Day 94 Even before lockdowns, confinement was part of human life
confinement /kənˈfaɪnmənt/
1> [u] the state of being forced to stay in a closed space, prison, etc.; the act of putting somebody there 监禁;关押;禁闭
2> (formal or old-fashioned) the time when a woman gives birth to a baby 分娩;生产
And in some cases it was sought out
seek out 寻找到;找出
to look for and find somebody/something, especially when this involves using a lot of effort
1 Very gradually, now here, now there, the rules that have kept a large share of the world’s people immured in their homes are being relaxed. There can be no sudden burst from confinement, like young colts in spring. But already the parties are being planned, the long drives to see relations, the sheer revelling in independence and unfettered life. This peculiar imprisonment will end, and most people—physically, at least—will be free.
gradually/ˈɡrædʒuəli/
slowly, over a long period of timeimmure /ɪˈmjʊə(r)/ v =imprison
to shut somebody in a place so that they cannot get out
be immured (+ adv./prep.)
At the age of 86 he was immured in his house by infirmity.burst /bɜːst/
1> to break open or apart, especially because of pressure from inside; to make something break in this way
2>colt /kəʊlt/ 雄性小马驹
1> a young male horse, especially one less than 4 years old
= filly, stallion
2> a type of small gunsheer /ʃɪə(r)/
1> used to emphasize the size, degree or amount of something
2> complete and not mixed with anything else =utter
3> very steep
4> (of cloth, etc.) thin, light and almost transparentrevel /ˈrevl/
to spend time enjoying yourself in a noisy, enthusiastic way
= make merry
revel in
to enjoy something very much n.狂欢;v.得意于; 着迷; 酷爱;unfettered /ʌnˈfetəd/
not limited in any waypeculiar /pɪˈkjuːliə(r)/
strange or unusual, especially in a way that is unpleasant or makes you worriedimprisonment /ɪmˈprɪznmənt/
imprisonment (for something)
the act of putting somebody in a prison or another place from which they cannot escape; the state of being therephysically [ˈfɪzɪkli]
ad 体格上，身体上; 物理上; <非正>完全地;
2 Yet, in myriad ways, confinement will continue as it always does. Alarms ring at the start of the day, and watches are strapped on, to submit to the limits of time. Bodies are roped with belts and ties, forced into unkind shoes and crammed into the narrow bounds of buses and tubes. Children, brushed and tidied, are packed off to school. And this, of course, is the daily round that many have been pining for. It gets no looser as the day goes on. Office workers stay in one room, or one small cubicle, completing set tasks. From the window they may envy the gardeners and builders round about. But the outside labourer still works within the limits of his ground, to the limits of tools and strength, within the unpredictable imperatives of nature. And as workers and non-workers alike snuggle into the comfortable confines of their beds, sleep wraps them closely round a second time.
myriad [ˈmɪriəd] 无数的;大量的
a very large number or great variety ofstrapped on,绑在身上
unkind 不合脚的
crammed into 塞进拥挤的
pining for
imperatives
snuggle into 蜷缩
confines 限定
wraps 包裹
3 Confinement, of all kinds and degrees, is part of human life. The word does not normally denote imprisonment, still less isolation, but the setting of limits. Those limits are often self-imposed or set by generally benevolent forces: parents, society. Confinement to the home and thereabouts by state order is rare, but in emergency that too has been, by and large, accepted.
denote
benevolent
4 Physical restriction, after all, starts early, with the full-term fetus curled in a space it fills completely. This presumably seems cosy to some, intolerable to others; attitudes to confinement may well be laid down in utero. Newborn infants, when asleep, will sometimes fling out their arms as if to check that the limits are still there, and to seek reassurance. And for long centuries, persisting to the present in places, this reassurance was partly provided by swaddling the child in linen bands as tightly as could be. The purpose of swaddling was also to make the limbs grow straight, as saplings are braced and tied; and here the moral purpose of confinement enters the picture. As the limbs were straightened by the bands, so the mind of the growing child was straightened by careful instruction in discipline and manners. Rote-learning of noun declensions and multiplication tables kept the brain focused in a tunnel of repeated sounds. Beatings for forgetting, and deferential behaviour to superiors, kept the body in check. Confinement in starched clothes in a church pew, or in mosque or synagogue, for long hours of the Sabbath ensured community cohesion. When young men and women subsequently went off the rails, as many did, they had plainly not been confined enough.
