英語閱讀《海的女兒》
《海的女兒》講述海公主小人魚為了追求到一個人的高潔的不死的靈魂，放棄了海底自由自在的生活和300年長壽的生命，把美妙的歌喉丟棄在惡毒的巫婆手里，忍受住把魚尾變成人腿后所帶來的巨大痛苦，用她的愛、她的心和她年輕的生命，去追求那永生而崇高的人的靈魂，并通過“善良的工作”去分享人的一切永恒的幸福。作家謳歌了小人魚對愛情、靈魂、理想的追求，表現了她的善良純潔的品格、堅強的毅力和犧牲精神。
The Little SeaMaid 海的女兒
far out in the sea the water is as blue as the petals of the most beautiful corn-flower, and as clear as the purest glass. but it is very deep, deeper than any cable will sound; many steeples must be placed one above the other to reach from the ground to the surface of the water. and down there live the sea-people.
now, you must not believe there is nothing down there but the naked sand; no,—the strangest trees and plants grow there, so pliable in their stalks and leaves that at the least motion of the water they move just as if they had life. all fishes, great and small, glide among the twigs, just as here the birds do in the trees. in the deepest spot of all lies the sea-king’s castle: the walls are of coral, and the tall, gothic windows of the clearest amber; shells form the roof, and they open and shut according as the water flows. it looks lovely, for in each shell lie gleaming pearls, a single one of which would have great value in a queen’s diadem.
the sea-king below there had been a widower for many years, while his old mother kept house for him. she was a clever woman, but proud of her rank, so she wore twelve oysters on her tail, while the other great people were only allowed to wear six. beyond this she was deserving of great praise, especially because she was very fond of her grand-daughters, the little sea-princesses. these were six pretty children; but the youngest was the most beautiful of all. her skin was as clear and as fine as a rose leaf; her eyes were as blue as the deepest sea; but, like all the rest, she had no feet, for her body ended in a fish-tail.
all day long they could play in the castle, down in the halls, where living flowers grew out of the walls. the great amber windows were opened, and then the fishes swam in to them, just as the swallows fly in to us when we open our windows; but the fishes swam straight up to the princesses, ate out of their hands, and let themselves be stroked.
outside the castle was a great garden with bright red and dark blue flowers; the fruit glowed like gold, and the flowers like flames of fire; and they continually kept moving their stalks and leaves. the earth itself was the finest sand, but blue as the flame of brimstone. a peculiar blue radiance lay upon everything down there: one would have thought oneself high in the air, with the canopy of heaven above and around, rather than at the bottom of the deep sea. during a calm the sun could be seen; it appeared like a purple flower, from which all light streamed out.
each of the little princesses had her own little place in the garden, where she might dig and plant at her good pleasure. one gave her flower-bed the form of a whale; another thought it better to make hers like a little sea-woman: but the youngest made hers quite round, like the sun and had flowers which gleamed red as the sun itself. she was a strange child, quiet and thoughtful, and when the other sisters made a display of the beautiful things they had received out of wrecked ships, she would have nothing beyond the red flowers which resembled the sun, except a pretty marble statue. this was a figure of a charming boy, hewn out of white clear stone, which had sunk down to the bottom of the sea from a wreck. she planted a pink weeping willow beside this statue; the tree grew famously, and hung its fresh branches over the statue towards the blue sandy ground, where the shadow showed violet, and moved like the branches themselves; it seemed as if the ends of the branches and the roots were playing together and wished to kiss each other.
there was no greater pleasure for her than to hear of the world of men above them. the old grandmother had to tell all she knew of ships and towns, of men and animals. it seemed particularly beautiful to her that up on the earth the flowers shed fragrance, for they had none down at the bottom of the sea, and that the trees were green, and that the fishes which one saw there among the trees could sing so loud and clear that it was a pleasure to hear them. what the grandmother called fishes were the little birds; the princess could not understand them in any other way, for she had never seen a bird.
“when you have reached your fifteenth year,” said the grandmother, “you shall have leave to rise up out of the sea, to sit on the rocks in the moonlight, and to see the great ships as they sail by. then you will see forests and towns!”
in the next year one of the sisters was fifteen years of age, but each of the others was one year younger than the next; so that the youngest had full five years to wait before she could come up from the bottom of the sea, and find how our world looked. but one promised to tell the others what she had seen and what she had thought the most beautiful on the first day of her visit; for their grandmother could not tell them enough—there was so much about which they wanted information.
no one was more anxious about these things than the youngest—just that one who had the longest time to wait, and who was always quiet and thoughtful. many a night she stood by the open window, and looked up through the dark blue water at the fishes splashing with their fins and tails. moon and stars she could see; they certainly shone quite faintly, but through the water they looked much larger than they appear in our eyes. when something like a black cloud passed among them, she knew that it was either a whale swimming over her head, or a ship with many people: they certainly did not think that a pretty little sea-maid was standing down below stretching up her white hands towards the keel of their ship.
now the eldest princess was fifteen years old, and might mount up to the surface of the sea.
when she came back, she had a hundred things to tell,—but the finest thing, she said, was to lie in the moonshine on a sand-bank in the quiet sea, and to look at the neighboring coast, with the large town, where the lights twinkled like a hundred stars, and to hear the music and the noise and clamor of carriages and men, to see the many church steeples, and to hear the sound of the bells. just because she could not get up to these, she longed for them more than for anything.
o how the youngest sister listened! and afterwards when she stood at the open window and looked up through the dark-blue water, she thought of the great city with all its bustle and noise; and then she thought she could hear the church bells ringing, even down to the depth where she was.
in the following year, the second sister received permission to mount upward through the water and to swim whither she pleased. she rose up just as the sun was setting, and this spectacle, she said, was the most beautiful. the whole sky looked gold, and as to the clouds, she could not properly describe their beauty. they sailed away over her head, purple and violet-colored, but far quicker than the clouds there flew a flight of wild swans, like a long white veil, over the water towards where the sun stood. she swam towards them; but the sun sank, and the roseate hue faded on the sea and in the clouds.
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