【英语原文】

The Apple raid on Xerox PARC is sometimes described as one of the biggest heistsin the chronicles of industry. Jobs occasionally endorsed this view, with pride. As he once said, “Picasso had a saying—‘good artists copy, great artists steal’—and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.” Another assessment, also sometimes endorsed by Jobs, is that what transpired was less a heist by Apple than a fumble by Xerox. “They were copier-heads who had no clue about what a computer could do,” he said of Xerox’s management. “They just grabbed defeat from the greatest victory in the computer industry. Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry.” Both assessments contain a lot of truth, but there is more to it than that. There falls a shadow, as T. S. Eliot noted, between the conception and the creation. In the annals of innovation, new ideas are only part of the equation. Execution is just as important. (Chapter 8 Xerox and Lisa: Great Artists Steals)

【译文】

苹果对施乐PARC的技术抢劫，有时会被描述成了计算机行业历史里最严重的盗窃事件之一。乔布斯偶尔也会一脸骄傲地承认这一观点，他曾经说过：“毕加索有过名言：好的艺术家抄创意，伟大的艺术家盗灵感。——我们会窃取伟大的灵感，在这一方面我们一直是厚颜无耻的。” 乔布斯还认同另外一种观点：施乐的技术外泄，并不是因为苹果的强取豪夺，而是施乐自己笨手笨脚错失了良机。“他们都是一帮蠢货，对电脑的巨大商业潜力根本一无所知。” 他这样评价施乐的管理层。“在这场计算机行业最伟大的胜利之战中，施乐是完败了。施乐本来有机会可以称霸整个计算机行业的。” 这些观点的确说中了一些事实，但不能说明所有的问题。 英国著名诗人兼文艺评论家艾略特曾经说过，概念和产物之间投射着一道影子。在创新的发展过程中，新鲜的创意只是方程式里的一部分，另外一个同样重要的部分是具体执行力。

【翻译笔记】

1. in the chronicles of/in the annals of: chronicles和annals表示的都是编年史、记录的意思（注意在短语中使用的都是复数形式），所以短语表示的多为历史或者发展过程。

My mother has a soft spot in her heart for "The Chronicles of Narnia". 妈妈对《纳尼亚传奇》这本书很有感情。

The widespread destruction from this typhoon will be in the annals of the nation's history. 台风造成的满目疮痍将被沉痛地载入该国的史册里。

2. have no clue about：毫无头绪线索，一无所知。clue做名词表示线索、端倪和头绪。在做完形填空题时我们经常提到要看上下文线索：context clues。clue 的常用短语是have/get a/no about sth.

I guarantee you that less than 2% of investors out there have a clue about how cheap things can really get. 我向你保证，只有不到2%的投资者知道股票能变得有多便宜。  （ps: have a clue about 多用于否定的表达中，例如 I don't think that he has a clue about what he really wants. ）

We are having a conversation but I have no clue what we are talking about. 我们一直在聊着，但我不知道我们在谈些什么鬼东西。

3. good artists copy, great artists steal：能工摹其表，伟匠摄其魂

现代派绘画大师毕加索的原句其实是：“Bad artists copy; good artist steal”（拙劣的艺术家抄，伟大的艺术家盗）。苹果无疑是伟大的艺术家，将施乐PARC已经弃用的图形界面化腐朽为神奇，这才有了简单实用的大众化电脑操作。所以,说苹果偷窃了施乐的创意，这种说法其实是不公平的，毕竟苹果也接受了施乐以每股10美元的价格购买了10万股苹果公司的股票。苹果的工程师真正地掌握新技术的精髓。