大学英语4bu6课文及翻译

Winston Churchill 温斯顿?丘吉尔

1 In the summer of 1940, Britain stood alone on the brink of invasion. At that crucial time, one man, Winston Churchill, defined what it meant to be British. We like to think of ourselves as tolerant and long-suffering people. But Churchill, through his leadership and his example, reminded us that if all we hold dear – our democracy, our freedom – is threatened, we will show courage and determination like no other nation:

1 1940年夏天，英国面临外敌入侵，孤立无援。在这一危急时刻，有一个人——温斯顿?丘吉尔——挺身而出，显示了英国人的本色。我们英国人喜欢把自己看成是一个宽容而坚忍的民族。但是丘吉尔以他卓越的领导才能和光辉的榜样让我们看到，当我们所珍视的一切——我们的民主、我们的自由——受到威胁的时候，我们会展示出无与伦比的勇气和决心：

2 \"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. You ask what is our policy? I can say it is to wage war by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all our strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be.\"

2 “我所能奉献的唯有热血、辛劳、眼泪和汗水。你问我们的政策是什么？我会说我们的政策就是在海、陆、空全面开战，竭尽全力，尽上帝赋予我们的全部力量去战斗；与黑暗的、可悲的人类罪恶史上最穷凶极恶的暴政作战。你问我们的目标是什么？我可以用一个词来回答，那就是胜利。不惜一切代价，去夺取胜利。战胜一切恐怖，去

夺取胜利。不论前方的道路多么漫长、多么艰辛，一定要夺取胜利。”

3 This was the moment when Britain had to be at its greatest. And in Churchill we found the greatest of Britons.

3 在这样一个时刻，英国必须显示出她最伟大的一面。而在丘吉尔身上，我们看到了一个最伟大的英国人。

4 Winston Churchill was born in 1874 into one of Britain's grandest families. The Churchills had been fighting for king and country for generations. Young Winston always believed he'd do the same. But self-belief was something he maintained despite rather than because of his family. His father Lord Randolph Churchill (1849–1895), and his mother, Jennie (1854–1921), were both cold and distant people. Winston was packed off to Harrow. He wasn't good-looking or clever; he was sickly, with a lisp and a stammer. He was bound to be bullied –and he was. Far from giving support, Winston's father predicted his child would \"degenerate into a shabby, unhappy and futile existence\".

4 1874年，温斯顿?丘吉尔出生于英国一个极为显赫的家庭。丘吉尔家族世代为国王和国家出生入死，征战沙场。温斯顿年轻的时候一直相信他会继承父业。但是他一直能够保持自信却与他的家庭无关，他的家人并没有给他多少支持。他的父亲伦道夫?丘吉尔勋爵（1849—1895）和母亲珍妮（1854—1921）都是冷漠、拒人于千里之外的人。他们把温斯顿送到了哈罗公学。他既不英俊又不聪明；他体弱多病，说话口齿不清，还结巴。他是那种在学校里注定要被人欺负的学生——实际情况也是如此。温斯顿的父亲不仅没有给他支持和帮助，还预测他的儿子将来会“沦落到穷困潦倒、一事无成、抑郁而终的地步”。

5 He left school and, after three attempts, got into the military academy at Sandhurst. After

Sandhurst he went looking for military action – wherever it was. He paid for himself by doubling up as a war correspondent.

He used his dispatches to promote himself as a hero of the Boer War, and returned to England in 1900 renowned and all set to become an MP.

5 离开学校之后，经过三次努力，温斯顿进入了位于桑赫斯特的英国皇家陆军军官学校。从桑赫斯特毕业之后，他就找地方去打仗——不管是什么地方。他自费兼任战地记者，并因报道出色而成为布尔战争的英雄。因此当1900年回到英国的时候，他已经名满天下，为当选国会议员铺平了道路。

6 He was elected as Tory MP for Oldham in the same year. Then he swapped to the Liberals, then back. He was never really a Party animal. He cared about Britain. His vision was of a place with better living standards for ordinary people, but with a fierce regard for law and order. Though he wasn't a vicious man, Churchill's attitude to suffragettes, trade unionists or anyone who challenged the system was brutal. His weapon of first resort was the army.

6 同年，他代表奥尔德姆市当选为保守党国会议员。此后，他一度转投自由党，后来又重回保守党。他从来不是一个热衷于党派斗争的人。他只关心英国的前途和命运。他理想中的英国是普通百姓安居乐业的地方，但同时他又非常看重法律和社会秩序。尽管丘吉尔不是一个邪恶的人，但他对妇女参政论者、工会主义者以及任何想要挑战现行体制的人都残酷无情，他首先想到的手段就是动用军队进行镇压。

7 But then he'd always wanted to be a general. This ambition dated back to the days when he spent his school holidays playing with toy soldiers in the corridors of Blenheim Palace, below the tapestries of his heroic ancestors. He must have been delighted when, in 1911, he was made First Lord of the Admiralty – and even more so when the First World War offered him the opportunity to plan a major military offensive at Gallipoli, in 1915.

7 但是他一直想当一名将军。这个理想可以追溯到他的学生时代。

学校放假的时候，他就在布莱尼姆宫的走廊里、在他那些战功卓著的祖先的织锦画像下玩玩具士兵，那时候他就萌生了这种理想。1911年，被任命为海军大臣的时候，他一定非常高兴；1915年，当第一次世界大战让他有机会制定加利波利重大攻势计划的时候，他更是欣喜万分。

8 Gallipoli was a disaster, costing Winston his job and nearly his sanity. This was the onset of his first major bout of depression, a curse he called his \"black dog\". Thankfully he now had a wife, Clementine, to help him through it. She was 11 years younger than him, beautiful, clever and unswervingly loyal. She kept him together, but he got himself out of it, in true Churchillian fashion. To make amends for his mistake, he took himself off to the trenches of France to fight. He must be one of the few soldiers to have written home from the First World War that he had \"found happiness and content such as I have not known for months\". He was a man made for war.

