1859年3月25日 近来，二十几个同镇居民在射杀和诱捕麝鼠、水貂，其中有些人没有别的事可做。正如鞋匠林恩建议的那样，现在如果他们想赚更多钱，不要去蛤蜊河岸，而应当去射杀麝鼠。这些人一整天都在外面——不分早晚地审视着上涨的河水。他们在远处的沼泽里偷偷摸摸地设下陷阱，远离彼此。我是不是也是捕猎者——不分早晚，审视着上涨的河水，在远处的林边巡视，独自设下陷阱，尽我所能地引诱它们。不过，我的目的是抓住生命和光明——以便我的心智能品尝鹿肉，从而精神焕发，用野兽毛皮的温暖遮盖自己赤裸的身心。”

——亨利·戴维·梭罗《瓦尔登湖动植物图鉴》

正文

Chapter I. Economy 节俭

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in.

misfortune :: 不幸（制作问答卡片）

than got rid of 是一个被动态，than有两种用法，一种做介词，一种做连词。连词的后面跟完整的句子，这里是做哪种？You are a better person than me 做介词，than I am 做连词。这里其实后面也是一句话，不过很多结构上的东西被省略了，所以是连词。（制作完形填空卡片）

Better if...that... better这个词统领一句话。

虚拟语气 If they had been...they might have done....虚拟语气后面又跟着一个非真实条件句。

suckle 就是以母乳喂养的意思。suck -> suckling -> suckle... 为什么是狼呢？其实这就是受到罗马文化的影响了。传说有言，罗马城最开始的建立者是两位王子，他们的叔叔杀了他们的父亲，把双胞胎Remus和Remulus丢弃，后来兄弟俩被母狼手痒了，喝着狼奶长大，后来回去复仇，建立了罗马。

shewolf 梭罗用母狼来比喻美洲，用双胞胎比喻美国人，用罗马来寓意美国。 ‘‘America is the she wolf to-day, and the children of exhausted Europe exposed on her uninhabited and savage shores are the Romulus and Remus who, having derived new life and vigor from her breast, have founded a new Rome in the West’

Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born?

a peck of dirt是一个英语俗语，死前必吃一抔土，讲得是人生多艰，也有a peck of salt的变体。There are many hardships to be endured in one's lifetime.

They have got to live a man’s life, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they can. How many a poor immortal soul have I met well nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventyfive feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and wood-lot! The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.

many a: 文学用法。 e.g. It remained a mystery for many a year.

well nigh 基本上 e.g. Recovery will be well nigh impossible.

The fifth Labour of Heracles：这是希腊罗马神话了，Heracles就是Hercules的希腊版。欧律斯透斯要求赫拉克勒斯完成的12项功绩之一（第五个任务）就是在一天之内清理奥革阿斯的牲口圈，奥革阿斯也答应将他牲畜的十分之一作为报酬送给赫拉克勒斯。赫拉克勒斯将阿尔普斯河和佩纽斯河（一说是两者之一）的河水冲洗牲口圈，完成了任务。事后奥革阿斯反悔拒绝给赫拉克勒斯牲畜，于是赫拉克勒斯杀死了奥革阿斯及其儿子们。

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Annotation suckled by a wolf: The legendary founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were raised by a she-wolf after being abandoned as infants; Thoreau’s February 1851 journal entry adds: ‘‘America is the she wolf to-day, and the children of exhausted Europe exposed on her uninhabited and savage shores are the Romulus and Remus who, having derived new life and vigor from her breast, have founded a new Rome in the West’’ [J 2:151]. their sixty acres: Used to represent the average Concord farm size, although he used one hundred acres for the same purpose three sentences later. peck of dirt: ‘‘We must all eat a peck of dirt before we die.’’ live a man's life: Possible allusion to William Ellery Channing’s (1780–1842) ‘‘On the Elevation of the Laboring Classes’’: ‘‘Few men know, as yet, what a man is. They know his clothes, his complexion, his property, his rank, his follies, and his outward life. But the thought of his inward being, his proper humanity, has hardly dawned on multitudes; and yet, who can live a man’s life that does not know what is the distinctive worth of a human being?’’ Augean stables: The fifth of Hercules’ twelve labors was to clean the Augean stables, which were home to three thousand oxen and had not been cleaned for many years. He accomplished it by redirecting the course of two rivers through the stables.

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But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.

plow vs plough 把花园里的土翻一遍(plow one's garden)

compost 堆肥 堆肥过程需要将一批被称为绿色废物的湿润有机物在等待数月或数周后分解成腐殖质(humus)。

the better part of man 什么是人身上更好的部分？就是灵魂。这里是一个用典：圣奥古斯丁在写《上帝之城》的时候说过，灵魂是the better part of man， 身体是the inferior part of man.

