话说“spring”
春天象征着生命和青春,不同民族的人们都喜欢春天。spring在英语中有“泉水”“弹簧”,甚至“生育”的意思。
早在公元前300多年,亚里士多德(Aristotle)就说过“One swallow does not make a spring.(独燕不成春)”在人们的心目中,春天的形象便是这样的。
英语中有很多描绘和歌颂春天的诗句。有的诗句是关于如何感知春天的来临,比如:In the spring time, the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding, sweet lovers love the spring.
有的诗歌则表达春天给人们带来的欢乐和喜悦的心情如:Spring, the sweet spring, is the year's king; Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, cold does not sting, the pretty birds do sing. Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
下面这位仁兄大概是个懒汉,不信请看这则:Spring is he glorious season when the grass grows up along the roadside and hides the discarded beer cans.
以上是一些过去的经典诗作,时下,歌颂春天的新作也很多,例如:Springtime seems to fill the air with music all its own; frogs and crickets come to life with such a pleasant tone.
Flowers peek their tiny heads above the fertile ground; No other season of the year can such beauty ere be found.
有关春天的名句,最脍炙人口的莫过于雪莱(Percy Bysshe Shelley)的经典诗句:“If winter comes, can spring be far behind?”,这一诗句极佳地反映出人们对春天的渴望之情。
不过,也有拿春天来调侃的,有人甚至模仿雪莱的名句,创作出以下诗句:There's something bad in everything good: when spring comes, can spring cleaning be far behind?
现在,国内的大部分城市已经迎来了春天,然而北京的春天要等到四月,而且非常短促。对此,曾有人描述:“Spring here does not arrive so much as it rushes through, a blur of changing colours.”意思是说:“这里的春天来也匆匆,去也匆匆,而且瞬间即逝,人们印象中留下的只是模糊的色彩变化。”
“spring”一词语含义丰富,英语中常利用同词异意来形成双关语,揣摩一下这个句子是何意吧!Why does water melon have so much water?Because it is planted in spring.
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