簡單的英語閱讀故事
一個個精彩的故事在六月晶瑩的露珠裏滾動着若隱若現，一個個動人的情節在蛙聲蟬噪裏羽翼豐滿。下面是本站小編帶來的簡單的英語閱讀故事，歡迎閱讀!
The Cunning HareOnce upon a time...
In a very cold country, far across the seas, where ice and snow cover the ground for many months in the year, there lived a little hare, who, as his father and mother were both dead, was brought up by his grandmother. As he was too young, and she was too old, to work, they were very poor, and often did not have enough to eat.
One day, when the little fellow was hungrier than usual, he asked his grandmother if he might go down to the river and catch a fish for their breakfast, as the thaw had come and the water was flowing freely again. She laughed at him for thinking that any fish would let itself be caught by a hare, especially such a young one; but as she had the rheumatism very badly, and could get no food herself, she let him go. 'If he does not catch a fish he may find something else,' she said to herself. So she told her grandson where to look for the net, and how he was to set it across the river; but just as he was starting, feeling himself quite a man, she called him back.
'After all, I don't know what is the use of your going, my boy! For even if you should catch a fish, I have no fire to cook it with.'
'Let me catch my fish, and I will soon make you a fire,' he answered gaily, for he was young, and knew nothing about the difficulties of fire-making.
It took him some time to haul the net through bushes and over fields, but at length he reached a pool in the river which he had often heard was swarming with fish, and here he set the net, as his grandmother had directed him.
He was so excited that he hardly slept all night, and at the very first streak of dawn he ran as fast as ever he could down to the river. His heart beat as quickly as if he had had dogs behind him, and he hardly dared to look, lest he should be disappointed. Would there be even one fish? And at this thought the pangs of hunger made him feel quite sick with fear. But he need not have been afraid; in every mesh of the net was a fine fat fish, and of course the net itself was so heavy that he could only lift one corner. He threw some of the fish back into the water, and buried some more in a hole under a stone, where he would be sure to find them. Then he rolled up the net with the rest, put it on his back and carried it home. The weight of the load caused his back to ache, and he was thankful to drop it outside their hut, while he rushed in, full of joy, to tell his grandmother. 'Be quick and clean them!' he said, 'and I will go to those people's tents on the other side of the water.'
The old woman stared at him in horror as she listened to his proposal. Other people had tried to steal fire before, and few indeed had come back with their lives; but as, contrary to all her expectations, he had managed to catch such a number of fish, she thought that perhaps there was some magic about him which she did not know of, and did not try to hinder him.
When the fish were all taken out, he fetched the net which he had laid out to dry, folded it up very small, and ran down to the river, hoping that he might find a place narrow enough for him to jump over; but he soon saw that it was too wide for even the best jumper in the world. For a few moments he stood there, wondering what was to be done, then there darted into his head some words of a spell which he had once heard a wizard use, while drinking from the river. He repeated them, as well as he could remember, and waited to see what would happen. In five minutes such a grunting and a puffing was heard, and columns of water rose into the air, though he could not tell what had made them. Then round the bend of the stream came fifteen huge whales, which he ordered to place themselves heads to tails, like stepping stones, so that he could jump from one to the other till he landed on the opposite shore. Directly he got there he told the whales that he did not need them any more, and sat down in the sand to rest.
Unluckily some children who were playing about caught sight of him, and one of them, stealing softly up behind him, laid tight hold of his ears. The hare, who had been watching the whales as they sailed down the river, gave a violent start, and struggled to get away; but the boy held on tight, and ran back home, as fast as he could go.
'Throw it in the pot,' said the old woman, as soon as he had told his story; 'put it in that basket, and as soon as the water boils in the pot we will hang it over the fire!'
'Better kill it first,' said the old man; and the hare listened, horribly frightened, but still looking secretly to see if there was no hole through which he could escape, if he had a chance of doing so. Yes, there was one, right in the top of the tent, so, shaking himself, as if with fright, he let the end of his net unroll itself a little.
