新概念英语第四册50-01

第47课

New words and expressions

Plato: 柏拉图

Platonic love: friendship between woman and man of mind and spirit

Xanthippe n.: 粘西比(古希腊哲学家苏格拉底 Socrates 的凶悍泼辣的妻子) [喻]泼妇, 悍妇

Socrates: The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways-I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.

分手的时候到来了。 我们也得各奔前程。我去了(离开这世界了)， 而你活(留)下来。谁会更好？ 只有 天 (上帝)知道。

西方文明的构成:1、christianity 2、苏格拉底，柏拉图, 亚里士多德

counterpart: 相对应的人

resort : 胜地

retreat :退却 胜地

summer resort : 避暑胜地

health resort: 疗养胜地

spot : 地点 胜地

mix : 相混合

He mixes well./ He is a good mixer.他左右逢源。

Lesson47

The modern Plato, like his ancient counterpart, has an unbounded contempt for politicians and statesmen and party leaders who are not university men. He finds politics a dirty game, and only enters them reluctantly because he knows that at the very least he and his friends are better than the present gang. Brought up in the traditions of the ruling classes, he has a natural pity for the common people whom he has learnt to know as servants, and observed from a distance at their work in the factory, at their play in the parks and holiday resorts. He has never mixed with them or spoken to them on equal terms, but has demanded and generally received a respect due to his position and superior intelligence. He knows that if they trust him, he can give them the happiness which they crave. A man of culture, he genuinely despises the self-made industrialist and news-paper-king: with a modest professional salary and a little private income of his own, he regards money-making as vulgar and avoids all ostentation. Industry and finance seem to him to be activities unworthy of gentlemen, although, alas, many are forced by exigencies of circumstance to take some part in them. intellectual, he gently laughs at the superstitions of most Christians, but attends church regularly because he sees the importance of organized religion for the maintenance of sound morality among the lower orders, and because he dislikes the scepticism and materialism of radical teachers. His genuine passions are for literature and the philosophy of science and he would gladly spend all his time in studying them. But the plight of the world compels his unwilling attention, and when he sees that human stupidity and greed are about to plunge .Europe into chaos and destroy the most glorious civilization which the world has known, he feels that it is high time for men of good sense and good will to intervene and to take politics out of the hands of the plutocrats of the Right and the woolly-minded idealists of the Left. Since he and his kind are the only representatives of decency combined with intelligence, they must step down into the arena and save the masses for themselves.

R.H.S.CROSSMAN Plato Today

参考译文

现代Plato同古代 Plato一样，对非大学生出身的政客、政治家和党魁无限轻蔑。他发现政治很肮脏，所以只是很勉强地进入政界，因为他知道，至少他和他的朋友们要比目前那一帮强一些。按照统治阶层传统培养出来的他，对平民有着天生的怜悯，学会把他们视为奴仆，离得远远地看他们在工厂里劳动，在公园与休假胜地游玩。他从不同他们混在一起，也不同他们平等交谈，但一直按自己的地和高人一等的智慧要求得到尊敬并通常得到满足。他知道如果他们信任他，他就能给他们以他们渴望的幸福。作为有文化修养的人，他毫不掩饰地鄙视白手起家的实业家和报业大王；他只拿中等职业薪水和自己少量私人收入，他视赚钱为庸俗并避免一切炫耀卖弄。对他来说，工业和经济似乎是不值得正人君子参与活动，虽然有不少人为环境所迫而多少涉足其中。作为知识分子，他文雅地嘲笑多数基督教徒的迷信，但他做礼拜从不脱班，因为他深知有组织的宗教在低层社会中维持正统美德所起的重要作用，还因为他不喜欢激进教师的怀疑论和唯物论。他的真正激情留给了文学和科学的哲理，并乐于花全部时间研究它们。但人世的境况迫使他不自愿地予以注意，当他眼看人类的愚蠢和贪婪即将使欧洲陷入混乱，将要毁掉人类历史上最辉煌的文明时，他感到这正是有识有心之士介入的良机，以便把政治从右翼财阀和左翼头脑糊涂的理想主义者手中解救出来。由于他和他这一类人是正派和聪敏想结合的唯一代表，他们必须屈尊投身政界，亲自拯救大众。