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  3. One day in the dead of winter, I looked out my back window and saw a chicken. It was jet-black with a crimson wattle, and it see

One day in the dead of winter, I looked out my back window and saw a chicken. It was jet-black with a crimson wattle, and it see

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问题     One day in the dead of winter, I looked out my back window and saw a chicken. It was jet-black with a crimson wattle, and it seemed unaware that it was in New York City. In classic barnyard fashion, it was scratching, pecking and ducking.
    I shrugged off the apparition. Birds come and go. Usually they’re pigeons, not chickens, but like other birds, this one had wings and it would probably use them. Or so I thought.
    The protagonist of this story is known simply as the chicken. How it came to a small backyard here, remains a matter of conjecture. The chicken made its first appearance next door, at the home of a multitude of cabdrivers from Bangladesh. My wife, Nancy, and I figured they had bought the chicken and were fattening it for a feast. That hypothesis fell into doubt when the chicken hopped the fence and began pacing the perimeter of our yard with a proprietary air.
    Eating it was out of the question. As a restaurant critic and an animal lover, I subscribe to a policy of complete hypocrisy. Serve fish or fowl to me, but don’t ask me to watch the killing. Once I meet it, I don’t want to eat it.
    Nancy and I next theorized that the chicken had escaped from a live-poultry market about four blocks away and was on the run. Our hearts went out to the brave little refugee. We had to save it.
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答案 故事的主人公就叫小鸡。至于它怎么会来到这里一直让人捉摸不透。小鸡第一次出场是在隔壁邻居家，那儿住着许多从盂加拉来的出租车司机。我和我太大南希猜想一定是他们买了鸡，打算养肥了好饱餐一顿。可是后来小鸡跳过篱笆，在我家的后院大摇大摆地巡视，俨然一副主人的架势，我们俩的这种假设也就大有疑问了。 吃掉它?绝不会。我既爱美食，又爱动物，只能采取十足的伪君子政策——鸡鸭鱼肉我都吃，但别让我看见屠宰过程，看了就不想吃了。 于是，我和南希推测，小鸡可能是从四个街区以外的生禽市场跑出来的，属于在逃之列。我们俩从心里同情这个勇敢的小难民。我们得救救它。
解析     这段材料选自The New York Times的Chicken Delight，由于是记叙文体，语言生动、自然，一幅田园画面跃然纸上，因此翻译时语言也无需特别中规中矩，准确把握原意，通顺译出即可。
1．protagonist是指戏剧、故事、小说中的主角，这里翻译成“主人公”更为生动。
2．第二句中的conjecture意为“推测，猜想”，这里remains a matter of conjecture译为“让人捉摸不透”，既忠实于原文，又符合汉语表达习惯。
3．第三句中的a multitude of是“许多”之意。
4．第四句中的figure有不同含义，这里是动词词性，由前面的conjecture和下一句中的hypothesis可以推断这里figure也是“猜测，推断”之意。
5．首段末句为主从复合句，when引导时间状语从句，其中hopped和began为并列谓语。proprietary是proprietor(所有者)的形容词，这里的air意为“神情，神色”，因此a proprietary air可译为“一副主人的架势”。
6．第二段首句中的out of the question是“不可能”之意，注意区分它和out of question(毫无疑问)，两者意思截然不同。
7．第二段第二句中的subscribe的常见含义是“订阅”，这里subscribe to意为“同意”。
8．第二段第三句中的serve fish or fowl to me根据上下文意译为“鸡鸭鱼肉我都吃”。
9．末段中的on the run意为“在逃，逃跑”。
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