yoheRip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

2020年12月16日发(作者：秦家泰)
Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They
are a dismembered branch of the Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river,
swelling up to a noble height and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season,
every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues
and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives far and near as prefect
barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print
their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes when the rest of the landscape is
cloudless, they will gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of the
setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.

凡在哈德孙河上游航行过的人，必定记得卡兹吉尔丛山，那是阿巴拉契亚山脉的一支断
脉，在河的西岸，巍巍然高耸云端，威凌四周乡村。每一个季节的变换，气候的每一变化，
乃至一天中 每一小时的转变，都会使这些山峦的万姿千态有所变换，因此远近的主妇都把它
们看作精确的晴雨表。天 气晴朗平静的时候，它们呈现一片蓝紫颜色，他们雄浑的轮廓印在
傍晚碧空云际；但有时，四处万里无云 ，山顶上会聚着一团灰雾，在落日的余晖照耀下，象
一顶灿烂的皇冠放射着异彩。

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyage may have descried the light smoke curling
up from a village whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees just where the blue tints of the
upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity,
having been founded by some the Dutch colonists in the early times of the province, just about the
beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!), and there were
some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks
brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.
In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was
sadly time worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was yet a
province of Great Britain, a simple good- natured fellow of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a
descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant,
and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial
character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple good-natured man; he was,
moreover, a kind neighbor and an obedient henpecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance
might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men
are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad who are under the discipline of shrews at
home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic
tribulation; and a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the virtues of
patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects, be considered a
tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van Winkle was thrice blessed.