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今日阅读材料分享：Octopus Time by David Borkenhagen 节选第四部分

 

阅读提示：今日分享的是《章鱼的时间》一文的最后一部分，主要讲述的是人类通过对于章鱼习性的理解，构建出更加灵活，更富有流动性的生死观，为我们理解人生大事提供了非常好的思路恭喜大家坚持到现在，全文更新完毕！。

阅读材料：

The octopus invites us to think in a way that dissolves the boundaries between present and futureAs in our metaphors for time, our metaphors for death also rely on our bodily experiences. Expressions like ‘he keeled over’ or ‘she’s resting in peace’ use our experiences of standing upright or wakefulness as counterpoints against which to generate meaning. And, as the ego-moving metaphor would predict, death is something we ‘face’ in front of us (as opposed to something we ‘back’).

Space, motion and the body play prominent roles in structuring our metaphors for death, so what metaphors might an octopus – with an embodied reality radically free of constraints – generate to structure its representation of death?

Like humans, the octopus’s time on Earth is also limited. However, its death comes quickly. Most species live no longer than about three years in the wild. Death also arrives on different terms for the octopus. Most octopus species are semelparous, meaning they reproduce only once in their lifetime and die shortly after. For the female, birth seems to trigger internal chemical changes that begin to degrade the tissue in her body, giving her just enough time to brood her eggs before dying. And she does so with an existential commitment, never leaving her den to feed herself. Instead, she focuses her attention on the eggs, protecting them from predators and passing water over them to keep them oxygenated. As time passes, her skin begins to lose colour and degrade, she loses weight, and her muscles become weaker. She dies about five months after giving birth, having rarely left her eggs, even to eat. The male has already died. His life ended only a few short weeks after mating.

A plausible explanation for semelparity is that the adults will out-compete their young in the acquisition of resources in their environments, stunting their development or even starving them to death. Even worse, octopuses are literal cannibals, and bigger ones will prey on smaller ones, including their own young. Every creature faces trade-offs in pursuit of its multiple goals. In the case of the octopus, life itself is traded off to increase the chances of survival of the next generation.

It’s no surprise, then, that the creature expends every last ounce of energy on her brood, producing eggs for her one and only hatch that will number in the hundreds of thousands, similar to other semelparous organisms like salmon and cicadas.

The semelparous octopus presents a relationship with death, and time, that is profoundly different from ours. As humans, we do not approach mating or childcare with the expectation that death will soon follow. We imagine our lives continuing past those events. The octopus sacrifices its own future for the future of its offspring. It becomes part of a process of intergenerational labour, which required the death of its parents and will someday require the death of its children. Through its death, the octopus submits itself to this labour, which it will never see completed. As a poetic interpretation, it’s as if death for the octopus is conceptualised as less rigid. Death is not a ‘dead end’, as we imagine it, but part of a more fluid process that stretches across generations.

Unlike our speculations about time, we will never really know how the octopus conceptualises death. But its physical reality, one of profound fluidity in life and death, can still be used to ground new human metaphors. Speaking of time as cyclical, where the past repeats itself in the future, has been shown to reduce estimations of the length of grief following a death in the family. Similarly, some patients in end-of-life care speak of shifting from ego-moving to time-moving metaphors, allowing them to conceptualise the passage of time as less fixed and more fluid. After this shift, they report a newfound ability to receive the help that is offered to them by their caretakers.

In many ways, the octopus represents a challenge, or a profound limit, to our conventional ways of thinking about time and death. But it’s more than a challenge. It’s also an invitation. With its unconstrained movements and semelparous lifecycle, the octopus offers a radically different perspective on the fluidity and flexibility of existence. Could we learn to move through time as an octopus moves through space?

With equal access to the past, present and future – viewed wide or with sharp focus – we might better navigate the challenges of living and dying on Earth.

 The octopus invites us to think in a way that dissolves the boundaries between the present and the future, understanding our ‘ending’ less as a fixed point and more as a fluid process stretching across generations. As the boundary between life and death dissolves and becomes more porous, so do the boundaries between ourselves and others. The metaphors we used to inhabit our time here may seem impoverished, but there’s another way. It’s in the unconstrained movements of an octopus travelling through space – fluid, flexible and free.

