【Chapter 2】The Little Prince(小王子)

joker11111

Chapter 2

So I lived my life alone, without anyone that I could really talk to, until I had an accident with my plane in the Desert of Sahara, six years ago. Something was broken in my engine. And as I had with me neither a mechanic nor any passengers, I set myself to attempt the difficult repairs all alone. It was a question of life or death for me: I had scarcely enough drinking water to last a week.

The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand, a thousand miles from any human habitation. I was more isolated than a shipwrecked sailor on a raft in the middle of the ocean. Thus you can imagine my amazement, at sunrise, when I was awakened by an odd little voice. It said:

"If you please--draw me a sheep! "

"What! "

"Draw me a sheep! "

I jumped to my feet, completely thunderstruck. I blinked my eyes hard. I looked carefully all around me. And I saw a most extraordinary small person, who stood there examining me with great seriousness. Here you may see the best portrait that, later, I was able to make of him. But my drawing is certainly very much less charming than its model.

That, however, is not my fault. The grown-ups discouraged me in my painter's career when I was six years old, and I never learned to draw anything, except boas from the outside and boas from the inside.

Now I stared at this sudden apparition with my eyes fairly starting out of my head in astonishment. Remember, I had crashed in the desert a thousand miles from any inhabited region. And yet my little man seemed neither to be straying uncertainly among the sands, nor to be fainting from fatigue or hunger or thirst or fear. Nothing about him gave any suggestion of a child lost in the middle of the desert, a thousand miles from any human habitation. When at last I was able to speak, I said to him:

"But--what are you doing here? "

And in answer he repeated, very slowly, as if he were speaking of a matter of great consequence:

"If you please--draw me a sheep . . . "

When a mystery is too overpowering, one dare not disobey. Absurd as it might seem to me, a thousand miles from any human habitation and in danger of death, I took out of my pocket a sheet of paper and my fountain-pen. But then I remembered how my studies had been concentrated on geography, history, arithmetic and grammar, and I told the little chap (a little crossly, too) that I did not know how to draw. He answered me:

"That doesn't matter. Draw me a sheep . . . "

But I had never drawn a sheep.So I drew for him one of the two pictures I had drawn so often.

It was that of the boa constrictor from the outside. And I was astounded to hear the little fellow greet it with,

16. "No, no, no! I do not want an elephant inside a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor is a very dangerous creature, and an elephant is very cumbersome. Where I live, everything is very small. What I need is a sheep. Draw me a sheep. "

So then I made a drawing.

He looked at it carefully, then he said:

"No. This sheep is already very sickly. Make me another. "

So I made another drawing.

My friend smiled gently and indulgently.

"You see yourself," he said, "that this is not a sheep. This is a ram. It has horns. "

So then I did my drawing over once more.

But it was rejected too, just like the others.

"This one is too old. I want a sheep that will live a long time. "

By this time my patience was exhausted, because I was in a hurry to start taking my engine apart. So I tossed off this drawing.

And I threw out an explanation with it.

"This is only his box. The sheep you asked for is inside. "

I was very surprised to see a light break over the face of my young judge:

"That is exactly the way I wanted it! Do you think that this sheep will have to have a great deal of grass? "

"Why? "

"Because where I live everything is very small . . . "

"There will surely be enough grass for him," I said. "It is a very small sheep that I have given you. "

He bent his head over the drawing.

"Not so small that--Look! He has gone to sleep . . . "

And that is how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.

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alltolove

小王子为什么会出现在沙漠中

joker11111

alltolove 发表于 2017-2-23 07:04
小王子为什么会出现在沙漠中

因为他和他的玫瑰花闹别扭，最后离开他的星球出来旅行，想要见更多的人，最后就到地球上了，没想到着陆点是沙漠---恩，超级剧透者就是我

joker11111

没有人懂我真正想要去说些什么，因此我一个人生活。直到6年前我的飞机在撒哈拉沙漠上空发生事故迫降。我的发动机里有一部分损坏了。当时我没有机械师也没有任何乘客，只能我一个人尝试艰难的修复。活下去对我来说都是个问题，我只有仅仅能够维持一周的饮用水。

第一天夜晚，我睡在距离人类居住地一千英里的沙子上。我比一个在海洋中心的一个筏上的失事船员更孤立。太阳升起，当我睁开眼睛，一个奇怪的小声音在旁响起，你们能想象到我当时的震惊状态么？
他说：“你能给我画一只羊么？”
“什么？”
“给我画一只羊！”
我一瞬间坐起来，艰难的揉着自己的眼睛，仔细的观察我的周围。我看见一个非常不寻常的小人，它站在我面前， 很认真的注视着我。在这里你可以看到最好的肖像，后来，将他画了下来。但是我的绘画实肯定比他的模型迷人的多。

但是，那并不是我的错。大人们在我6岁的时候就已经扼杀了我的画家生涯，除了那两张蟒蛇的内部和外部我再也没有画过任何东西。

-------------------------------我是分割线-------------------------------------

逐字翻译花费时间较长，感觉英文还是要英文解释，改变英语习惯

so,接下来，整理每章的生词，疑难句子：
shipwrecked :(of a person or ship) suffer a shipwreck.  船难
thunderstruck：extremely surprised or shocked
blinked ：shut and open the eyes quickly.
charming ：pleasant or attractive
straying uncertainly 迷路
faint：lose consciousness for a short time because of a temporarily insufficient supply of oxygen to the brain.
sheep 绵羊  ram 公羊horns 角
bent : sharply curved or having an angle.

But my drawing is certainly very much less charming than its model. 我的画远远不及他本人可爱
And that is how I made the acquaintance of the little prince.  就这样，我结识了小王子

alltolove

joker11111 发表于 2017-2-23 17:27
没有人懂我真正想要去说些什么，因此我一个人生活。直到6年前我的飞机在撒哈拉沙漠上空发生事故迫降。我的 ...

我建议不要都翻译了，就把几个生词翻译了就行，也不要用中文翻译。for instance(比如）：love:deeply like something而不要翻译成爱

joker11111

alltolove 发表于 2017-2-23 18:45
我建议不要都翻译了，就把几个生词翻译了就行，也不要用中文翻译。for instance(比如）：love:deeply lik ...

好主意，的确，全篇翻译比较累，英文单词英文解释更好一些，感谢支持