1. Vocabulary
1.1 Courting death for themselves, the good scholars time and again impeached the ruling clique.
Court 做名词有法庭、球场、王宫之意，作动词有讨好、求爱、招致之意，这里应该是招致。
If you court something unpleasant such as disaster or unpopularity, you act in a way that makes it likely to happen. 招致
仿写：
He is courting disaster.
impeach /ɪmˈpiːtʃ/
If a court or a group in authority impeaches a president or other senior official, it charges them with committing a crime that makes them unfit for office. 弹劾; 控告
仿写：
It is not a good idea to impeach the president.
1.2 The birds knew that they would not be molested in this garden
molest /məˈlɛst/
A person who molests someone, especially a woman or a child, interferes with them in a sexual way against their will. 对…性骚扰 (尤指妇女或孩子)
仿写：
He was accused of sexually molesting a female colleague.
1.3 This pedantic style may be described as a continual piling up of abstruse phrases and obscure allusions in order to "beautify" one's composition.
abstruse /əbˈstruːs/
not easy to understand; recondite; esoteric 深奥
obscure /əbˈskjʊə/
Something that is obscure is difficult to understand or deal with, usually because it involves so many parts or details. 复杂难懂的
abstruse, obscure意思相近
allusion /əˈluːʒən/
An allusion is an indirect reference to someone or something. 暗指
2. Guiding Questions
2.1 The central question that the author answered in this chapter is the childhood and youth of Su Tungpo. When Su Tungpo was between eight and ten years, his father went to the capital to take the imperial examinations, so his mother taught him. Su Tungpo entered school at the age of six. The brilliant young man distinguished himself quickly among a hundred pupils. He is supposed to have penned some extraordinary lines at the age of ten. At the age of eleven he entered the secondary school in serious preparation for the official examinations. The really hard thing was to copy the whole of the classics and histories, but this labor served Su Tungpo well in the future, for when pleading with the emperor or drafting an edict, he was never at a loss to quote examples.
2.2 Sentences
Corruption and graft and extortion, and arbitrary arrests, were the order of the day, for the local magistrates were all underlings and proteges of the eunuchs.
这句话例举了后汉时朝政不修，政权落入宦官手里，许多地方官都是宦官豢养的走狗，贪婪、纳贿、勒索、滥捕无辜。
Repeated waves of reform and protest followed repeated inquisitions.
改革与抗议之声，此起彼落；调查与审讯之事，层出不穷。Inquisition 特指官方的调查和审讯。
They comforted each other in sorrow, helped each other in distress, and dreamed about each other and wrote poems to each other as a form of communication.
这句话写出了苏东坡和弟弟子由之间的深厚感情。兄弟二人忧伤时相慰藉，患难时相扶助，彼此相会于梦中，写诗互相寄赠以通音信。
3. Reflection
本章讲述的是苏东坡童年和青年时光。苏东坡从小就受到良好的教育和熏陶，长大后才会成为不朽的人物。苏东坡小时候，妈妈给他讲《后汉书》的《范滂传》，他立志成为范滂那样刚直不阿的人物；妈妈严厉禁止孩子仆人们抓鸟玩，所以苏东坡从小关爱小动物，长大后才会心系黎民百姓；苏东坡的叔父在朝中做官，家中常有官员来访，这让苏东坡耳濡目染，奠定了长大后走仕途这条路；苏东坡在学童时，就听老师读到欧阳修、范仲淹这些文人作品，对其走上文学道路起到很大的鼓舞。
They were names great in China's history, for in Su Tungpo's childhood China was ruled by perhaps the best emperor of the dynasty, who was a patron of literature and the arts.
生逢盛世，真是文人之幸事。宋朝仁宗皇帝统治下，天下太平，奖励文学艺术，欧阳修、范仲淹及其后的一批文人皆受到重用；唐朝从贞观之治到开元盛世，也曾涌现出一大批伟大的诗人。
The use of a famous phrase or of an allusion without indicating the source aroused an aristocratic and egoistic pleasure in the learned reader. It was a kind of coterie language; the reader conceived a respect for the writer for writing it and for himself for understanding it.
用著名的词语与典故而不明言其来源出处，饱学之士读来，便有高雅不凡之乐。这是癖好相投者的共用语言。读者对作者之能写此等文章，心怀敬佩，自己读之而能了解，亦因此沾沾自喜。古人在学习时，经典古籍必须熟读至能背诵，这样写文章时才能引经据典，信手拈来。如苏东坡的这首诗：东坡四年黄州住，何事无言及李琪。却似西川杜工部，海棠虽好不吟诗。这首诗中有个典故，杜甫母名海棠，所以他的诗作中，没有一首咏海棠的诗，而苏东坡知道这个典故，所以借此称赞歌女李琪。一首诗，并非人人都能懂得，真正懂得之人必熟悉经典，了解作者之用意。
纳兰这首诗中暗含十六个典故，你知道几个呢？
金屋犹自赋长门，渔阳鼙鼓正销魂。
冲冠易怒自古有，花丛懒顾又几人。
泪洒倾盆长城断，银汉清浅两下分。
彩蝶无奈舞翩翩，青衫湿遍泣孤坟。
金石录成声声慢，断桥残雪恋君恩。
良驹不去江难渡，至尊缘何入空门。
孔雀年年东南去，三生石畔葬花魂。
莫待白头吟钗凤，扇底桃花又一春。