8 但是加利波利战役以惨败收场，让温斯顿丢掉了饭碗，也使他几乎精神崩溃。丘吉尔第一次犯严重的抑郁症就是从那个时候开始的，他把这个让他痛苦不堪的疾病称为“黑狗”（沮丧）。值得庆幸的是，此时他已经娶妻成家。他的妻子克莱门泰因帮他渡过了难关。她比他小11岁，美丽、聪明、忠贞不渝。她让他振作起来，但最终丘吉尔以自己特有的方式走出了抑郁。为弥补他的过失，他奔赴法国战场，在战壕中浴血奋战。在第一次世界大战中，大概没有几个士兵会像他那样从战场上写信回家，说他“感觉到了几个月来从没有过的幸福和满足”。他就是为战争而生的。

9 By the time Churchill returned to England, he'd already achieved many great things. He'd been

a successful journalist, he'd fought for his country and he'd held high office, as he was to do again in the 1920s as Chancellor of the Exchequer. But by 1930, Labour was in power and he was on the backbenches, a nobody and a has-been. He largely sat out

the 1930s at his country retreat

Chartwell.

9 当丘吉尔回到英国的时候，他已经成就了丰功伟业。他曾是一名成功的记者，他曾为国家浴血奋战，他曾经身居高位。在20世纪20年代他再次官居要职，担任财务大臣。但是到了1930年，工党开始执政，而他只是一名后座议员，一个无足轻重的小人物，一名过气的政客。30年代的大部分时间，他都在他的乡间别墅查特威尔庄园里闲坐度日。

10 In September 1938, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (1869–1940) famously brandished an agreement he'd signed with Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) and declared he'd secured peace in our time. You could almost hear the sighs of relief. But not from Winston. He'd predicted –long before anyone else – what German nationalism was leading to. By the time he was proved right, and war had been declared, King George VI (1895–1952) knew that \"there was only one person I could send for to form a Government who had the confidence of the country. And that was Winston\". When the call came, Churchill was 65 years old. It had been a long wait, but destiny had arrived.

10 1938年9月，时任首相的内维尔?张伯伦（1869—1940）公开挥舞着他和阿道夫?希特勒（1889—1945）签订的和平协议，宣告他已经确保了我们这个时代的和平。你甚至都可以听到人们如释重负地松了一口气。但是丘吉尔并不这么认为。他预测到——比任何人都要早——德国的民族主义会走向何方。事态的发展证明他是对的，战争爆发了，英国国王乔治六世（1895—1952）知道“要组建一个能赢得全国信任的政府，我只能去请一个人，那就是温斯顿。”任命下来的时候，丘吉尔已经65岁了。为这一天他等了很久，但上天最终还是把大任交给了他。

11 People talk of 1066, of the Armada, of Trafalgar. But 1940 was the most important year in British history. It was the year of

Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz. It was the year when every single Briton, civilian as well as soldier, found themselves at war. The cause appeared hopeless, yet Winston, reviving the V sign for victory from the fields of Agincourt 500 years before, told us we could win.

11 人们经常会说起1066年的诺曼征服，说起击败西班牙无敌舰队的壮举，提到特拉法尔加战役这些重要的历史事件。但其实1940年才是英国历史上最重要的一年。敦刻尔克大撤退、不列颠之战、德国空袭英国都发生在这一年。在这一年，每一个英国人，不管是平民还是士兵，都发现自己处于战争之中。英国似乎不可能赢得这场战争，但是温斯顿用500年前阿金库尔战役中那个表示胜利的V字手势告诉我们，我们能够取得胜利。

12 Churchill was an instinctive, daring, often infuriating war leader. He was rude and unpleasant to his staff, who struggled to keep up with his limitless capacity for hard work and hard liquor. But he was also an inspiration. When victory was finally declared in Europe on 8 May 1945, it was quickly followed by a general election. The billboards said \"Cheer Churchill, Vote Labourhat's what people did. That was the irony. The very democracy that Churchill was prepared to lay down his life to defend was the same democracy that knew the difference between the needs of peace and the needs of war.

12 丘吉尔是一个直觉敏锐、大胆、常常令人恼火的战争领袖。他对部下粗鲁，令人不快。他工作起来不要命，喝起酒来也不要命，这让他的部下疲于应付。但同时他也鼓舞了无数人。1945年5月8日，欧洲最终宣布战争胜利，英国随即举行了大选。英国许多告示牌上都写着“为丘吉尔喝彩，给工党投票”，而人们也确实是这么做的。这真是充满了讽刺意味。丘吉尔随时准备誓死保卫的民主国家明白和平时代的需求和战时的需求是不一样的。

13 When Churchill died in 1965, the new rock-and-roll Britain

stood still. If Britain –its eccentricity, its strength of character, its big-heartedness – had to be summed up in one person, it was him. He had gone, but, thanks to him, Britain lived on. And what could be greater than

that?

13 1965年，丘吉尔去世，刚刚进入摇滚乐时代的英国举国皆哀。如果要用一个人来代表英国的怪僻、坚强的个性和宽广的胸怀，那就是丘吉尔。丘吉尔已经离我们而去，但正是因为有了他，英国才得以存活下来。还有什么能成为比这更伟大的业绩呢？