《哈利•波特与密室》（精讲之一）
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影片对白
AUNT PETUNIA: Not now, pop kin. That's for when the Masons arrive. UNCLE VERNON: Which should be any minute. Now. Let's go over our schedule once again, shall we? Petunia, when the Masons arrive, you will be - AUNT PETUNIA: In the lounge, waiting to welcome them graciously to our home. UNCLE VERNON: Good. And Dudley, you will be- DUDLEY: I'll be waiting to open the door. UNCLE VERNON: Excellent. And you? HARRY: I'll be in my bedroom, making no noise and pretending that I don't exist. UNCLE VERNON: Too right you will. With any luck, this could well be the day I make the biggest deal of my career. And you will not mess it up. DOBBY: Harry Potter! Such an honor it is! HARRY: Who are you? DOBBY: Dobby, sir. Dobby the house-elf. HARRY: Not to be rude or anything, but this isn't a great time for me to have a house-elf in my bedroom. DOBBY: Oh, yes, sir, Dobby understands. It's just that, Dobby has come to tell you... it is difficult, sir...Dobby wonders where to begin. HARRY: Why don't you sit down? DOBBY: S-s-sit down? Sit down? Oh... HARRY: Dobby! Shhhh! I'm sorry. I, I didn't mean to offend you or anything. DOBBY: Offend Dobby! Dobby has heard of your greatness, sir, but never has he been asked to sit down by a wizard, like an equal. HARRY: You can't have met many decent wizards then. DOBBY: No, I haven't… that's an awful thing to say. Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby! Bad Dobby! HARRY: Stop! Dobby, please stop! UNCLE VERNON Don't mind that. It's just the... cat. DOBBY: Bad Dobby! HARRY: Are you... all right? DOBBY: Dobby had to punish himself, sir. Dobby almost spoke ill of his family, sir. HARRY: Your family? DOBBY: The wizard family Dobby serves, sir. Dobby is bound to serve one family forever. If they ever knew Dobby was here... But Dobby had to come. Dobby has to protect Harry Potter. To warn him. Harry Potter must not go back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year. There is a plot. A plot to make most terrible things happen. HARRY: What terrible things? Who's plotting them? HARRY: Okay! I understand. You can't say! Dobby, Dobby, put the lump. Come on. UNCLE VERNON: So, when they arrive at the ninth hole- HARRY: Give me the lump! Dobby, stop! Give it to me and keep quiet. UNCLE VERNON: What the devil are you doing up here! HARRY: I was just... UNCLE VERNON: You've just ruined the punch line of my Japanese golfer joke. HARRY: Sorry. UNCLE VERNON: One more sound and you'll wish you'd never been born, boy! I'll fix the door! HARRY: Yes sir. See why I've got to go back? I don't belong here. I belong in your world -- at Hogwarts. It's the only place I've got friends. DOBBY: Friends who don't even write to Harry Potter? HARRY: Well, I expect they've been... hang on, how do you know my friends haven't been writing me? DOBBY: Harry Potter mustn't be angry with Dobby. Dobby hoped if Harry Potter thought his friends had forgotten him, Harry Potter might not want to go back to school, sir. 妙语佳句，活学活用 1. Mess up 意为"搞得乱七八糟，搞砸"，例如：On rainy days the children really mess up the house, or He had a way of messing up his own business. 此外，mess up 还表示"弄错，做错（尤指因为紧张或困惑而造成的）"，例如：He messed up and took the wrong dossier to the meeting. 2. Speak ill "说……的坏话，责备……"，例如：Don't speak ill of Ivy. Especially when she's not here to defend herself. 3. What the devil 这里的 the devil起到的是加强语气的作用，和 what the hell… 差不多，例如：What the devil do you think you're doing? What the devil单用时表示"我的天，天啊"。 4. Hang on "Wait for a short time, be patient 等一下，稍等"的意思，例如：Hang on, I'm getting it as fast as I can. http://www.engbus.cn 英语巴士网 House-elf 家养小精灵 A house-elf is a fictional magical creature in the Harry Potter series of books written by J. K. Rowling. They are small humanoids - though markedly different from humans - that spend their lives serving one family, institution, etc. Unless they are set free, their descendants will carry on their tasks. The race has no real culture of its own and exists only to serve. Their usefulness makes them status symbols of a sort, while their subservience guarantees their status as second-class citizens in the wizarding world.
House-elves wear things like pillowcases and tea cozies, because they are not allowed clothes. If a house-elf's master were to give him any clothing, even a single sock, the elf would be free to leave his family forever. At the end of Chamber of Secrets, Harry tricks Lucius Malfoy into freeing his house-elf, Dobby. Most house-elves would be offended if given clothes, for it would mean that they had failed to properly serve their masters, but some (like Dobby) enjoy being free. However, Dobby still doesn't want to be paid too much (in Goblet of Fire Dobby says he turned down the salary of ten Galleons per week and a holiday of weekends off in favor of one Galleon per week and a day off every month, expressing pride that he had "beaten Dumbledore down" from the more generous offer). House-elves possess their own form of powerful magic, distinct from that used by wizards and witches, which they generally use to serve their masters. Among other things, this magic allows house-elves to instantly travel places, in a manner similar to apparition, but the house-elves are able to do this within Hogwarts, even though normal apparition is impossible there. Rowling has confirmed that the House-elves apparition is not alike to the way wizards and witches apparate so house-elves can apparate freely in Hogwarts.
