2019年翻译资格考试英语口译中级模拟题：英年早逝

　　If people mean anything at all by the expression “untimely death”, they m us t believe that some deaths nm on a better schedule than others. Death in old age is rarely called untimely—a long life is thought to be a full one. But with the passing of a young person, one assumes that the best years lay ahead and the measure of that life was still to be taken.? History denies this, of course. Among prominent summer deaths, one recalls those of MariLarry Monroe and James Deans, whose lives seemed equally brief and complete. Writers cannot bear the fact that poet John Keats died at 26, and only half playfully judge their own lives as failures when they pass that year. The id ea that the life cut short is unfulfilled is illogical because lives are measure d by the impressions they leave on the world and by their intensity and virtue.

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　　如果人们藉"英年早逝"这一字眼真的意欲表达什么含义的话，他们必然相信某些人的辞世可以算是寿终正寝，而另一些人则"死不逢时" 。死于年迈很少被冠以"死不逢时"之名，因为能度过漫长的一生被认为是甚为圆满的。反之，如果所碰到的是一位年轻人之死，人们会以为这位年轻人风华正茂，前途无可限量，生命的倒计时尚未真正开始。

　　当然，历史否定这一切。在诸多较为著名的"英年早逝"的情形中，我们会忆起玛丽莲.梦露与詹姆斯.迪恩斯之死，其生命的短暂丝毫无损于其生命的完整性。对于约翰.济慈年方26便溘然长逝这一事实，文人墨客们皆痛不欲生，但他们中仅有半数人诙谐地认为，设若他们也死于这一年龄，其一生可视为失败。视英年早逝为不圆满，这一观念有悖于逻辑，因为衡量生命的尺度乃是留给世界的印记，是生命的力度及其美德。