OG6写作什么鬼？Lovely Stones究竟在说什么？谁来拯救我的SAT写 OG6写作什么鬼？ Lovely Stones 究竟在

3月SAT考试已落下帷幕，想了解2018年亚太首场SAT整体考情的童鞋戳这里

最近，不少备考SAT写作的同学向我求助，说OG6写作题的文章看不懂。笔者百度了一下，发现网上已经有不少同行发表了对这篇文章的解读，但读了之后，都让人觉得如鲠在喉，不尽满意，以下我来谈一下对这篇文章的理解，旨在和大家一起探讨一下。

首先，读懂这篇文章需要有一些“外挂知识”。

过去30多年，希腊和英国之间为帕特农神庙雕塑的归属权纷争不断，为此联合国教科文组织还专门出面试图调停。

英国认为，1803年，英国驻奥斯曼帝国大使埃尔金勋爵(Lord Elgin)从土耳其奥斯曼皇帝手中买得了一部分帕特农神庙石雕，肢解后运回英国，之后1816年埃尔金将这些石雕又卖给英国政府，成为了伦敦大英博物馆的镇馆之宝，因而大英博物馆拥有这些石雕是具有合法性的。

但希腊方面坚持认为，这些石雕的正确名称是帕特农雕塑(Parthenon Sculptures)，而它们是被埃尔金勋爵非法盗取的，应该归还给希腊。

众所周知，大英博物馆60%的藏品都是来自海外，尤其是亚非拉国家，其中不少来路不明，甚至可以说是并不光彩的。文中提到的埃尔金勋爵Lord Elgin的儿子同样是一名臭名昭著的殖民者，是破坏和掠走我国圆明园文物的罪魁祸首。

回到原文，整篇文章其实是在反驳（refute/rebut）英国政府/大英博物馆拒绝归还希腊文物的三个理由，这同样也是英国拒绝很多国家的理由，它们分别是：

1. 埃尔金勋爵是从土耳其皇帝手里购买这些石雕的，而英国政府是从埃尔金手里买过来的，因此英国政府/大英博物馆合法拥有这些文物（legitimacy）；

2. 英国对这些人类文明共同遗产的保护作出了巨大努力，没有英国投入的巨大的人力和物力，这些石雕可能早已不见了踪影；

3. 如果各国都来索讨文物，那么大英博物馆就会被搬空了。

如果了解以上这些“外挂知识”，那么读懂这篇文章就不难了。

就以这篇文章为例，CB主要考察的是 historical evidence、铺垫、反驳、讽刺以及类比等论文写作要素，只是这篇文章还牵涉到背景知识，因而作为亚洲首考，CB显的有些下手太猛，之后的考题难度不及这篇。

以下是笔者对这篇文章的解读：

The great classicist A. W. Lawrence once remarked of the Parthenon that it is“the one building in the world which may be assessed as absolutely right.”

2.

Not that the beauty and symmetry of the Parthenon have not been abused and perverted and mutilated. Five centuries after the birth of Christianity the Parthenon was closed and desolated. It was then “converted” into a Christian church. Turkish forces also used it for centuries as a garrison and an arsenal, with the tragic result that in 1687, when Christian Venice attacked the Ottoman Turks, a powder magazine was detonated, and huge damage inflicted on the structure. Most horrible of all, perhaps, the Acropolis was made to fly a Nazi flag during the German occupation of Athens.

作者首先引用古典学家A. W. Lawrence观点，目的是让读者关注巴特农神庙的命运，请注意最后的right是斜体字。大家在阅读的时候，一定要注意“特殊编排”的内容，而这个right是在说巴特农神庙从建筑学角度看是“十分完美”的。

接下去，作者告诉读者，这个神庙曾经历的两次浩劫：奥斯曼土耳其帝国和纳粹德国对其破坏。很明显，作者在堆积build up，他在暗示读者：如果英国拒绝归还被肢解的文物，那么他们的罪孽与这两个臭名昭著的侵略者一样令人愤慨。

The damage done by the ages to the building, and by past empires and occupations, cannot all be put right. But there is one desecration and dilapidation that can at least be partially undone. Early in the 19th century, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, sent a wrecking crew to the Turkish-occupied territory of Greece, where it sawed off approximately half of the adornment of the Parthenon and carried it away. As with all things Greek, there were three elements to this, the most lavish and beautiful sculptural treasury in human history. Under the direction of the artistic genius Phidias, the temple had two massive pediments decorated with the figures of Pallas Athena, Poseidon, and the gods of the sun and the moon. It then had a series of 92 high-relief panels, or metopes, depicting a succession of mythical and historical battles. The most intricate element was the frieze, carved in bas-relief, which showed the gods, humans, and animals that made up the annual Pan-Athens procession: there were 192 equestrian warriors and auxiliaries featured, which happens to be the exact number of the city’s heroes who fell at the Battle of Marathon. Experts differ on precisely what story is being told here, but the frieze was quite clearly carved as a continuous narrative. Except that half the cast of the tale is still in Bloomsbury, in London, having been sold well below cost by Elgin to the British government in 1816 for $2.2 million in today’s currency to pay off his many debts.

