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LESSON 25 The daw in borrowed feathers
第二十五課 寒鴉借來的羽毛
A number of jackdaws lived very happily in the tower of an old church. Close at hand was a poultry-yard, belonging to a large house. Among the poultry lived some peacocks, which were allowed to wander about the garden, and in front of the house, that their beautiful feathers might be seen.
大量的寒鴉很高興住在老教堂的塔。近在咫尺是保爾特瑞花園,屬于一個大的房子。住了一些孔雀,可以漫步花園,在房子前面,他們可以看到美麗的羽毛。
Now one of the jackdaws thought that there was nothing he should like so much as to strut about like a peacock, spreading his long tail in the sun, or drawing it up behind him in the shape of a wheel. Then, if he could shake all his feathers at once, and let them down as the peacocks did, while everybody gazed at him, he thought how proud he should be.
現在的寒鴉認為他應該像一只驕傲的孔雀一樣昂首闊步,傳播他的長尾在陽光下,或畫它身后圓形狀的圈。然后,如果他能動搖他所有的羽毛,和孔雀一起,大家都盯著他時,他認為他應該感到無比自豪。
So he resolved what he would do. He gathered up the peacocks' cast-off feathers, dressed himself in them, and began to strut about the poultry-yard, in the hope of passing for a peacock! But he was quite mistaken: not only peacocks, but turkeys, guinea-fowls and even chickens and ducks, mocked him! And, being provoked by his foolish vanity, they tore the borrowed feathers from him,pecked him, and drove him out of the yard.
所以他決定他會做什么。他聚集了孔雀的羽毛,打扮自己,并開始對著花園的支柱,希望通過對孔雀!但他是錯誤的:不僅孔雀,還有火雞,幾內亞家禽、甚至雞鴨,都嘲笑他!被他激起了愚蠢的虛榮,他們拔了他借來的羽毛,啄他,把他趕出院子。
The unhappy jackdaw then wished to return to his old friends in the church-tower, and would have been glad to lead his former happy life with them. But they would not notice him, and he was obliged to leave them, and lead a life of loneliness and misery.
然后不幸的寒鴉希望回到教堂里他的老朋友那,并將一直很高興過他以前幸福的生活。但是他們不會注意到他,他被迫離開他們,過一種孤獨的生活和痛苦。
This fable shows the folly of those who set their hearts on fine clothes, and who try to lead a life above their station. So long as we keep in the place which God has given us, we are happy, and people honour and respect us; but nothing is so absurd as the vanity which makes us try to seem finer, or richer, than we really are.
這寓言顯示了愚蠢的人把他們的心好衣服,和那些試圖領導生活高于自己。只要我們保持神賜給我們的地方,我們是快樂的,和人民的榮譽和尊重我們,但沒有那么荒謬的虛榮心,讓我們嘗試看起來更好,或者比我們富裕,。
