【英文原声朗读】情不知所起，译往而深——告别许渊冲先生

Renowned translator dies at age of 100

From hill to hill no bird in flight

From path to path no man in sight.

A lonely fisherman afloat

Is fishing snow in lonely boat .

0:24①The translator of those classic lines, renowned Peking University professor Xu Yuanchong, died at the age of 100 in Beijing on Thursday morning.

0:38②In the course of nearly four decades, Xu published more than 150 translation works and theories, covering translations from Chinese to English, English to Chinese, French to Chinese and Chinese to French.

0:56③He was widely acknowledged in China as "the first person able to translate Chinese, English and French classics ".

1:06④He practiced translation in line with his belief that "the aim of cultural exchanges is to benefit both sides", and strove to convey the beauty of sense, sound and form in a literary work using another language.

1:24⑤In 2010, he received the lifetime achievement award from the Translators Association of China.

1:33⑥In August 2014, he became the first Asian to receive the Federation of International Translators' Aurora Borealis Prize since its establishment in 1999 for "outstanding translation of fiction literature" for "devoting his career to building bridges among Chinese, English and French-speaking peoples".

2:00⑦Xu's passion for translation endured until the end of his life, just like the epigraph of The Peony Pavilion, a classic play by Tang Xianzu, that he translated — "Love once begun, will never end ".