英文原版对话1000个:1063 Ned Kelly

 　　Jake: OK, so tell me about Australia. Do you have any similar folk heroes there?

 

　　Shirley: Well Jake, in Australia, one of our most famous - a kind of black folk hero, is Ned Kelly from the Kelly gang and he was a real life person who in the-I don’t know, about the 1850’s I guess was kind of a modern day Robin¹ Hood². So he used to rob the people and he would give some of his profit I think to the needy³ or to the town’s people.

 

　　Jake: Some of his?

 

　　Shirley: Some of it. Not all though. He wasn’t quite as virtuous⁴ as the image of Robin Hood is. I don’t know how virtuous Robin Hood was, but- and also he was considered a bandit and an outlaw⁵ so the police were always chasing him and in the end he was killed by a policeman that was quite famous.

 

　　Jake:So this story isn’t exactly as clean as the Robin Hood story? They get killed at the end and they probably, they’ve done also some bad things in order to also provide to the poor, but do they clean the story up for children and make a children’s version of this?

 

　　Shirley: Well, I don’t know if they clean it up for children. You know, I suspect these days that a lot of the fame of Ned Kelly and the Kelly gang is because, you know, attributable to the tourist industry. There are lots of towns that have claimed either the place where he died or the place where he was born or the place he hid out, and all of those small towns have tourist attractions, but I guess as you said earlier, Australia being a young country in terms of its white history like America, we’re only about 200 odd years old then we don’t have that many heroes to call on so I guess people who have stood out in our history take on sort of heroic image or at least become famous in their own right.

1 robin   

n.知更鸟，红襟鸟

参考例句：

• The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
• We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。

2 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

3 needy   

adj.贫穷的，贫困的，生活艰苦的

参考例句：

• Although he was poor,he was quite generous to his needy friends.他虽穷，但对贫苦的朋友很慷慨。
• They awarded scholarships to needy students.他们给贫苦学生颁发奖学金。

4 virtuous   

adj.有品德的，善良的，贞洁的，有效力的

参考例句：

• She was such a virtuous woman that everybody respected her.她是个有道德的女性，人人都尊敬她。
• My uncle is always proud of having a virtuous wife.叔叔一直为娶到一位贤德的妻子而骄傲。

5 outlaw   

n.歹徒，亡命之徒；vt.宣布…为不合法

参考例句：

• The outlaw hid out in the hills for several months.逃犯在山里隐藏了几个月。
• The outlaw has been caught.歹徒已被抓住了。