full-term fetus 足月的婴儿
fetus /ˈfiːtəs/ n.胎，胎儿;
a young human or animal before it is born, especially a human more than eight weeks after fertilizationin utero [ˈjuːtərəʊ]
adj.& adv.在子宫内（的）；尚未出生时（的）;fling out 扔掉; 提出（建议等）; 逐出; 向外抛;
to get rid of something that you do not want any longer
fling /flɪŋ/
to throw or push somebody/something with force, especially because you are angry, or in a careless way =hurl
reassurance[ˌri:əˈʃʊərəns] 安慰；慰藉
If someone needs reassurance, they are very worried and need someone to help them stop worrying by saying kind or helpful things.
the fact of giving advice or help that takes away a person’s fears or doubtsswaddling[ˈswɔdlɪŋ ]
v.束缚，用襁褓包( swaddle的现在分词 );
襁褓 —— 包裹婴儿的被子和带子linen /ˈlɪnɪn/
n.亚麻布，亚麻线; 家庭日用织品;limb [lɪm]
肢；臂；腿
Your limbs are your arms and legs.saplings [ˈsæplɪŋz]
幼树A sapling is a young tree.braced [b'reɪst]
To brace something means to strengthen or support it with something else.
adj.拉牢的;v.支住( brace的过去式和过去分词 ); 撑牢; 使自己站稳; 振作起来;moral [ˈmɒrəl] 道德上的
Rote-learning死记硬背的学习方法; |
Rote learning or learning by rote is learning things by repeating them without thinking about them or trying to understand them.
rote [rəʊt]declension[dɪˈklenʃn] n.词尾变化; 格变化; 倾斜; 衰退;
(名词、代词和形容词在格、数和性等方面的)词形变化
inflection of nouns, pronouns, or adjectives for case, number, and genderdeferential[ˌdefəˈrenʃl] 恭敬的
polite and respectful towards someone else.in check[in tʃek]
在控制中，被阻止，（象棋中）（敌方主帅）处于被将军地位;starch[stɑːtʃ]
If you starch cloth, you make it stiffer using starch.pew [pju:] （教堂里的）长木椅
a long wooden seat with a back, which people sit on in church.
mosque [mɒsk]清真寺
a building where Muslims go to worship.
synagogue [ˈsɪnəgɒg] 犹太会堂;犹太教堂
a building where Jewish people meet to worship or to study their religion.Sabbath ['sæbəθ]
安息日(犹太教的安息日是星期六，基督教的安息日是星期日)The Sabbath is the day of the week when members of some religious groups do not work. The Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday and the Christian Sabbath is on Sunday.cohesion[kəʊˈhiːʒn] 团结;凝聚力
If there is cohesion within a society, organization, or group, the different members fit together well and form a united whole.subsequently [ˈsʌbsɪkwəntli] 随后的;后来的
go off [ɡəu ɔf]
rails
go off the rails（非正式）行为不轨; 越轨; 出毛病; 神经错乱;
plainly [ˈpleɪnli] = obviously
5 Much of that sort of restriction has disappeared from modern life. It is no longer bearable, though echoes of it have resurfaced in current public-information campaigns: the repeated mantras about hand-washing, the threat of tighter rules for disobedience. But attitudes to confinement are not merely a matter of prevalent social norms. They also lie in the mind and mood of the beholder.
resurfaced 再次出现
mantras/ˈmæntrə/ n
1> a word, phrase or sound that is repeated again and again, especially during prayer or meditation
2> a statement or slogan that is often repeatedprevalent /ˈprevələnt/ = common; widespread
that exists or is very common at a particular time or in a particular placebeholder/bɪˈhəʊldə(r)/ n.观看者，旁观者;
They also lie in the mind and mood of the beholder. 也存在于他人的想法和情绪中
6 Down the ages, fear of confinement was often inculcated through stories
Down the ages自古以来，从古至今;
inculcated [ˈɪnkʌlkeɪt]
反复灌输If you inculcate an idea or opinion in someone's mind, you teach it to them by repeating it until it is fixed in their mind.
For Hamlet in his half-madness, the world itself comprised “many confines, / wards, and dungeons, Denmark being one o’ the worst.” It was an “unweeded garden” (gardens being hedged and walled, as even Eden had been enclosed), possessed by “rank and gross” things. The Romantic poets tended to agree. Percy Bysshe Shelley thought himself confined by the entire institutional structure of his age, especially the interdiction of free love; “heart-withering custom’s cold control” was a dead hand that he could not escape. Both Samuel Taylor Coleridge and John Keats felt “pent” in London, though Samuel Johnson had equated the city with life itself, and they had its whole width to wander in. Like the caged birds that were bought to swing at tenement windows, poets too could not sing among shops and chimney stacks.
ward /wɔːd/ n病房;病室
a separate room or area in a hospital for people with the same type of medical condition
o’ = ofrank and gross 令人恶心的
interdiction /ˌɪntəˈdɪkʃn/ 封锁;阻断 (官方的)禁令,强制令 the act of stopping something that is being transported from one place from reaching another place, especially by using force
institutional/ˌɪnstɪˈtjuːʃənl/
1> connected with a large important organization, for example a university or bank
2>An institutional value or quality is considered an important and typical feature of a particular society or group, usually because it has existed for a long time.
