瓦尔登湖Walden (一) Economy ④

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got ride of.

misfortune 不幸
inherited 遗传的
barn 谷仓
cattle 家畜
acquire 获得
get ride of 摆脱

Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in.

pasture 牧场
suckle 哺乳
labor 辛苦劳作

Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born?

serf 农奴
acre 英亩
condemn 谴责
peck 食物
dirt 尘土
dig 挖掘
grave 坟墓

They have got to live a man's life, pushing all these things before them, and get on as well as they can.

have got to 必须
get on 生活

How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and wood-lot.

immortal 不朽的
well-nigh 几乎
smother 扼杀
creep 缓慢且小心翼翼地移动
stables 马厩
cleanse 清洁
tillage 耕作
mow 割草
pasture 牧场
wood-lot 林场

The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.

portionless 没有遗产
encumbrance 累赘
subdue 征服
cultivate 培育
cubic 立方体
flesh 肉