Добавлено: Wed Nov 30, 2005 1:03 pm Заголовок сообщения:
Вот Staff сделал первый блин, для примера. В основном с целью показать, что ничего такого страшного нету. (Но имею предчувствие, что результат выйдет противоположный.
)
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Собственно фрагмент (из "Guards! Guards!"):
The Library was the greatest assemblage of magical texts anywhere in the multiverse. Thousands of volumes of occult lore weighted its shelves.
It was said that, since vast amounts of magic can seriously distort the mundane world, the Library did not obey the normal rules of space and time. It was said that it went on forever. It was said that you could wander for days among the distant shelves, that there were lost tribes of research students somewhere in there, that strange things lurked in forgotten alcoves and were preyed on by other things that were even stranger.*
Wise students in search of more distant volumes took care to leave chalk marks on the shelves as they roamed deeper into the fusty darkness, and told friends to come looking for them if they weren't back by supper.
And, because magic can only loosely be bound, the Library books themselves were more than mere pulped wood and paper.
Raw magic crackled from their spines, earthing itself harmlessly in the copper rails nailed to every shelf for that very purpose. Faint traceries of blue fire crawled across the bookcases and there was a sound, a papery whispering, such as might come from a colony of roosting starlings. In the silence of the night the books talked to one another.
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* All this was untrue. The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily be proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one of those that look as though they were designed by M. Escher on a bad day and has more staircases than storeys and those rows of shelves which end in little doors that are surely too small for a full-sized human to enter. The relevant equation is: Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
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А вот к этому фрагменту словарик (естественно, приведены те варианты значений слов и оборотов, которые использованы в данном тексте):
Lore – особые знания, знания для избранных
Weighted its shelves – отягощали ее полки
Mundane world – мир повседневности, обычный мир
Lurk – таиться, сидеть в засаде
Were prayed on – на них охотились, их подстерегали
roam – брести наугад
fusty – древний, с душным застоявшимся воздухом
told friends to come looking for them – предупреждали друзей, чтобы пошли-поискали
can only loosely be bound – накрепко нельзя заковать (связать, запереть)
earthing itself harmlessly – безопасно заземляясь
crawl - ползти, медленно двигаться
rusting starlings – скворцы, которые устраиваются на ветках спать
As can readily be proved by anyone - как вам охотно подтвердит любой
Escher – немецкий художник-график Мориц Эшер, автор сложных и парадоксальных рисунков с использованием оптических иллюзий
On a bad day – когда у него выдался плохой день
relevant equation is – в данном случае равенство таково
genteel – подчеркнуто изысканный, манерный
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wizzaaardsah staaafff has a knobontheend, knobontheend
