A strong common sense.doc

2. Translate the passage into Chinese. (北京大学2007研，考试科目：专业能力)
A strong common sense, which it is not easy to unseat or disturb, marks the English mind for a thousand years: a rude strength newly applied to thought, as of sailors and soldiers who had lately learned to read. They have no fancy, and never are surprised into a covert or witty word, such as pleased the Athenians and Italians, and was convertible into a fable not long after; but they delight [vi.] in strong [strongly, cf. come it strong, go it strong, put it strong, talk strong, think strong] earthy expression[s], not mistakable, coarsely true to the human body, and, though spoken among princes, equally fit and welcome to the mob. This homeliness, veracity, and plain style, appear in the earliest extant works, and in the latest [as well]. It imports into songs and ballads the smell of the earth, the breath of cattle, and, like a Dutch painter, seeks a household charm, though by pails [提桶] and pans. They ask their constitutional utility in verse. The kail [??] and herrings are never out of sight. The poet nimbly recovers himself from every sally [(感情等的)迸发，突发。]of the imagination. The English muse [Muse]loves the farmyard, the lane, and market. She says, with De Stael??, “I tramp in the mire with wooden shoes, whenever they would force me into the clouds.” For, the Englishman has accurate perception; takes hold of things by the right end, and there is no slipperiness in his grasp [grip]. He loves the axe, the spade, the oar, the gun, the steampipe: he has built the engine he uses. He is materialist, economical, and mercantile. He must be treated with sincerity and reality, with muffins [松饼,小松糕], and not the promise of muffins; and prefers his hot chop [2.排骨1.公章，官印；出港证；登陆护照；旅行护照。2.〔口语〕牌号，商标；品种，品质；等级。], with perfect security and convenience in the eating if [ of ??]it, to the chances of the amplest and Frenchiest [Frenchest ??] bill of fare [a bill of fare 菜单。 coarse fare 粗食。 simple [homely] fare 家常便饭。, cf. à la carte 点菜], engraved on embossed [用浮雕装饰；在(图案，花样等)作浮雕, 使凸出；(用模子)压花，压纹。] paper. When he is intellectual, and a poet or a philosopher, he carries the same hard truth and the same keen machinery into the mental sphere. His mind must stand on a fact. He will not be baffled, or catch at clouds, but the mind must have a symbol palpable and resisting. ?? What he relishes in Dante, is the vice-like tenacity with which he holds a mental image before the eyes, as if it were a scutcheon [ 名号牌子.盾形标牌；盾饰。]painted on a shield. Byron “liked something craggy to break his mind upon.” A taste for plain strong speech 【p & s】, what is called a biblical style, marks the English. It is in Alfred, and the Saxon Chronicle, and in the Sagas of the Northman. Latimer?? was homely. Hobbes was perfect in the “noble vulgar speech.” Donne [多恩], Bunyan, Milton, Taylor, Evelyn [伊夫林], Pepys[佩皮斯], hooker [胡克], cotton [科顿], and the translators, wrote it. How realistic or materialistic in treatment of his subject, is [how, Is / was, tenses]Swift. He describes his fictitious [假定的，虚设的 cf. fictional] persons, as if for the police [why because of fictitious]. Defoe has no insecurity or choice. Hudibras ??has the same hard mentality, keeping the truth at once to the senses, and to the intellect.
It is not less seen in poetry. Chaucer’s hard painting of his Canterbury pilgrims satisfies the senses. Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton, in their loftiest ascents [trans as 语调 or 口音], have this national grip and exactitude of mind. This mental materialism makes the value of English transcendental genius; in these writers, and in Herbert, Henry More, Donne, and Sir Thomas Browne. The Saxon materialism and narrowness, exalted into the sphere of intellect, makes the very genius of Shakespeare and Milton. When it reaches the pure element, it treads the clouds as securely as the adamant 【硬石， 金刚石等】. Even in its elevations, materialistic, its poetry is common sense 【or commensense】 inspired; 【，】or iron raised 【，】 to white heat.