什么是a seeming fate? 这就不得不说到超验主义者了。梭罗也是其中的一员，他们认为我造时事，而不是时势造英雄。看起来是命运，其实是必然。用英语讲，也就是: people create their circumstances.

necessity: 跟need有点像，又带点必然的含义在里面。bare necessities/bow to necessity.

an old book 就是圣经的意思。可以看出梭罗对圣经没有什么尊崇的情感。 梭罗引用的这句话是圣经《马太福音》里的一段： “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust[a] destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 最后一句话：珍宝在何处,心就在何处。

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人类起源 Legendary progenitor 希腊 当宙斯决定以大洪水结束青铜时代，杜卡利翁和皮拉是唯一生存下来的人。虽然普罗米修因斯帮人类从奥林匹斯偷取了火而被宙斯锁在高加索山的悬崖上，但他仍能预知大洪水的来临，因此命儿子杜卡利翁建造方舟。大洪水泛滥时，杜卡利翁和皮拉的船就停在唯一没有被淹浸的帕纳塞斯山。洪水退却后，杜卡利翁夫妇再次踏触陆地。杜卡利翁接到忒弥斯的神谕，将母亲的骨头向后抛。杜卡利翁和皮拉知道“母亲”是指大地之神盖亚，而“骨头”指石头。他们按照神谕，将石头向后抛。皮拉抛的石头变成了女人，而杜卡利翁抛的石头变成了男人。 %%

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better part of man: Allusion to St. Augustine’s (354–430) The City of God: ‘‘This, indeed, is true, that the soul is not the whole man, but the better part of man; the body not the whole, but the inferior part of man.’’ a seeming fate: It was a ‘‘seeming fate’’ in that Transcendentalists believed that people created their circumstances. As Thoreau wrote in his 1841 journal: ‘‘I make my own time, I make my own terms’’ [J 1:294]. He summed it up simply in a 20 May 1860 letter: ‘‘The principal, the only thing a man makes is his condition, or fate’’ [C 579]. Emerson had expressed similar views in ‘‘The Transcendentalist’’: ‘‘You think me the child of my circumstances: I make my circumstance. . . . You call it the power of circumstance, but it is the power of me.’’ an old book For Thoreau, the Bible was an old book, with the same status as any other ancient scripture. In the ‘‘Sunday’’ chapter of A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Thoreau grouped all such books together: ‘‘The reading which I love best is the scriptures of the several nations, though it happens that I am better acquainted with those of the Hindoos, the Chinese, and the Persians, than of the Hebrews, which I have come to last. Give me one of these bibles, and you have silenced me for a while’’ [W 1:72]. He clarified his position in an 1850 journal entry: ‘‘I do not prefer one religion or philosophy to another. I have no sympathy with the bigotry and ignorance which make transient and partial and puerile distinctions between one man’s faith or form of faith and another’s,—as Christian and heathen. I pray to be delivered from narrowness, partiality, exaggeration, bigotry. To the philosopher all sects, all nations, are alike. I like Brahma, Hari, Buddha, the Great Spirit, as well as God’’ [J 2:4]. most and rust: Allusion to Matthew 6:19–20: ‘‘Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.’’ All biblical references are to the Authorized (King James) Version. Deucalion and Pyrrha In Greek mythology, Deucalion and Pyrrha were the lone survivors of a great deluge brought upon earth by the wrath of Zeus. To repopulate the earth, they were directed by the oracle of Themis to throw stones behind themselves. Those Deucalion threw became men; those thrown by his wife, Pyrrha, became women. %%

Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be any thing but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance—which his growth requires—who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

comparatively free 相对自由，因为还没有废除奴隶制。梭罗自己很清楚： ‘‘The United States have a coffle of four millions of slaves’’.

bloom 果霜

Division of Labour and Specialization 梭罗的经济观受到亚当·斯密的影响。亚当·斯密在18世纪发表了《国富论》，里面记载了一则轶事： 斯密在考察一家制针工厂之后发现：扣针的制作可以分为抽线、拉直、截断、圆头、包装等十八道工序，如果由一个人独立完成，最多产出不超过二十枚；相反，如果有一个10人小队，每人做两三道工序，日平均成针将高达四千八百枚。这就是division of labour. 到十九世纪中期，梭罗在外出演讲的闲暇应邀参观织布工场。“规模宏大，效率之高令人惊叹”，他在日记中记载。但与斯密不同，他的兴奋点似乎不在庞大的织机，也不在精密的管理——凝视着流水线上一刻不停忙碌的女工，他联想到他的康科德邻人——日复一日，生活在平静的绝望之中。一年以后，《瓦尔登湖》 出版。梭罗的目的，就是要向世人展示他所理解的生活之道和劳动价值观。

