难句译注
1. The Douay Bible 杜埃圣经(罗马天主教会核定的英译本圣经,于1582年及1609——1610你年又罗马天主教学者将新旧约分别从拉丁文译成英语在杜埃出版,可见当时杜埃是天主教势力的集中地之一。
2. St. Ignatius Loyola 圣•罗耀拉 1491——1556 西班牙军人及天主教教士,耶酥会的创始人。
3. Cecil (William Cecil) 西塞尔 1520——1598,英国政治家,女王伊丽莎白的得力大臣。
4. Men were still for from recognizing that two religions could exist side by side in the same society; they believed that the toleration of another religion different from their own. And hence necessarily false, must inevitably destroy such a society and bring the souls of all its members into danger of hell.
[结构简析] 用分号连接的两个分句,分句中都有that 是引导的宾从。
[参考译文] 人们远远没有意识到两个宗教可以并存于同一个社会中;他们认为容忍不同于他们自己的宗教,因为也必然是错误的教派,不可避免的会破坏这样一个社会,从而把所有的成员的灵魂带进地狱的危险。
5. Against England, the most important of all the Protestant nations to reconquer, military might was not yet possible because the Catholic Powers were too occupied and divided: and so, in the 1570’s Rome bent her efforts, as she had done a thousand years before in the days of Saint Augustine, to win England back by means of her missionaries
[结构简析] the most important of all the Protestant nations to reconquer, 这句话是同位语,说明England. As she had done a thousand… ,这里的as =just to 义:就像,正如。
[参考译文] 对付英国,需要重新征服的所有基督教国家中最重要的一国,动用军事力量不可能。因为天主教大国们太忙,太分裂;因此罗马于1570年代就像一千年前,在圣•奥古斯都统治时期它曾做过的那样,竭尽权力想通过传教方式把英国赢回来。
写作方法与文章大意
这篇文章论及“罗马教皇采用文武两手政策在欧洲,特别在英国,恢复旧教——天主教。”采用一般到具体的写作手法。可以说由大到小。大的欧洲背景,最后落实在英国的具体做法。重点在英国。