第三段作者完成两个重要的任务：

1. 大量的史实记录了埃尔金勋爵是如何残忍地肢解了希腊的文物，而英国政府在此过程中扮演了怎样不光彩的角色。

其中“be sold well below cost by Elgin to the British government in 1816 for $2.2 million in today’s currency to pay off his many debts”，作者以讽刺的口吻写出了Elgin的猥琐以及英国政府与其狼狈为奸，获得了这些石雕。

这些证据的building 是为了第四段的首句“Now there has been a bitter argument about the legitimacy of the British Museum’s deal.”（请注意“legitimacy”一词），铁证如山，读者当然会认为英国政府没有道理。

2.作者用大量的笔墨描写了这些石雕，目的是强调了其数量之巨、其艺术价值之高，尤其是浮雕（frieze），对整个西方文明具有不可估量的史学研究价值，然而这一切都被埃尔金勋爵肢解了，这样暴殄天物的行径当然让读者非常气愤。

至此，作者成功地驳斥了英国政府的第一个理由：合法拥有这些石雕。

Now there has been a bitter argument about the legitimacy of the British Museum’s deal. I’ve written a whole book about this controversy and won’t oppress you with all the details, but would just make this one point. If the Mona Lisa had been sawed in two during the Napoleonic Wars and the separated halves had been acquired by different museums in, say, St. Petersburg and Lisbon, would there not be a general wish to see what they might look like if re-united? If you think my analogy is overdrawn, consider this: the body of the goddess Iris is at present in London, while her head is in Athens. The front part of the torso of Poseidon is in London, and the rear part is in Athens. And so on. This is grotesque.

这一段作者运用了类比的手法，进一步加强读者对英国抢夺行径的憎恶。

具体来说，作者希望读者想象一下，如果Mona Lisa画像被一锯为二，分别在不同地方展出，读者会怎样想？那蒙娜丽莎是油画精品，而波塞冬神像是雕塑精品，如果前者不能被锯开，而后者被分别在希腊和英国展出已经很多年了，这怎么可以接受呢？

作者对此的评价是grotesque！

It is unfortunately true that the city allowed itself to become very dirty and polluted in the 20th century, and as a result the remaining sculptures and statues on the Parthenon were nastily eroded by “acid rain.” But gradually and now impressively, the Greeks have been living up to their responsibilities. Beginning in 1992, the endangered marbles were removed from the temple, given careful cleaning with ultraviolet and infra-red lasers, and placed in a climate-controlled interior.

这一段作者是在驳斥英国拒绝归文物的第二个理由： 200多年来，英国事实上为希腊保护这些文物付出了巨大的人力和物力。

作者对此的回应是，的确，希腊曾经不重视保护自己的文物，然而自从1992年开始，希腊已经开始采取高科技手段，保护自己的文物。因此，英国的第二个借口也不存在了。

About a thousand feet southeast of the temple, the astonishing new Acropolis Museum will open on June 20. With 10 times the space of the old repository, it will be able to display all the marvels that go with the temples on top of the hill. Most important, it will be able to show, for the first time in centuries, how the Parthenon sculptures looked to the citizens of old.

The British may continue in their constipated fashion to cling to what they have so crudely amputated……The Acropolis Museum has hit on the happy idea of exhibiting, for as long as following that precedent is too much to hope for, its own original sculptures with the London-held pieces represented by beautifully copied casts. And it creates a natural thirst to see the actual re-assembly completed. So, far from emptying or weakening a museum, this controversy has instead created another one, which is destined to be among Europe’s finest galleries. And one day, surely, there will be an agreement to do the right thing by the world’s most “right” structure.

最后两段，作者是在告诉读者，希腊有正当理由要回这些雕塑，因为希腊的Acropolis Museum马上要落成并向公众开放。

作为文物真正的主人，英国理应把这些石雕完璧归赵，否则就会看到让人莫名其妙的一幕：英国拥有这些雕塑的真迹，希腊却展出赝品/复制品（beautifully copied casts），这比起大英博物馆拒绝归还的第三个理由——如果各国都来索讨论文物，那么大英博物馆就会被搬空了（emptying or weakening a museum）——更加荒唐。

为了加强语气，作者用了constipated fashion to cling to what they ( the British ) have so crudely amputated 这里的constipated fashion 便秘，用以讽刺英国人的狡辩。

值得注意的是，文章中多次用到了right, 文章首段有一个right，第三段有一个put right，最后一段有一个 do the right thing 和文章最后 the world’s most “right” structure，显然作者用一个双关pun贯穿了全文，让文章显得前后呼应，同时带有一点思辨的味道，读了让人久久回味。

第一个斜体字right 是指“建筑学角度看是完美的”，第二及第三个right一个意思，督促英国政府做“正确的选择”；

最后一个right的理解有些难，我曾经参观过雅典卫城的博物馆，看到海王波塞冬的神像是被纵向切下：前半部分，也就是神像的右边是一块石膏复制品，因为细节丰富而被埃尔金勋爵切下运回了英国，而后半部分，也就是神像的左边被留在了雅典，雅典索讨的就是这石雕的“右边”。

以下为范文，仅供参考