阅读小测：1. Which is true among the following four statements according to Paragraph 2?A. When brooding eggs, female octopuses will go out of their dens to catch enough food.

B. A male octopus will accompany his wife along the whole process of brooding eggs.C. Male octopuses usually live longer than female ones.

D. Her eggs are all occupying a female octopus’s mind after giving birth.2. Why do octopuses reproduce only once in their lifetime?

A. To save resources for their offspring.B. To prey on fewer young octopuses so that they can have more chances to survive.

C. To emulate salmon and cicadas.D. To ensure the quality of their offspring.3. According to the passage, how might an octopus think of its death?

A. Death is the rigid end of my life.B. A “permanent life” stretching across multiple generations can be achieved.

C. Sorrow comes from death.D. It is impossible to sacrifice myself for the future of others.4. What can we learn from the last two paragraphs?

A. One grasping ego-moving metaphors may show a more peaceful attitude towards his end-of-life care.B. Now we have already developed a mature metaphor to inhabit our time.

C. If the boundary of life and death becomes vaguer, we will be alienated from other people.D. The understanding of octopus can provide us with a less fixed perspective about our life. 

答案见文末

词汇积累（前标※为重点词汇）：keeln. （船的）龙骨v. （使）倾覆，翻倒(to fall over sideways)固定搭配：keel (sth.) over例句：My email system would keel over if I tried to send that much data.

如果我想发送这么多数据，我的电子邮件系统会出问题counterpointn. 有趣的对比(a pleasing or interesting contrast)例句：Paris is just a short train journey away, providing the perfect counterpoint to the peace and quiet of Reims.。

从这儿乘火车去巴黎路程很短，那里与兰斯的平和宁静相比简直是另一番景象※prominentadj. 重要的，著名的(important and well-known)例句：They are the children of very prominent or successful parents.。

他们都是知名人士的孩子adj. 突出的(very noticeable or is an important part of something else)例句：Here the window plays a prominent part in the design.。

这里，窗户在设计中有着突出的作用※radicaladj. 重大的，彻底的(very important and great in degree)例句：The country needs a period of calm without more surges of radical change.。

这个国家需要一段平静的时期，不再有重大变化所引发的动荡adj. 激进的(in favor of thorough and complete political or social change)例句：He likes to present himself as a radical politician.。

他喜欢表现出一副激进政治家的样子semelparousadj. 终生一胎的(reproducing only once before dying)reproducevt. 复制(to make a copy of a picture, piece of text, etc.)。

例句：It is illegal to reproduce these worksheets without permission from the publisher.未经出版者许可翻印这些习题是违法的。

vt. 使再次发生，再现(to make sth. happen again in the same way)例句：The atmosphere of the novel is successfully reproduced in the movie.

小说的氛围在电影中成功再现了v. 繁殖，生育(produce young)例句：We are reproducing ourselves at such a rate that our numbers threaten the ecology of the planet.。

我们繁衍得如此之快，以至于人口数量威胁到地球的生态系统※broodvi. 焦虑，忧思(to think a lot about sth. that makes you annoyed, anxious or upset)。

例句：You are not still brooding over what he said, are you?你不是还在为他的话闷闷不乐吧n. 一窝动物(all the young creatures that a mother produces at one time)。

例句：They even excavate pools to ensure their brood doesn’t dry out.它们甚至会挖掘池塘以确保自己的一窝卵不会干瘪oxygenatevt. 给…充氧(to mix or dissolve oxygen into it)。

例句：Previous attempts at filtering and oxygenating aquarium water had failed.过去给水族馆的水过滤和充氧的尝试都失败了※plausible。

adj. 有道理的，可信的(an excuse or explanation is reasonable and likely to be true)例句：Her story sounded perfectly plausible.

她的说辞听起来言之有理adj. 巧言令色的，花言巧语的(good at sounding honest and sincere, especially when trying to trick people)。

例句：She was a plausible liar.她是个巧言令色的说谎高手※stuntn. 特技表演(a dangerous and difficult action that sb. does to entertain people)。

n. 噱头(sth. that is done in order to attract people’s attention)例句：In a bold promotional stunt for the movie, he smashed his car into a passing truck.

