散文欣赏（汉译英）：《生命的三分之一》_美文

散文欣赏（汉译英）：《生命的三分之一》

In the chapter “Foods and Goods" of The Chronicles of the Han Dynasty, the great historian Ban Gu states:"In winter people stay indoors. Women get together to spin hemp threads at night. They manage to work forty-five days in a month."

这几句读起来很奇怪，怎么一月能有四十五天呢？再看原文底下颜师古做了注解，他说：“一月之中，又得夜半为十五日，共四十五日。

”It sounds strange. How come there are forty-five days in a month? Let us look at its annotations given by Yanshigu:"They gain half a day 's time every night and, they have forty-five days in a month."

这就很清楚了。原来我国的古人不但比西方各国的人更早地懂得科学地、合理地计算劳动日；而且我们的古人老早就知道对于日班和夜班的计算方法。

Now it’s clear. Our ancestors had, earlier than the westerners, learned how to calculate workdays accurately and reasonably. They had also learned how calculate day shift and night shift as well.

一个月本来只有三十天，古人把每个夜晚的时间算作半天，就多了十五天。从这个意义张说来，夜晚的时间实际上不就等于生命的三分之一吗？

It is common knowledge that there are only thirty days in a month. Counting the time of one night for half a day, our forefathers managed to expend the month by fifteen days. In this sense the night time gained amounts to one third of our lives, doesn't it?