which, as an old man, he is transfigured and dies. The other novels in the series are The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Pathfinder (1840), and The Pioneers (1823). Text

I am sorry there is not room to put in a few dozen instances of the delicate art of the forest, as practised by Natty Bumppo and some of the other Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may venture two or three samples. 译文

很遗憾，我没有足够的篇幅，写上几十个例子，看看奈地·班波和其他库伯专家们是怎样运用他的森林中的高招。大概我们可以试着斗胆举它两三个例子。

Text

Cooper was a sailor -- a naval officer; yet he gravely tells us how a vessel, driving toward a lee shore in a gale, is steered for a particular spot by her skipper because he knows of an undertow there which will hold her back against the gale and save her. For just pure woodcraft, or sailorcraft, or whatever it is, isn't that neat? 译文

库伯曾经航过海—当过海军军官。但是他却一本正经（煞有介事）地告诉我们，一条被风刮向海岸就要撞礁的船，被船长驶向一个有离岸暗流的地点而得救。因为暗流顶着风，把船冲了回来。看看这森林术，这行船术，或者叫别的什么术，怎么样？（千载难逢的机会，可就是被库伯找到了，）真巧吧（真是干净利索吧）？ Text

For several years Cooper was daily in the society of artillery, and he ought to have noticed that when a cannon-ball strikes the ground it either buries itself or skips a hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred feet or so -- and so on, till finally it gets tired and rolls. 译文

有好几年，库伯每天都呆在炮兵部队。他当然注意到了一个炮弹落到地上要么钻到地里，要么就会弹起来，跳出百把尺，再弹再跳，直到跳不动了，就往前滚。 Text

Now in one place he loses some \in the edge of a wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art of the forest before the Reader. These mislaid people are hunting for a fort. They hear a cannon-blast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into the wood and stops at their feet. To the females this suggests nothing. The case is very different with the admirable Bumppo. I wish I may never know peace again if he doesn't strike out promptly and follow the track of that cannon-ball across the plain through the dense fog and find the fort. Isn't it a daisy? 译文

现在有个地方，他的几个女性（他总是这样称呼女的）在一个雾夜在平原附近的树林边上迷了路。他的目的就是给班波一个机会来给读者显示一下他的森林中的本事。这些迷了路的人正在寻找一个城堡。她们听到一声炮响，接着一发炮弹就滚进树林，停在她们脚下。对女性，这毫无价值。但对可敬的班波则完全不同了。我敢发誓，要是班波不

立刻行动，跟着弹痕，穿过浓雾，跨过平原，找到要塞，就让我一生不得安宁。怎么样？够巧的了吧？ Text

If Cooper had any real knowledge of Nature's ways of doing things, he had a most delicate art in concealing the fact. For instance: one of his acute Indian experts, Chinachgook (pronounced Chicago, I think), has lost the trail of a person he is hopelessly lost. Neither you nor I could never have guessed out the way to find it. It was very different with Chicago. Chicago was not stumped for long. He turned a running stream out of its course, and there, in the slush in its old bed, were that person's moccasin-tracks. The current did not wash them away, as it would have done in all other like cases -- no, even the eternal laws of Nature have to vacate when Cooper wants to put up a delicate job of woodcraft on the reader. 译文

如果库伯不是对自然规律一无所知，他就是故意隐瞒事实。比方说，他的精明的印地安专家之一，名叫芝稼哥（我想，该读作芝加哥）的，跟踪一个人，在穿过树林的时候，脚印就找不到了。很明显，脚印是再也没法找到了。无论你还是我，都猜不出，怎么会找到它。对芝加哥可完全不同。他没迟疑多久。他改变了一条小溪的流向，在原来泥

泞的河床上，那人的鹿皮鞋印竞然历历在目。在其他情况下，脚印一定被水冲得荡然无存，但在（库伯笔下）这里流水竟然冲不掉脚印！对，当然不会冲掉啰！因为只要库伯要给读者显示一下他森林中的本事，永恒的自然规律也会失效。

翻译三要素 信 Trustfulness

达 Conveyance of the original purpose, ideas, viewpoints, and tone. 雅 Retention of the original stylistic features in the target language. 要做到上述三点，而不必苛求词性、词序，甚至是句子次序的一致。 译出语气：他的书要是有哪一章没有人踩上干树枝，惊动周围二百码内的印地安人和白人，那就谢天谢地了。

为了达，可以增加原文设有，但字里行间有的意思：因为暗流顶着风，把船冲了回来。看看这森林术，这行船术，或者叫别的什么术，怎么样？（千载难逢的机会，可就是偏偏被库伯找到了，）真巧吧（真是干净利索吧）？

不考虑原来的词性：我敢发誓，要是班波不立刻行动，跟着弹痕，穿过浓雾，跨过平原，找到要塞，就让我一生不得安宁。

尽量保持原文风格：他的精明的印地安专家之一，名叫芝稼哥（我想，该读作芝加哥）的

Requirements of good composition

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