The Little Sea Maid
    Far out in the sea the water is as blue as the petals of the most beautiful cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass. But it is very deep, deeper than any cable will sound; many steeples must be placed one above the other to reach from the bottom to the surface of the water. And down there live the sea people.
      在那遥远的海洋水是蓝的花瓣最漂亮的矢车菊,清晰如最纯净的玻璃。但它非常深,深于任何电缆将声音;许多尖塔必须放在一个高于其他达到从底部的水面。和那里的海上生活的人。
    Now, you must not believe there is nothing down there but the bare sand; no,－ the strangest trees and plants grow there, so pliable in their stalks and leaves that at the least motion of the water they move just as if they had life. All fishes, great and small, glide among the twigs, just as here the birds do in the trees. In the deepest spot of all lies the Sea King’s castle: the walls are of coral, and the tall pointed windows of the clearest amber; mussel shells form the roof, and they open and shut according as the water flows. It looks lovely, for in each shell lie gleaming pearls, a single one of which would be a great or
nament in a queen’s diadem. 
      现在,你不能相信没有什么那里但裸沙地;不,——setting是什么意思中文翻译最奇怪的树木和植物生长,所以在它们的茎和叶柔韧,至少运动的水他们移动,就像他们的生活。所有的鱼、大、小、滑移在树枝之间,就像这里的鸟在树上。海里最深的地方是海王的城堡:墙上的珊瑚,高尖windows最明显的琥珀;贻贝壳形成了屋顶,和他们开启和关闭根据水流。它看起来可爱,因为在每个shell谎言闪闪发光的珍珠,一个单一的其中之一将会是一个伟大的点缀在女王的王冠。
    The Sea King below there had been a widower for many years, while his old mother kept house for him. She was a clever woman, but proud of her rank, so she wore twelve oysters on her tail, while the other great people were only allowed to wear six. Beyond this she was deserving of great praise, especially because she was very fond of her granddaughters, the little sea princesses. These were six pretty children; but the youngest was the most beautiful of all. Her skin was as clear and as fine as a rose leaf, her eyes were as blue as the deepest sea, but, like all the rest, she had no feet, for her body ended in a fish-tail.
      海王下面有一个做了好多年的鳏夫,而他的老母亲一直在为他的房子。她是一个聪明的女
人,但她自豪等级,因此她的尾巴上老戴着一打的牡蛎,而其他伟大的人只允许穿6。除此之外她是值得大称赞的,特别是因为她非常喜欢她的孙女,小海公主。这些都是六个漂亮的孩子,但最年轻的是最漂亮的。她的皮肤又光又得一样好一个玫瑰花瓣,她的眼睛是蔚蓝的,像最深的海,但是,就像其他的一切,她没有脚,因为她的身体结束于一个鱼尾巴。
      All day long they could play in the castle, down in the halls, where living flowers grew out of the walls. The great amber windows were opened, and then the fishes swam in to them, just as the swallows fly in to us when we open our windows; but the fishes swam straight up to the princesses, ate out of their hands, and let themselves be stroked.
      他们可以玩一整天在城堡里,下面的大厅,那里的生活花长出来的墙壁。伟大的琥珀的窗户被打开,然后鱼游在他们,就像燕子飞在给我们当我们打开我们的窗户;不过鱼儿游直向公主,吃了脱离他们的手,让自己被抚摸。
    Outside the castle was a great garden with bright red and dark blue flowers: the fruit glowed like gold, and the flowers like flames of fire; and they continually kept moving their stalks and leaves. The earth itself was the finest sand, but blue as the flame of brimstone.
A peculiar blue radiance lay upon everything down there: one would have thought oneself high in the air, with the canopy of heaven above and around, rather than at the bottom of the deep sea. During a calm the sun could be seen; it appeared like a purple flower, from which all light streamed out.
      在城堡外是一个伟大的花园,明亮的红和深蓝花:水果灼热黄金,和花如火焰火灾,他们不断地继续他们的茎和叶。地球本身是最好的沙子,但蓝的火焰的硫磺。一种特殊的蓝光芒躺在那里的一切:一个会认为自己在高空中,天上的华盖和周围,而不是在深海的底部。在一个平静的时候可以看见太阳,它似乎像一朵紫的花,从所有光涌出。
    Each of the little princesses had her own little place in the garden, where she might dig and plant at her good pleasure. One gave her flower-bed the form of a whale; another thought it better to make hers like a little mermaid; but the youngest made hers quite round, like the sun, and had only flowers which gleamed red as the sun itself. She was a strange child, quiet and thoughtful; and when the other sisters made a display of the beautiful things they had received out of wrecked ships, she would have nothing beyond the red flow
ers which resembled the sun, except a pretty marble statue. This was a figure of a charming boy, hewn out of white clear stone, which had sunk down to the bottom of the sea from a wreck. She planted a pink weeping willow beside this statue; the tree grew famously, and hung its fresh branches over the statue towards the blue sandy ground, where the shadow showed violet, and moved like the branches themselves; it seemed as if the ends of the branches and the roots were playing together and wished to kiss each other.
      每个小公主有她自己的小地方在花园里,她可能会挖和植物在她的喜悦。一个给她花坛的形式,鲸鱼;另一种认为最好把自己的花坛像个小美人鱼;但让她最年轻很圆,就像太阳,只有花朵闪烁的红和太阳本身。她是个奇怪的孩子,安静和周到;当其他妹做了一个显示美丽的东西他们收到了从失事的船只,她将没有超出了红的花朵,像太阳,除了一个漂亮的大理石雕像。这是一个图的一个迷人的帅哥,凿出来的白石头,明确陷海洋的底部,从一堆烂摊子。她把一个粉红的垂柳除这尊雕像,这棵树变得众所周知,并把它新鲜的枝叶垂向这个石像向蓝桑迪地面,影子显示紫,搬到像树枝自己,好像两端的树枝和根玩在一起,希望互相亲吻。
There was no greater pleasure for her than to hear of the world of men above them. The old grandmother had to tell all she knew of ships and towns, of men and animals. It seemed particularly beautiful to her that up on the earth the flowers shed fragrance, for they had none down at the bottom of the sea, and that the trees were green, and that the fishes which one saw there among the trees could sing so loud and clear that it was a pleasure to hear them. What the grandmother called fishes were the little birds; otherwise they could not have understood her, for they had never seen a bird.