异化 alienation

看到这里你大概就明白了梭罗为什么会反一些现代化的科技。他其实不是对科技本身有意见，他只是对机械的劳动有意见。梭罗认为，一年只需劳作六周，便可以养活自己；其余的时间则可以自由支配，用于更高的精神追求。

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The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

confirmed 这个形容词多少有点脱离了其动词原型的含义，表示“习以为常的”，或“（某人）长期具有某种习惯或特质的”。一个老单身汉，a confirmed bachelor；老粉丝，confirmed fan; 老信徒，confirmed believer of sth.; 一直就是个无神论者，a confirmed atheist。都可以这样去用。

bravary of minks and muskrats 梭罗听过他同乡的猎人讲述的故事，muskrat，麝鼠在落入陷阱时会咬断自己的腿逃生，更有甚者，三次落入陷阱，就咬断了三条腿，最终死在陷阱旁边。

1854年2月5日 那只麝鼠咬断了自己的第三条腿，不该值得我们同情吗？——不是怜悯它的苦难，而是理解它巨大的痛苦和欣赏它超凡的德行，因为我们同样凡身肉胎。命运让我们和它成为兄弟。如果不为这样杰出的生灵唱赞美诗，念弥撒，那还能为谁做这些？当我听到教堂里响起洪亮的风琴声，或是感觉到了低音提琴颤动的旋律——我就能在想象中看到那只麝鼠咬断自己的腿。我想，它的苦难会使我们每个人神圣化。”

亨利·戴维·梭罗《瓦尔登湖动植物图鉴》

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The first three sentences of this paragraph first appeared at the end of two rejected manuscript leaves (ca. 1848) from A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, in which Thoreau described an organ-grinder he met in New Hampshire in 1838. A variant of the organ-grinder episode appeared in Version 4 of Walden before being ultimately dropped. %%

Chapter II. Where I lived and What I lived for 我住在哪，我为什么而活

Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry,—determined to make a day of it.

thrown off the track 影射了当时的铁路特别容易脱轨。

fast, or break fast 这里是个双关，fast作为动词是禁食的意思，而break fast，打断禁食，就是吃早餐的意思。——也是早餐的词源。

Why should we knock under and go with the stream? Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner, situated in the [[meridian]] shallows. Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill.

knock under 屈服，认输

meridian 现在大多数是天文学上的“子午线”的意思，包括一些翻译，比如说译林出版社的版本，就把它在这里也翻成了子午线。那就错了。稍微文学点的语境里，他可以表示，“午间”。 e.g. They take their [[meridian]] ease, these labouring men.

修辞 这里是将dinner，正餐比喻成浅滩里的旋涡。overwhelm这个词我们经常用他的比喻义，表示“（某事、某情感）太过了”。它的原意是被水流吞没，这里用在“Let us not be overwhelmed by the whirlpool"也是用得很精准。

With unrelaxed nerves, with morning vigor, sail by it, looking another way, tied to the mast like Ulysses. If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run? We will consider what kind of music they are like.

tied to the mast 尤利西斯是荷马史诗《奥德赛》里的英雄人物，为了抵制海上女妖塞壬（Siren）美妙歌声的引诱，让人把自己绑在桅杆上，避免了上当受骗、人船俱亡的惨剧。

也就是说，不要随着河水（生活）随波逐流，要朝你真正想去的方向走，抵挡住各种物欲，实在不行就像尤利西斯抵挡人鱼一样把自己绑在桅杆上算啦！——其实这样一种比喻就是梭罗无时无刻不在说的，放下无谓的、多余的欲望，找寻自己真正想做的事。

Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, through church and state, through poetry and philosophy and religion, till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake; and then begin, having a point d’appui, below freshet and frost and fire, a place where you might found a wall or a state, or set a lamp-post safely, or perhaps a gauge, not a Nilometer, but a Realometer, that future ages might know how deep a freshet of shams and appearances had gathered from time to time.

这边Nilometer = 尼罗河（Nile） + 测量器（后缀-ometer）。Realometer就是梭罗自己造出来的词了，是reality + ometer。 类似的词还有很多，speedometer（速度计），milometer（里程计，mile + ometer）。

If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.

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Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. The intellect is a cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things. I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.

go a-fishing 这边a-前缀表示正在进行某事。 e.g. A-hunting we will go; Six geese a-laying

is necessary 注意到这边than后面接着的是什么吗？

When I was fairly established in my house I sang this song,

I seek the Present Time, No other clime, Life is to-day, Not to sail another way, To Paris or to Rome, Or farther still from home. That man, whoe’er he is, Lives but a moral death, Whose life is not coeval With his breath. ……

《瓦尔登湖》这本书，1847年到1854年前后历经7稿，在第一稿中，第二章的结尾有梭罗写的一首小诗。后来，不知出于什么缘由，他在第二版里就把它删去了，可能是觉得写的不够好。摘取前几句，供大家赏析。