在那部影片大胆的宣传噱头中，他把自己的汽车撞向一辆过路的卡车vt. 阻碍(prevents sth. from growing or developing as much as is should)例句：The heart condition had stunted his growth a bit.

心脏病已经有点儿阻碍他的发育cannibaln. 食人族n. 同类相食的动物trade-offn. 权衡，协调(the act of balancing two things that you need or want but which are opposed to each other)。

例句：There is a trade-off between the benefits of the drug and the risk of side effects.在这种药的疗效和副作用之间有个权衡利弊的问题。

ouncen. 盎司n. 一点点(a very small amount of something, such as a quality or characteristic)例句：If only my father had possessed an ounce of business sense.

要是我父亲有一点点商业头脑就好了hatchv. （使）孵出(an animal comes out of its egg by breaking the shell)例句：The young disappeared soon after they were hatched.。

幼崽孵出后不久就不见了v. 孵化(to break open so that a young bird, fish, insect can come out)例句：The eggs are about to hatch.。

这些蛋就要孵化了vt. 策划(think of a scheme and work it out)例句：He has accused opposition parties of hatching a plot to assassinate the pope.。

他曾指责各反对党阴谋策划暗杀教皇n. 舱口，舱口盖salmonn. 三文鱼n. 鲑鱼肉cicadan. 蝉offspringn. 子女，幼崽(a person’s children or an animal’s young)。

例句：Eleanor was now less anxious about her offspring than she had once been.这时，埃利诺已不像以前那样为子女担忧了porousadj. 多孔的(has many small holes that allow water and air to pass through)

例句：The local limestone is so porous that all the rainwater immediately sinks below ground.当地的石灰岩如此多孔以至于所有的雨水很快下渗。

※impoverishvt. 使贫困(to make sb. poor)例句：We need to reduce the burden of taxes that impoverish the country.

我们需要减少使经济贫困的租税负担vt, 使质量下降(to make sth. worse in quality)例句：A top dressing of fertilizer should be added to improve growth as mint impoverishes the soil quickly.。

薄荷会使土壤迅速变得贫瘠，所以应施顶肥以促进生长。

句子赏析：1. Space, motion and the body play prominent roles in structuring our metaphors for death, so what metaphors might an octopus – with an embodied reality radically free of constraints – generate to structure its representation of death?

参考译文：空间，运动和躯干在构建我们对死亡的印象中有着举足轻重的作用，那么，行动完全无拘无束的章鱼会用什么样的形象来构建对死亡的表达？赏析：这个句子中的metaphor是全文出现频率非常高的一词，但是在这里，词义并不是我们常见的“比喻”，而是“象征，标志”的意思，这一点根据其用法metaphor for即可判断。

在翻译第二句的破折号部分时，破折号后面的with部分是对于前面octopus的修饰，因此我们直接将其处理为定语即可，而这个定语部分也并不好翻译，什么叫“with an embodied reality radically free of constraints”呢？这一点要靠自己通读全文理解，章鱼的不受限制的现实其实就是它的身体可以朝四面八方游动，我们具体处理为“行动无拘无束”，点明特征即可。

 2. It’s no surprise, then, that the creature expends every last ounce of energy on her brood, producing eggs for her one and only hatch that will number in the hundreds of thousands, similar to other semelparous organisms like salmon and cicadas.

参考译文：毫不意外，章鱼也像鲑鱼和蝉这些一生只生育一次的动物，把所有精力倾注在繁殖上，在唯一一胎中产下数十万个卵赏析：本句similar to部分作为额外补充信息，属于信息部分，可以提前句子主干是the creature expends…, producing…部分，关键是要理解现在分词在这里起的作用，根据上下文判断这里应当是一个递进的关系，应当理解为“倾注所有能量（以确保）能够在唯一一次的产卵中产下数十万个卵。

”3. With equal access to the past, present and future – viewed wide or with sharp focus – we might better navigate the challenges of living and dying on Earth.

参考译文：倘若我们有相同的能力接触到过去，现在和未来——或广角环视，或细致洞察，便可以更好地处理面对生活和死亡的挑战赏析：这个句子也是关于破折号的翻译，与第一个句子不同，这里的破折号前后内容是并列相连的，所以破折号保留。

破折号后面的viewed wide or with sharp focus部分比较考察遣词造句，一般这种成分最好按照四六字句的格式来组织

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