习俗化了的;制度化了的
3> If someone accuses an organization of institutional racism or sexism, they mean that the organization is deeply racist or sexist and has been so for a long time.
根深蒂固的pent[pent] adj.被关闭的，郁积的;
pen /pen/ v
1>pen somebody/something (in/up)
to shut an animal or a person in a small space
2> (formal) to write somethingwidth /wɪdθ/
the measurement from one side of something to the other; how wide something isequate v 等同
tenement n 公寓
stack n
a tall chimney, especially on a factory
7 Down the ages, fear of confinement was often inculcated through stories. A large number of fairy tales featured maidens confined indoors: the Sleeping Beauty in a palace-room behind thick thorns, Rapunzel in a high tower. Princes rescued them, but there was usually no obvious sign that their confinement had ended. It was perhaps just the fate of women to be shut up, as in the Song of Solomon (“A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse”) or in medieval nunneries, or in the harems of the East; after all their inexplicable or forward behaviour, the ancients thought, was caused by the womb drifting in an unchecked way. The agony that may be hidden in such closed rooms is perhaps summed up by the old use of “confinement” as a euphemism for childbirth, when a pregnant woman disappeared into a female world full of secret rituals, desperation, pain and shame.
fear of confinement 囚禁的恐惧
inculcate[ˈɪnkʌlkeɪt]
反复灌输If you inculcate an idea or opinion in someone's mind, you teach it to them by repeating it until it is fixed in their mind.shut up
nunneries 女修道院
harems 女性的闺房womb/wuːm/
the organ in women and female animals in which babies or young animals develop before they are born
drift/drɪft/
to move along smoothly and slowly in water or airagony [ˈæɡəni]
extreme physical or mental pain
euphemism [ˈju:fəmɪzəm] 委婉说法
an indirect word or phrase that people often use to refer to something embarrassing or unpleasant, sometimes to make it seem more acceptable than it really issum up =summarize
to state the main points of something in a short and clear formdisappear into
8 This lime-tree bower my prison
lime-tree
bower [ˈbaʊə(r)]
花园或树林中的）树阴，阴凉处A bower is a shady, leafy shelter in a garden or wood.
Yet even strict confinement was not necessarily fearful. It might offer, paradoxically, a means of escape. In Greek myth, some characters—Myrrha, who had slept with her father, or the Heliades, who had offended the sun god—were turned into trees as punishment. For others, however—the nymph Daphne, turned into a laurel tree as Apollo pursued her, or Syrinx, turned into a reed to frustrate Pan—that gradual spread over their soft skin of gnarled bark or hard outer layer, that stiffening of their limbs, was deliverance. Restriction could mark the beginning of a different and, in some ways, freer life.
paradoxically 从某种程度上讲
9 Many encountered this paradox. Within a few lines, world-hating Hamlet also averred that “I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space.” While the body was held, the mind leaped outwards. Julian of Norwich, in confinement and in vision, saw a “little thing”, only the size of a hazelnut, in God’s hand, and was told it was “all that is made”. She was one of hundreds of anchorites in pre-Reformation England, most of them women, who had entered a confinement so permanent that the Office of the Dead was recited over them, and the door of their tiny cell was sealed. They were not isolated; people consulted them, and through a window food would be passed in, the chamber pot passed out. But they were bounded, as in that nutshell. In this locked place, salvation could be found and God encountered. Jesus himself had told his followers not to pray in public, but to “enter into thy closet, and…shut the door…and thy Father...shall reward thee openly.” For each monk, nun or hermit their cell was, and is, their spiritual touchstone. As Abba Moses, a Desert Father, said, “Sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.”
aver /əˈvɜː(r)/ =assert, declare
aver that… | aver something | + speech
to state clearly and strongly that something is truehazelnut /ˈheɪzlnʌt/ n. 榛子；榛树
the small brown nut of the hazel treeanchory 凤尾鱼
10 Another self-imposed confinement, for those of a platonic cast of mind, was that of the soul within the body. When souls lost their feathers, as Socrates explained in “Phaedrus”, they fell from the heavenly realms and, on reaching solid ground, took on the covering of mortality. In this double casing of Earth and body, they could experience beauty; on recognising it, they would feel their feathers growing again and recall their heavenly beginnings. Romantic poets treasured this notion of confinement awakening the soul; of seeing, through the smallest earthly forms, “into the life of things”. For Wordsworth, in his “Ode on Intimations of Immortality”, the soul’s visions could be unlocked even by the sight of a wild pansy in the grass.
