听播客学英语 241 夏天

 　　Summer has reached England at last. For the past week the sun has shone and the birds have sung. There is a very old English song, from the thirteenth century, about the arrival of summer. It is written in mediaeval English, which is difficult to understand, so here is a rough translation into modern English.

　　Summer has come in

　　Loudly sings the cuckoo

　　The seed grows, the meadow blows,

　　and the wood springs anew

　　Sing cuckoo!

　　The ewe bleats¹ after her lamb,

　　The calf² lows after the cow,

　　The bullock starts, the buck³ farts,

　　Merry sing cuckoo!

　　Some explanations. The cuckoo is a bird which comes to Britain in the summer. It sings like this – CUCKOO – hence its name. In summer too the seeds grow and the grass and flowers in the meadows blow in the wind. The woods spring to life again (“anew”). A ewe is a mother sheep, and bleating⁴ is the sound it makes. A calf is a very young cow or bull, and the sound it makes is called lowing. A bullock is a young bull. It “starts”, which means that it moves suddenly if it is alarmed (look up the word “startle” in a dictionary – if I am “startled”, I make a sudden jumping movement when someone surprises me.) A buck is a deer. You had better look up fart in a dictionary – I am not going to explain it here! It is of course not very polite in modern society to talk about farting – but in 13th century England people probably spoke⁵ more directly about such things! They knew that, in spring and summer, there is lots of young, new grass for the deer to eat, and that this makes deer fart a lot! To them, this was simply a happy sound of summer.

1 bleats   

v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的第三人称单数 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说

参考例句：

• Every time the sheep bleats it loses a mouthful. 羊每叫一次，就少吃一口。 来自互联网
• There is a saying that every time the sheep bleats, it loses a mouthful of hay. 有句古谚曾说，绵羊每叫一声，它就会掉落一口干草。 来自互联网

2 calf   

n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮

参考例句：

• The cow slinked its calf.那头母牛早产了一头小牛犊。
• The calf blared for its mother.牛犊哞哞地高声叫喊找妈妈。

3 buck   

n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃

参考例句：

• The boy bent curiously to the skeleton of the buck.这个男孩好奇地弯下身去看鹿的骸骨。
• The female deer attracts the buck with high-pitched sounds.雌鹿以尖声吸引雄鹿。

4 bleating   

v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说

参考例句：

• I don't like people who go around bleating out things like that. 我不喜欢跑来跑去讲那种蠢话的人。 来自辞典例句
• He heard the tinny phonograph bleating as he walked in. 他步入室内时听到那架蹩脚的留声机在呜咽。 来自辞典例句

5 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。