新概念英语（第四册，旧版）复习（原文及全文翻译）——Lesson 13 - Thames Waters（泰晤士河）

Lesson 13 - Thames Waters

Oxford has been ruined by the motor industry. The peace which Oxford once knew, and which a great university city should always have, has been swept ruthlessly away; and no benefactions and research endowments can make up for the change in character which the city has suffered. At six in the morning the old courts shake to the roar of buses taking the next shift to Cowley and Pressed Steel, great lorries with a double deck cargo of cars for export lumber past Magdalen and the University Church. Loads of motor-engines are hurried hither and thither and the streets are thronged with a population which has no interest in learning and knows no studies beyond servo-systems and distributors, compression ratios and camshafts.

Theoretically the marriage of an old seat of learning and tradition with a new and wealthy industry might be expected to produce some interesting children. It might have been thought that the culture of the university would radiate out and transform the lives of the workers. That this has not happened may be the fault of the university, for at both Oxford and Cambridge the colleges tend to live in an era which is certainly not of the twentieth century, and upon a planet which bears little resemblance to the war-torn Earth. Wherever the fault may lie the fact remains that it is the theatre at Oxford and not at Cambridge which is on the verge of extinction, and the only fruit of the combination of industry and the rarefied atmosphere of learning is the dust in the streets, and a pathetic sense of being lost which hangs over some of the colleges.

参考译文——泰晤士河

        牛津被汽车工业毁掉了。牛津曾经的平静，一个伟大的大学城应该永远拥有的平静，被无情地扫除了，任何捐助和研究基金都无法弥补这座城市所遭受的这种品质上的变化。早晨六点，古老的庭院随着运送下一班工人去考利（Cowley）和普莱斯特（Pressed）钢铁公司的公共汽车所发出的轰鸣声而颤动，大型卡车拖着满载出口小汽车的双层货车隆隆驶过马格德林（Magdalen）和大学教堂。装着汽车发动机的车辆四处奔忙，街道上挤满了对学习不感兴趣的人群，除了伺服系统和分电器、压缩比和凸轮轴之外，他们对学习一无所知。

        从理论上讲，一个古老的学术和传统之地与一个新的富裕产业的结合可能会产生一些有趣的孩子。人们可能认为大学的文化会辐射并改变工人的生活。这并没有发生的可能是大学的过错，因为在牛津和剑桥，大学倾向于生活在一个肯定不是二十世纪的时代，而在一个与饱受战争蹂躏的地球几乎没有相似之处的星球上。不管错在哪里，事实仍然是牛津的剧院，而不是剑桥的剧院，濒临灭绝。工业与稀薄的学习氛围相结合的唯一成果是街道上的灰尘，以及一些笼罩在大学上空的可悲的失落感。

注：博主基于百度翻译校译而成

参考资料：

http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~yuana/new_concept_english.html