J. K. Rowling's characterisation of a house-elf owes a lot to the legends of brownies, and also to the traditional figure of a hobgoblin, a half-tamed, amusing but tricksy goblin of the hearth (the "hob"), often euphemistically called "Robin Goodfellow" or Puck. 家养小精灵在很多国家的民间故事中都出现过。他们的形状和个头各不相同，但大多象人的缩小版，他们可以变形或者在一眨眼的功夫消失。有的精灵很小，可以在蘑菇底下睡觉，有的则大得被人误认为是人类。德国的黑精灵非常可怕，而丹麦精灵则以他们的美丽闻名。在英国民间传说中，男精灵通常被描述为瘦小干瘪的老人，女精灵则是金发可爱的少女。 所有国家的精灵都喜欢利用自己的魔力介入人类生活。虽然我们从未听说过像多比和他的朋友那样忠诚于主人、当做出与主人要求不符的举动会抽打自己作为惩罚的家养小精灵，但是很多精灵确实喜欢在房子周围活动，帮助做家务。在"制靴人和他的小精灵"这篇神话故事里，两个小精灵就来帮助一个贫穷、挨饿的制靴人制造精美的靴子。但是当制靴人和他的妻子为了表示感谢给每个小精灵留了一套新衣服后，小精灵高兴得尖叫起来，他们穿上新衣服走掉了，就再也没有回来。 为什么一只旧袜子作为礼物就能让家养小精灵多比获得自由呢？虽然我们不知道有关家养小精灵的全部规则，但是我们知道家养精灵确实对新衣服会有强烈的反应。有些精灵，就像制靴人家里的那两个，看到漂亮的新衣服确实会由衷的高兴，但是也有小精灵会觉得这样的礼物是在冒犯他们。但是无论怎样，这两种方式得到的结果都一样，就是他们会走掉，再也不会回来了。
对于如此善良的小精灵，他们这样的反应似乎很粗鲁，但是这跟他们玩的鬼把戏比起来简直算不了什么。实际上，很难发现有不喜欢玩鬼把戏的家养小精灵。在冰岛和德国的民间故事中，精灵会偷去婴儿，偷走家畜、食物，让人做噩梦（德语的"噩梦"一词就是"小精灵带来的压力"的意思）。他们还会对年轻人施魔法，甚至一施就施很多年。著名的美国故事《里普·万·温克尔》中的主人公就因为被施了魔法，沉睡了20年。 在英国，邪恶小精灵造成疾病的数目是如此之多，以至于产生了很多形容他们恶毒行为的词汇。在中世纪，人或动物突然死于某种神秘的疾病被人称做"遭到了精灵的射击"，或者是"被精灵的箭射中了"。在乡村发现了箭头形状的石块就是这些袭击的证据，人们称它们为"精灵之箭"，（现在我们知道这些是古石器时代的人留下的）。新生儿带有缺陷被人形容为"被精灵作了标记"。如果有人瘫痪或者中风，则叫"被精灵算计了"。甚至头发乱了也认为是精灵捣的鬼，人们认为精灵会把顺滑的头发打上结，这叫"精灵之锁"。 考考你 用今日所学将下面的句子译成英语。 1． 吉尔发誓她再也不会弄错了。 《哈利·波特与魔法石》（精讲之三）考考你 参考答案 1．饭店的员工们有时会在打烊后留下来吃饭。 2．事情发生的时候他一定服用了毒品。 3．仅仅是件小事故，但看起来司机没法恢复冷静。 4．被人跟踪很可怕，但凯特保持镇定，安全回到了家。 |
UNCLE VERNON: We've raised you since you were a baby, give you the food off our table, even let you have Dudley's second bedroom purely out of the goodness of our hearts. 
House-elves appear tied to particular houses or families; however it is not entirely clear whether they choose to inhabit certain houses and to serve whoever lives in them, or whether they are somehow bonded to the families themselves. Ron Weasley comments that he wished his family were rich enough to afford a house with a house-elf, implying that they come with the house (and suggesting that they are, in essence, the wizard equivalent of "mod-cons" (modern conveniences)); however, in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a freed house-elf is asked to find a nice family, suggesting that it is the family, rather than the house, to which a house-elf is tied. Certainly, generations of house-elves have been shown to serve single families, but that may be due to the family living in the same house for all that time. 
As a consequence of their small stature, house-elves can become intoxicated by drinking Butterbeer; human wizards (including children), by contrast, have not been shown to experience any intoxication further than 'warmth'. 
对这种奇特行为的解释各地都不相同。在英国的民间故事中，家养小精灵被认为是自由的小妖，他不喜欢受到世俗物品的牵绊。而在贝里克郡，人们说给棕仙礼物他就会离开，因为上帝指派他们为人服务，他们只能工作，没有报酬。在林肯郡，则正好相反，人们认为棕仙是一种自豪的生物，当给予他们的礼物与他们的期望不符的时候他们就会离开。有一个故事讲到棕仙因为别人送的衣服布料是粗糙的织物所以选择了离开，但是没有人知道如果送他亚麻布衣服他会不会留下来。当然，多比可没有这么挑剔。
