翻译考试优秀短文翻译：中译英8

　　壶公悬挂的一把壶里，别有天地日月。每一本书——不论小说、戏剧、传记、游记、日记，以至散文诗词，都别有天地，别有日月星辰，而且还有生存其间的人物。我们很不必巴巴地赶赴某地，花钱买门票去看些仿造的赝品或“栩栩如生”的替身，只要翻开一页书，走人真境，遇见真人，就可以亲亲切切地观赏一番。

　　For Hu Gong (or Master Gourd), a master herbalist in ancient China, a magical gourd of his contains the entire world. Likewise, every book, be it a novel, a play, a biography, or a book of traveling notes, of journals, and of even essays or of poems, contains a world of its own, with its own sun, moon, and stars and its own live characters between heaven and earth. There is really no need trotting all the way to places and paying admission fees, merely to view imitations or vivid "substitutes", when we can simply open a book and find ourselves in real situations and meet real characters for a close contact.

　　尽管古人把书说成“浩如烟海”，书的世界却真正的“天涯若比邻”，这话绝不是唯心的比拟。世界再大也没有阻隔。佛说“三千大千世界”，可算大极了。书的境地呢，“现在界”还加上“过去界”，也带上“未来界”，实在是包罗万象，贯穿三界。而我们却可以足不出户，在这里随意阅历，随时拜师求教。谁说读书人目光短浅，不通人情，不关心世事呢!这里可得到丰富的经历，可认识各时各地、多种多样的人。经常在书里“串门儿”，至少也可以脱去几分愚昧，多长几个心眼儿吧?

　　Despite the ancient saying about books being like a vast ocean, the distant world of books could be actually deemed as close as a next-door neighbour, which is not merely an idealistic metaphorical assertion. For in the world of books there are no longer any barriers. The Buddhist notion of "One Buddha- world" is extremely enormous. But what about the extremities of the world of books? It consists of "the present realm", "the past realm", and "the future realm", encompassing everything in each of the three great realms, across whose borders we can go back and forth with great ease. We can read and experience all we care to read and experience, and learn from masters any time we want, without venturing outdoors at all. Who says that book-lovers are near-sighted, inflexible and indifferent to worldly affairs! In the world of books, we can enrich our experience and get to know all kinds of people from different times and places. Those who visit the world of books frequently can at least rid themselves of some ignorance and gain a certain degree of wisdom.