platonic /pləˈtɒnɪk/
(of a relationship) friendly but not involving sex
（恋爱等）柏拉图式的，纯精神而无肉欲的Socrates
n.苏格拉底(469-399BC,古希腊哲学家);Ode /əʊd/ n
a poem that speaks to a person or thing or celebrates a special eventpansy /ˈpænzi/
1> a small garden plant with brightly coloured flowers
2> (taboo, slang) an offensive word for a gay man
11 They could be set free, too, when he lay on his couch in the small, dark rooms of Dove Cottage, where the views from the tiny windows were only of banks and close stone walls. Writers and thinkers in all disciplines have long found confinement useful, even essential. It can be technical: strict adherence to harmony and counterpoint, or to metre and rhyme. As Wordsworth himself explained, just as nuns were content with their narrow rooms, and hermits with their cells, he too for a while enjoyed “the sonnet’s scanty plot of ground”. More often, however, confinement is simply physical. Its purpose is focus, away from distraction. Virginia Woolf believed that women could never flourish as writers unless they had not only “money enough to travel and to idle”, but also independence of mind and spirit, in a room of their own. The rooms, or cells, or sheds, need not be austere or viewless. Dylan Thomas’s writing shed at Laugharne had a prospect so beautiful, looking over “full-tilt river and switchback sea/Where the cormorants scud”, that it could not help appearing sometimes in his poems. Yet the lands he travelled were interior. Rainer Maria Rilke felt that his retreat at Muzot, a small square tower in the Alpine foothills, held the secrets of his poems; for it was there that he could mine his inner life, immersing himself in “inwardness”.
hermit /ˈhɜːmɪt/
a person who, usually for religious reasons, lives a very simple life alone and does not meet or talk to other peoplescanty /ˈskænti/
1> too little in amount for what is needed
2> (of clothes) very small and not covering much of your bodyaustere /ɒˈstɪə(r)/
1> simple and plain; without any decorations
2> (of a person) strict and serious in appearance and behaviour(at) full pelt/tilt
as fast as possibletilt /tɪlt/ v
to move, or make something move, into a position with one side or end higher than the other
vt.使倾斜; （在马上）拿枪扎; 抨击，攻击;
vi.倾斜; 〈美〉有倾向性，偏袒; 抨击;cormorant /ˈkɔːmərənt/
a large black bird with a long neck that lives near the sea or other areas of water
scud /skʌd/
+ adv./prep. (of clouds) to move quickly across the skyinterior /ɪnˈtɪəriə(r)/
1> the inside part of something
2> the central part of a country or continent that is a long way from the coastimmerse /ɪˈmɜːs/ v
immerse somebody/something (in something)
to put somebody/something into a liquid, especially so that they or it are completely covered
12 Physical feats of exploration, too, often rely on confinement. To stumble on the wonders of limestone formations underground, potholers must squeeze through tunnels and bores that can barely admit them. In the deep ocean, where a diver can no longer swim freely because of the weight of water above, two scientists and a pilot cram into a cabin six feet across in a tiny sphere of titanium, the deep-diving submersible DSV Alvin, as it drops two miles or so into the dark.
feat /fiːt/ n
an action or a piece of work that needs skill, strength or couragestumble across/on/upon something/somebody
to discover something/somebody unexpectedlylimestone /ˈlaɪmstəʊn/ n
a type of white rock that contains calcium, used in building and in making cementpotholer /ˈpɒthəʊlə(r)/
a person who goes into caves under the ground as a sport or hobbycram into [kræm ˈɪntuː]
勉强塞入，填满;submersible /səbˈmɜːsəbl/
that can be used underwater
13 A dive on Alvin could last no longer than nine hours. But Al Worden, an astronaut on Apollo 15, spent 67 hours in lunar orbit in a command-module cabin with 6.17 cubic metres of space, while his two colleagues walked on the Moon. Other things confined him too: his clumsy space suit, and the minute-by-minute schedule imposed by mission control. In the simple poems he wrote afterwards (for he felt that the official debriefing only scratched the surface), the narrowness of his circumstances never rated a mention. He noticed only how unconfined he was, among the pirouetting stars, gazing at the “cloudy frail earth”, on which all the colours of the universe seemed to be focused:
Earthbound no more, we travel afar
To see for ourselves just where we are.
debriefing /ˌdiːˈbriːfɪŋ/
the activity of asking somebody questions officially, in order to get information about the task that they have just completedscratch /skrætʃ/
to rub your skin with your nails, usually because it is itchingpirouette /ˌpɪruˈet/ v
(especially of a ballet dancer) to make a fast turn in a circle on one footfrail /freɪl/ a
1> (especially of an old person) physically weak and thin
2> weak; easily damaged or broken