A hedge between keeps friendship green. / Friends agree best at a distance. “君子之交淡如水”
Even brothers keep careful accounts.亲兄弟明算帐
hoe one’s own potatoes 各人自扫门前雪,莫管他人瓦上霜
First Hyde, then Jekyll 先小人后君子
MENDING WALL Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun,
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,pines
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'. Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know 有一点什么,它大概是不喜欢墙,
它使得墙脚下的冻地涨得隆起,
大白天把墙头石块弄得纷纷落;
使墙裂了缝,二人并肩都走得过。
绅士们行猎时又是另一番糟塌;
他们要掀开每块石头上的石头,
我总是跟在他们后面去修补,
但是他们要把兔子从隐处赶出来,
讨好那汪汪叫的狗。我说的墙缝
谁也没看见或听见它是如何形成的,
但是到了春天补墙时,就看见它在那里。我通知了住在山那边的邻居;
有一天我们约好,巡视地界一番,
在我们两家之间再把墙重新砌起。
我们走的时候,中间隔著一沿墙。
落在两边的石块,由各自去料理。
有些是长块的,有些几乎圆得像球,
需要一点魔术才能把它们放稳当:
「给我好好待著,等我们转过身再滚落!」
我们搬弄石头,把手指都磨粗了。
啊!这不过又是一种户外游戏,
一个人站在一边。此外没有多少用处:在墙那地方,我们根本不需要墙:
他那边全是松树,我这边则是苹果园。我的苹果树永远也不会踱过去,
吃掉他松树下的毬果。我对他说。
他只是说:「好篱笆造出好邻居。」
春天在我心里作祟,我在悬想
能不能把一个念头注入他的脑里:
为什么好篱笆造出好邻居?是否指著
有牛的人家?可是我们此地又没有牛。我在造墙之前,先要弄个清楚,
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors
The western pro verb “Good fences make good neighbors” means one’s relationship with others depends, among other things, on respecting one another’s privacy. In terms of space, good fences mean the boundary which shows people live separately from each other. In terms of relationship, good fences mean the pattern by which people communicate out of mutual interest without invading one another’s privacy. And what is the real significance of good fences?
In modern society, people all seek for independence, particularity and creativity. Individual space means a lot for man to make a difference. Good fences can exclude the harassment from others and protect one’s privacy. Just like the Chinese old saying “A hedge between keeps friendship green.” Even the closest friends should keep a distance between each other, give others a privacy space can also make the relationship stronger and longer. Speaking from my own experience, my elder sister and I used to do all the things together as if we were twins and quarreled from time to time. Now that we are in different schools, we can only keep in touch with each other by phone. To my surprise, the distance has brought us closer together.
Apart from interpersonal relations, good fences also applies to the relations between countries. To illustrate, wars between South Korea and north as well as those fought in the Middle East were mainly due to the fences, that is to say, the governments could not handle territorial
disputes well. Imagine they could make good fences between national borders. We will not see so many newly-wedded wives say goodbye to their husbands; We will not see so many innocent children become homeless; And we will not see so many white-haired parents suffer from the loss of their sons. As a result, people in the world are more likely to live like a big family that is free from war, sickness and hunger. In a sense, “good fences” is the principle of “good neighbors”.
In conclusion, it is obvious that from either a microcosmic or a macrocosmic view, “good fences”plays an important role in “good neighbors”. It refers not only to physical space, but also to social relationship. So if we want to develop a harmonious and peaceful relationship with people around us, build the “fence” first.
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