六级翻译练习

　　The Thirty-Six Stratagems is an ancient bookconcerning the art of war. The thirty-six stratagemsare arranged in terms of their names and can fall intosix categories.The stratagems’names in the bookhave different origins.Some are from historicalstories, such as “besieging Wei to save Zhao”;some are from ancient military terms,such as“making a feint to the east but attacking in the west”;and some are from idioms, such as“pointing at the mulberry but scolding the locust tree”. Each stratagem name is followed by anexplanation and notes. The notes are mostly sharp statements quoted from war examplesbefore the Song Dynasty as well as from famous ancient strategists. After the composition ofthe Thirty-Six Stratagems, it has been widely read in the general public and the phrase “of allthirty-six stratagems, fleeing is the best” is also frequently used.

　　儒家学派(Confucianism)认为婚姻对家庭和社会都有重大意义。对于家庭，婚姻能将不同姓氏的家庭聚在一起，延续相关家族的家庭生活。对于社会，夫妻是人口的基本单位，婚姻有时能影响到国家的政治稳定和国际关系。从儒家思想来看， 婚姻的目的之一是培养美德。一夫一妻制(monogamy)的观念根深蒂固，中国人明白婚姻应该建立在爱情的基础上。出于孝(filial piety)与礼(propriety)的观念，婚姻成了昂贵的仪式，被认为仅次于葬礼。聘媒人(matchmaker)可以确保丈夫和妻子彼此般配，但主要是为了家庭的最大利益。

　　To the Confucians, marriage is of great importance to both family and the society. As for family, marriage can bring families of different surnames together, and continue the family life of the concerned clans. Socially, a married couple is the basic unit of the population;sometimes marriages can even affect the country's political stability and international relations. From the perspective of Confucianism, one purpose of marriage is to cultivate virtue.The Chinese have seen that marriage should be founded on love since the concept of monogamy is deeply rooted in their mindset. Due to the concept of filial piety and propriety, marriage has become a costly affair and been seen as second only to funeral ceremonies. The employ of a matchmaker can ensure that the husband and wife are compatible with each other,but primarily work in the families'best interests.

　　中国最早的文字主要是商朝时期刻在龟壳或兽骨上的甲骨文(Jiaguwen)。1899年，商朝的甲骨文碑文(inscriptions)在商朝晚期的都城河南安阳被发现。迄今为止，安阳共出土了10万多个龟壳和兽骨;龟壳和兽骨上发现的汉字约有4500个，其中1700个已得到确认。这为我们研究汉字起源提供了重要素材。过去，人们普遍认为商朝的甲骨文是最早的汉字。但是，20世纪80年代在西安郊区发现了一些刻有文字的龟壳和兽骨。考古学家证实这些汉字约产生于4000多年以前，比甲骨文还早。

　　The earliest characters once existed in China are Jiaguwen carved on tortoise shells or animal bones, mainly during the Shang Dynasty. In 1899，the inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty's Jiaguwen were detected in Anyang of Henan Province which was the capital in the late Shang Dynasty. So far, altogether more than 100,000 pieces of tortoise shells and animal bones have been unearthed from Anyang;about 4,500 Chinese characters have been found on the tortoise shells and animal bones, among which 1,700 have been confirmed.These are very important materials for us to research into the origin of Chinese characters. In the past, people generally considered Jiaguwen of the Shang Dynasty as the earliest Chinese characters. But in 1980s, some other tortoise shells and animal bones carved with characters were found in the suburb of Xi'an. Archaeologists made sure that these characters were about 4,000 years ago, even earlier than Jiaguwen.