One of the major pleasures in life is appetite, and one of our major duties should be to preserve it. Appetite is the keenness o

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问题     One of the major pleasures in life is appetite, and one of our major duties should be to preserve it. Appetite is the keenness of living; it is one of the senses that tells you that you are still curious to exist, that you still have an edge on your longings and want to bite into the world and taste its multitudinous flavors and juices.
    For appetite, to me, is this state of wanting, which keeps one’s expectations alive. I remember learning the lesson long ago as a child, when treats and orgies were few, and when I discovered that the greatest pitch of happiness was not in actually eating a toffee but in gazing at it beforehand. True, the first bite was delicious, but once the toffee was gone one was left with nothing, neither toffee nor lust. Besides, the whole toffeeness of toffees was imperceptibly diminished by the gross act of having eaten it. No, the best was in wanting it, in sitting and looking at it, when one tasted an inexhaustible treasure-house of flavors.
    So, for me, one of the keenest pleasures of appetite remains in the wanting, not the satisfaction. In wanting a peach, or a whisky, or a particular texture or sound, or to be with a particular friend. For in this condition, of course, I know that the object of desire is always at its most flawlessly perfect. Which is why I would carry the preservation of appetite to the extent of deliberate fasting, simply because I think that appetite is too good to lose, too precious to be bludgeoned into insensibility by satiation and over-doing it.
    For that matter, I don’t really want three square meals a day—I want one huge, delicious, orgiastic, table-groaning blow-out, say every four days, and then not be too sure where the next one is coming from. A day of fasting is not for me just a puritanical device for denying oneself a pleasure, but rather a way of anticipating a rare moment of supreme indulgence.
    glossary:
    multitudinous: 大量的;多样的
    have an edge on: 优于,略好于
    toffee: 太妃糖
    imperceptibly: 极微小的;觉察不到的
    bludgeon: 用棍棒打;重击
    orgiastic:狂欢的;纵欲的

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答案 欲之所尽,乃人生一大快事。欲之所存,乃人生一大追求。欲为何物?对生活的热诚,对万物的好奇以及渴望的热切。心中所想的是“吃”遍天下,尝尽世间的酸甜苦辣、人生百味。 在我心里,欲即“向往进行时”——无时无刻不充满期待。这点我很早就意识到了。孩提时代鲜有款待宴请,我发现最大的快乐莫过于眼睛骨碌碌地盯着太妃糖吞口水,而不动嘴咬一口。要是咬了,第一口当然回味无穷,然而几口过后,不仅糖没有了,味儿也荡然无存。况且,不知不觉中,太妃糖独特的“太妃味”也被舌头、牙齿悄悄赶跑了。所以不如倚身而坐,痴痴望之,切切盼之,在欲望中享受无穷无尽的珍奇百昧。 因此,在我看来,欲之极乐最见于向往之时,而非心随所愿之刻。一只蜜桃,一盏浊酒,一匹好布,一曲销魂,一友相伴,此等种种,向往便是极乐。因我深知:向往之时,心中之人、之物总是处于完美无瑕的最高境界。正是因为此等向往,我甚至可以不吃不喝,以存食欲。只因欲之极乐,唯恐失去;欲之不易,唯恐纵欲饱食而失其敏锐。 这样一来,我所向往的便不是一日三餐都大鱼大肉,而是每隔几天,比如四天,备好一大桌美味佳肴,尽享狂欢之乐,听那满载美食的桌子嘎吱的欢唱。敢问佳肴何时再来,把酒问青天。对我而言,禁食一天远非清教式的节欲,而是通向不可多得的极乐世界的阶梯。

解析     这里作者所说的appetite并不是简单的“胃口、食欲”,而是更广泛的对各种事物的“欲望、渴求”,因此译为“欲”;而既然是major pleasure(一大快事),那一定是最大限度地体验“欲望”,因此使用“尽”来表示,与之后的preserve(存),形成对照。
    整句话给“欲”定了概念,翻译时加上“欲为何物?”,然后用三个简短的结构以及新的句子对该问题进行回答,将原文中堆叠起来的概念合理拆分,逻辑更清晰;其中bite into the world保留了bite的本身含义,使用加了引号的“吃”,非常形象;翻译multitudinous flavors and juices时使用四字词语“酸甜苦辣,人生百味”不仅体现出了原文想要表达的含义,还体现出了译者的文学素养。
    few表达否定含义,表示“非常少,几乎没有”,因此译为“鲜有”;pitch的含义是“限度、程度”,the greatest pitch of happiness;就是“最大的快乐”;介词in与be动词搭配,意思是“在于”;翻译gazing at it beforehand这部分时,译文增译了修饰成分“眼睛骨碌碌地”,将那种紧紧盯着的状态生动地表现了出来。
    square meal是一个固定搭配,意思是“美餐,饱餐”,译为“大鱼大肉”更加直观,更有画面感;在处理形容词huge、delicious、orgiastic和修饰成分table-groaning时,译文并没有拘泥于原文,而是将前两个形容词和后边的b row-out合并译为“一大桌美味佳肴”,在orgiastic:前添加动词“尽享”,而在翻译table-groaning时使用了象声词“嘎吱”,并将桌子之所以会发出嘎吱声的原因“满载美食”增译出来,便于读者理解。
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