听力文本

Long years ago the men of Scandinavia were fierce fighters, who drank a strong liquor called “mead” and used the skulls of their enemies for cups. They believed in fairy-tale gods and goddesses. Thor, they believed, was a god who made the thunder and lightning. Tiu was the god of war. So they named some of the days of the week after their gods; Tiu’s day, Thor’s day, Woden’s day, Fria’s day. Strange to say, four of the seven days of our week are still named after these Scandinavian gods, for those wild people who believed in those gods are the great-great-grandfathers of many of us. Tuesday is Tiu’s day, Thursday is Thor’s day, Friday is Fria’s day and Wednesday is Woden’s day—that’s why we still have a “d” in Wednesday which we might forget in spelling, as we do not sound it now. Most people have forgotten that our week-days are named after heathen gods, but some think that we should not use such heathen names, so they use numbers instead of names for the days of the week, as in Bible times.

Dynamite, you know, is something used to blow up things It was invented by a man who lived in Sweden some years ago. When he died he left a lot of money and said that the interest from this money was to be given every year to the men or women who, no matter in what country they lived, had done the most for the World during that year. So each year judges go over all the things that have been done and choose those men or women who have done the most for the good of the World and give them the money. This man was named Nobel and the money is known as the Nobel Prize. Two of our Presidents—Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson—won the Nobel Prize for Peace and so did an American Negro, Ralph Bunche. You yourself could win the Nobel Prize if you ever did something big enough and fine enough. Do you think you ever will?

参考译文

很久以前，斯堪的纳维亚人是非常残暴的好斗者，他们喝一种叫“蜂蜜酒”的烈性酒，把敌人的头骨当酒杯用。他们信奉神话中的各种神。他们相信，托尔是掌管雷电的神，蒂乌是战神，所以，他们就用这些神的名字来命名一周中的某些天：“蒂乌的日子”（Tiu’s day），“托尔的日子”（Thor’sday），“沃登的日子”（Woden’s day），“弗里亚的日子”（Fria’sday）。奇怪的是，我们一周7天仍然有4天是按照斯堪的纳维亚人信奉的神的名字来命名的，因为信奉这些神的野蛮人是我们当中很多人的曾—曾—祖父。星期二是战神蒂乌的日子，星期四是雷神托尔的日子，星期五是和平之神弗里亚的日子，星期三是主神沃登的日子—这就是为什么仍然在星期三中有“d”原因，这个“d”我们常常忘了将它拼出来，因为现在这个“d”不发音了。大多数人已经忘了一周中的日子都是根据异教徒的神来命名的，但有些人认为我们不应该使用异教信仰的名字，所以他们不用名字而用数字来表示一周中的这些日子，在《圣经》时代就是这样。

达纳炸药（又称黄色炸药）是用来炸毁东西用的。这种炸药是多年前住在瑞典的一个人发明的。他去世的时候留下了大笔的钱，他在遗言中交代，每年这笔钱的利息用来奖励那些在那一年里对世界作出最大贡献的人，不管来自哪个国家。所以，评奖委员每年都要仔细审核当年世界上的重大成就，然后挑选出对人类利益贡献最大的人，并授予他们奖金。留下这笔钱的那个人名叫“诺贝尔”，这些奖金就被称为“诺贝尔奖”。美国有两位总统——西奥多·罗斯福和伍德罗·威尔逊——都获得过诺贝尔和平奖，还有一位美国黑人，拉尔夫·本奇，也获得过诺贝尔和平奖。如果你做过什么贡献，只要极大，极卓越，就有可能获得诺贝尔奖。你觉得你将来有这个可能吗？