听播客学英语 241 夏天
时间：2019-03-01 作者：英语课 分类：听播客学英语
英语课
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 bleats 1 after her lamb,
The calf 2 lows after the cow,
The bullock starts, the buck 3 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 bleating 4 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 spoke 5 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.
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
- 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
n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮
- 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。
n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃
- 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。
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
- 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
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