世界小史 第106期:孔夫子

 　　So I am sure you will be interested in the teachings of Confucius – or K'ung Fu-tzu, as he was called in Chinese.

　　所以我确定你会对孔子——或汉语中叫孔夫子的学说感兴趣。

　　They aren't hard to understand. Nor to remember.

　　它们不难懂。也容易记。

　　Perhaps that's why he was so successful.

　　大概这就是他如此成功的原因。

　　What Confucius proposed is quite simple.

　　孔子所提出的东西非常简单的。

　　You may not like it, but there is more wisdom in it than first meets the eye.

　　也许起初你会不喜欢它，但是其中却蕴含着比人们第一眼所看到的更多的智慧。

　　What he taught was this: outward appearances are more important than we think – bowing to our elders, letting others go through a door first,他教导说：表面功夫比我们想象的更重要——向年长者鞠躬，让他人先进门，standing up to speak to a superior, and many other similar things for which they had more rules in China than we have.

　　与一位上司说话时起立，以及许多别的类似的事情，在中国比在我们这里有更多的处理这些事务的准则。

　　All such practices, so he believed, were not just a matter of chance.

　　所有这些准则，他这样认为，并不是偶然这样的。

　　They meant something, or had done once. Usually something beautiful.

　　它们有某种含意，或者曾经有过某种含意。通常都是某种美好的含意。

　　Which is why Confucius said: 'I believe in Antiquity¹, and I love it.'

　　所以孔子说：“我相信古代，并喜欢它。”

　　By this he meant that he believed in the sound good sense of all the many-thousand-year-old customs and habits,这就是说，他相信所有几千年之久的风俗习惯的美好和深刻的含意，and he repeatedly urged his fellow countrymen to observe them.

　　他一再叮嘱他的同胞们好好遵守它们。

 

1 antiquity   

n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹

参考例句：

• The museum contains the remains of Chinese antiquity.博物馆藏有中国古代的遗物。
• There are many legends about the heroes of antiquity.有许多关于古代英雄的传说。