2013年自考英语(二)课文译文:让我们停止饲养宠物

　　让我们停止饲养宠物

　　Pets are lovable, frequently delightful. The dog and the cat, the most favored of pets, are beautiful, intelligent animals. To assume the care for them can help bring out the humanity in our children and even in us. A dog or a cat can teach us a lot about human nature; they are a lot more like us than some might think. More than one owner of a dog has said that the animal understands everything he says to it. So a mother and father who have ever cared for pets are likely to be more patient and understanding with their children as well, and especially to avoid making negative or rude remarks in the presence of a child, no matter how young.

　　宠物可爱而且常讨人喜欢，人们最喜爱的宠物当数狗和猫，它们漂亮而且聪明。承担起照料它们的责任有助于在我们的孩子们身上甚至我们身上培养出人情味。狗和猫能使我们对人的本性有更多的了解。它们在许多方面很像我们，像到超出了一些人的想象。不止一位狗的主人说过，狗能理解他所说的话。因此养过宠物的父母对他们的子女可能会更有耐心，也更容易理解他们。特别是不管孩子多小，当着他的面，父母会避免说消极或粗鲁的话。

　　It is touching to see how a cat or dog -- especially a dog -- attaches itself to a family and wants to share in all its goings and comings. If certain animal psychologists are right, a dog adopts his family in a most literal way - taking it for granted that the family is the band of dogs he belongs to.

　　看到猫或狗――特别是狗――对一个家庭是如何地依恋，如何地想要分享家里发生的一切事情，是十分感人的。如果某些动物心理学家的分析是正确的话，那么一条狗真正地接受了它的家庭，就想当然地认为这个家庭是它所归属的一群狗。

　　It is sometimes said that the cat "takes all and gives nothing.” But is that really true? A cat can teach us a valuable lesson about how to be contented, how to be serene and at ease, how to sit and contemplate. Whereas a dog's constant pleas for attention become, sometimes, a bit too much. Nevertheless it is the dog who can teach us lessons of loyalty and devotion that no cat ever knew.

　　有时人们说猫“只知索取，不知付出”，但真是这样吗?猫可以教给我们一些有益的启示，教会我们怎样感到满足、安宁和舒适，如何静坐和沉思。而狗总是不停地请求你的注意，有时会让人有点受不了。但不管怎么说，是狗教会了我们忠诚和献身，而猫对此一无所知。

　　So there's plenty to be said in favor of keeping pets. But with all that in mind, I still say let's stop keeping pets. Not that a family should kill its pets. Very few could bring themselves to do that. To be practical, I am suggesting that if we do not now have a pet we should not acquire one; second, that if we now have a pet, we let it be our last one. l could never say that pets are bad. I am saying, let's give up this good thing -- the ownership of a pet -- in favor of a more imperative good.

　　因此，人们有足够的理由赞成饲养宠物，尽管我也知道这些，但我还是要说：让我们停止饲养宠物吧。并非是说应该杀掉家里的宠物，很少有人能使自己去做这样的事。从现实的角度出发，我只是建议：如果我们现在还没有宠物，就不要去弄一只来;如果我们现在已有宠物，那么就让它成为我们养的最后一只。我决不会说宠物是坏东西。我的意思是说，让我们放弃拥有宠物这一雅好，去做一件更加迫切的好事。

　　The purchase, the health care, the feeding and housing and training of a pet -- and I chiefly mean the larger, longer-lived pets -- cost time and money. Depending on the animal's size and activity, it's special tastes and needs, and the standard of living we establish for it, the care of a pet can cost from a dollar a week to a dollar or more a day. I would not for a moment deny it is worth that.

　　购买、医疗、饲养、提供住所和训练一只宠物――我主要是指较大的，活得较长的宠物，耗费着人们的时间和金钱。按宠物的大小和活动规律，它的特殊嗜好和需求以及我们为它所提供的生活标准，养一只宠物的花费会从一周一美元到一天一美元甚至更多，我从不否认它值得那样的花费。

　　But facts outside the walls of our home keep breaking in on our awareness. Though we do not see the poverty-stricken people of India and Africa and South America, we can never quite forget that they are there. Now and then their faces are shown in the news, or in the begging ads of relief organizations. Probably we send a donation whenever we can.

　　但是我们房子外面的事实却不断地闯入我们的意识。虽然我们看不到印度、非洲和南美的饥民，但却决不能忘记他们的的确确在那里。他们的面孔不时地出现在新闻中，出现在救济机构的求援广告里，我们很可能一有能力就会送上捐款。

　　But we do not, as a rule, feel a heavy personal responsibility for the afflicted and deprived for we are pretty thoroughly formed by the individualistic, competitive society we live in. The first dime we ever made was ours to spend in any way we chose. No one thought of questioning that. That attitude, formed before we had learned to think, usually prevails through our life: "I made my money. I can spend it any way I like.”

　　我们通常并不感到对贫穷人们负有重大的个人责任，因为我们几乎完全是由我们生活于其中的这个个人主义的、竞争的社会所塑造成形的。我们所挣到的第一枚硬币就应该由我们自由地花掉，没有人会对此提出疑问。这种观念形成于我们学会思考之前，通常会主导着我们的一生：“我挣的钱，我愿意怎么花就怎么花。”

　　But more and more we are reading that the people of the "Third World” feel bitter at us in the developed countries (with the United States far more developed than any of the others) for our seizing hold of two-thirds of the world's wealth and living like kings while they work away all day to earn a bare living.

　　但是我们越来越多地谈到“第三世界”的人民对于我们这些生活在发达国家(美国比起其他发达国家又发达了许多)的人们充满了愤恨，因为我们占有了世界上2/3的财富，生活得像国王一样，而他们天天辛勤劳作却只能勉强度日。

　　The money and the time we spend on pets is simply not our own to spend as we like in a time of widespread want and starvation. A relief organization advertises that for $33 a month they can give hospital care to a child suffering from kwashiorkor -- the severe deficiency disease which is simply a starving for protein. Doing without such a pet, and then sending the money saved to a relief organization would mean saving a life -- over the years, several human lives.

　　在一个遍布饥饿和贫困的时代，我们花在宠物身上的时间和金钱简单来说并不是我们可以随心所欲花掉的。一个救济组织做广告说，每日33美元他们可以使患有恶性营养不良的儿童去医院接受治疗，这种严重的营养缺乏症仅仅是因缺乏蛋白质所致。不养宠物将省下的钱送给救济组织就意味着救了一条性命――几年后就会是几条性命。

　　Children not suffering from such a grave disease could be fed with half that amount -- not on a diet like ours, but on plain, basic, life-sustaining food. It is not unreasonable to believe that the amount of money we spend on the average pet dog could keep a child alive in a region of great poverty. To give what we would spend on a cat might not feed a child, but it would probably pay for his medical care or basic education. The point needs no laboring. That is all that need be said.

　　养活一个没有遭受这一严重疾病的儿童只需上述数额的一半――不是像我们一样吃营养配餐，而是吃那些简单的、基本的、维持生命的食物。我们完全有理由相信：我们平均花在每一条爱犬身上的钱能够养活一个生活在极度贫困地区的儿童。把花在一只猫身上的钱拿出来可能养活不了一个儿童，但很可能可以支付他的医疗费或者基础教育费。这一点无须详述，我要说的就是这些。

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