Courtship Through the Ages 译文.pdf

Courtship Through the Ages 求偶古今谈（孙仲旭 译） James Thurber Surely nothing in the astonishing scheme of life can have nonplussed Nature so much as the fact that none of the females of any of species she created really cared very much for the male, as such. For the past ten million years Nature has been busily inventing ways to make the male attractive to the female, but the whole business of courtship, from the marine annelids up to man, still lumbers heavily along, like a complicated musical comedy. I have been reading the sad and absorbing story in Volume 6 (Cole to Dama) of the Encyclopedia Britannica. In this volume you can learn about cricket, cotton, costume designing, crocodiles, crown jewels, and Coleridge, but none of this subject is so interesting as the Courtship of animals, which recounts the sorrowful lengths to which all males must go to arouse the interest of a lady. 毫无疑问，在关于生命令人惊异的安排中，使得大自然令人摸不着头脑这一点上， 什么都无法与这一事实相比，即它所创造的任何一种物种的雌性，都不是很在乎雄性， 反过来,雄性则很在乎雌性。在过去的一千万年中，大自然忙着想办法让雄性能够吸引雌 性，然而从海洋环节动物到人类，整个求偶这件事，一路发展得举步维艰，就像一出复 杂的音乐喜剧。最近我在阅读《大英百科全书》第六卷（从“Cole”到“Dama”词条）中那 个悲哀而引人入胜的故事。在这一卷，你能了解到关于板球、棉花、服装设计、鳄鱼、 王冠和柯勒律治，但是那些主题，都不如动物求偶的主题有趣。这一主题中，叙述了种 种可悲的费时费力的情况，那是所有雄性为了唤起异性的注意，都得去经历的。 We all know, I think, that Nature gave man whiskers and a mustache with the quaint idea in mind that these would prove attractive to the female. We all know that, far from attracting her, whiskers and mustaches only made her nervous and gloomy, so that man had to go in for somersaults, tilting with lances, and performing feats of parlor magic to win her attention; he also had to bring her candy, flowers, and the furs of animals. It is common knowledge that in spite of all these love displays the male is constantly being turned down, insulted, or thrown out of the house. It is rather comforting, then, to discover that the peacock, for all his gorgeous plumage, does not have a particularly easy time in courtship; none of the males in the world do. The first peahen, it