自考英语二教材英文翻译第九课：Text B

Text B A Violin with Three Strings

On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman1, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center2 in New York City.

If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both leg and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.

三弦小提琴

1995年11月18日，小提琴家伊扎克?帕尔曼在纽约市林肯中心的埃弗里费雪厅上台准备开始一场音乐会。

如果你曾听过帕尔曼的音乐会，你就知道登台演出对他来说是个非凡的成就。他幼年患有小儿麻痹症，两条腿都安有铁夹，靠拄两个拐杖走路。看着他一步一步艰辛、缓慢地穿过舞台，那场面真令人敬畏!

He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, sic puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

他艰辛但又庄重地走到椅子边，慢慢坐下，把拐杖放到地板上，解开腿上的扣钩，把一只脚掰向身后，把另一只脚伸向身前。接着，他弯下身拿起小提琴，放到身上，用下巴顶好。他朝乐队指挥点头示意，随即开始了演奏。

By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.

But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.

一直以来，观众都对他的开场动作习以为常。他们静静地坐着，看帕尔曼艰难地穿过舞台走向椅子。他们一言不发，带着敬意看帕尔曼解开两条腿上的扣钩。他们等着他开始演奏。

但是这一次意外出现了。他刚弹奏完前面几段，小提琴的一根弦断了。你能听到那响声，音乐厅里就像顿时响起了枪声一样。那声音让人们很确信发生了什么，人们也很清楚帕尔曼接下来必须要做什么。

We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn#39;t. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.

The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.

我们猜想他会不得不放弃演奏，重新扣上腿上的扣钩，拿起拐杖，一瘸一拐地走下舞台。他要么去找另一把小提琴，要么去为断弦的小提琴找另一根弦。但是他没有。他等了一小会儿，闭上眼睛，接着向乐队指挥示意重新开始。

乐队又开始了演奏，他从刚才停下的部分开始。观众从来没有听过他这么富有激情、饱含力量的纯净的演奏。

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

当然，任何人都知道仅靠三根弦是不可能演奏交响乐的。我们大家都知道这个事实，但是伊扎克?帕尔曼当晚却坚定证明他能够做到。你能感觉到他在脑海中转调、改变和重新谱写着这支曲子。听起来像是他在微调琴弦的音调，使其发出以前没有发出过的新声音。

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone - “You know,

sometimes it is the artists task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.

当他表演结束的时候，整个音乐大厅寂静无声。然后大家都起立为他鼓掌喝彩。音乐厅里到处都爆发出雷鸣般的掌声。我们都站起来，尖叫着，欢呼着，尽一切所能来表达我们对帕尔曼演奏的赞赏。他笑了，擦去额头上的汗水，举起小提琴的琴弓示意让我们安静下来。接着他用一种低沉的、深思的和带有恭敬却丝毫没有自夸的语气对我们说，"大家知道，有的时候，音乐家的天职就是去发现使用残缺的乐器仍能演奏出什么音乐来。”

What a powerful line that is! It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life - not just for artists, but for all of us.

这是一句多么引人深思的话啊!从听到这句话的那一刻起我就一直把它铭记于心。谁知道呢?也许这就是生命的真谛--不只是对音乐家，对我们所有的人来说都适用。

Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin with four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.

他毕生都致力于演奏四根弦的小提琴，但在音乐会期间小提琴突然只剩下三根弦：因此他便用三根弦演奏，然而，那晚他用三根弦演奏的音乐却比他之前用四根弦演奏的音乐更加美妙，更加扣人心弦，更加令人难忘。

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.

所以，在这个摇摇欲坠、风云变幻和令人困惑的世界里，我们的任务也许就是弹奏自己的音乐，一开始使用所拥有的一切弹奏，然后，当拥有一切不可能时，使用剩余部分继续弹奏。