'I wish that a spark of fire would fall on my net,' whispered he; and the next minute a great log fell forward into the midst of the tent, causing every one to spring backwards. The sparks were scattered in every direction, and one fell on the net, making a little blaze. In an instant the hare had leaped through the hole, and was racing towards the river, with men, women, and children after him. There was no time to call back the whales, so, holding the net tight in his mouth, he wished himself across the river. Then he jumped high into the air, and landed safe on the other side, and after turning round to be sure that there was no chance of anyone pursuing him, trotted happily home to his grandmother.
'Didn't I tell you I would bring you fire?' said he, holding up his net, which was now burning briskly.
'But how did you cross the water?' inquired the old woman.
'Oh, I just jumped!' said he. And his grandmother asked him no more questions, for she saw that he was wiser than she.
簡單的英語閱讀故事閱讀GETTING THIRSTY ON SEEING WATER
過去有人，癡無智慧，極渴須水，見熱時焰，謂爲是水，即便逐走，至辛頭河。既至河所，對視不飲。旁人語言：“汝患渴逐水，今至水所，何故不飲?”
Once there was a fellow desperately in need of water for his thirst. On seeing the blazing fog, he mistook it for water. He pursued it until he reached the Indus River. But he only looked at it without drinking. A bystander asked, "You are suffering from thirst. How that you have found water, why don't you drink it?"
愚人答言：“若可飲盡，我當飲之。此水極多，俱不可盡，是故不飲。”
The fellow answered, "If I could drink up all that water, I would do it. Since there is more water than I can finish, I would rather not drink it at all."
爾時衆人聞其此語，皆大嗤笑。譬如外道，僻取於理，以己不能具持佛戒，遂便不受，致使將來無得道分，流轉生死。若彼愚人見水不飲，爲時所笑，亦復如是。
As soon as people heard this, they laughed aloud at him. The heretics, acting against all senses and reasons, think since they are unable to keep all the Buddhist commandments, they refuse to accept any of them. They will never attain the path of Enlightenment and thus subject to transmigration in time to come. They are just like that stupid thirsty fellow who gets laughed at by his contemporaries.
註釋：
①熱時焰：光線通過不同密度的空氣層時，折射的影像、幻景，在乾旱溫差大的地方易產生。
②辛頭河：音譯，印度河。
③道分：指對佛教教義的領會、覺悟。
白話：
從前有一位愚蠢而又不通事理的人，口乾渴極了，要馬上喝水，看見了由熱氣流升騰經陽光折射而成的幻影，以爲是水，立即追上這片虛幻的水氣，一直到了印度河。到了水邊，面對着河水卻不喝。旁邊的人對他說：“你如此乾渴，追逐尋找水，現在到了河邊，爲何不痛飲?”愚蠢的人回答說：“如果能將水喝乾，我就喝，可這河水滔滔不絕，不可能喝完，因此纔不喝。”當時在周圍的人聽了這話，都大聲地譏笑他。
這就好比其他學派，用巧取的詭辯來掩飾自身，不能用佛家的行爲和道德來約束，因此不接受它。而使今後不能夠覺悟，在生死輪迴中承受苦難。這就同那位愚蠢的人，口渴找到了河水卻又不喝，被人們譏笑的道理相同。
源流：
《中阿含經》卷三十二：譬如有人以渴入池而反渴還。
解說：
佛經中多有受持一戒而得道的記載。世間衆生於浩瀚之法海，取其一瓢而飲，受持而行，也可祛除生死煩惱。《法句譬喻經》卷二載：有位大商賈，名叫波利，與五百估客入海求寶。當時海神掬著一捧水問波利道：「海水多呢，還是這一掬水多?」他答道：「這一掬水爲多。海水雖多，無益於應急時用，不能救那飢渴之人：這一掬水雖少，恰碰上渴者，便可持用與他，以救性命。」
辨析：
在故事的結尾，愚人的行爲已經與初衷發生了背離，前者即開端，問題在於“口渴找水”，後者即結果是“能不能把水喝完”。由佛教的教義來看，世人儘管不是愚人，至少也是未“開智”之人，他們總是在“有我”之中繞圈子，永遠也無法滿足。要想徹底解脫，只有達到“無我”的境地，才能不再患得患失。一個人貧窮，就難免想有財富，有了財富又要名聲、地位、長壽，永無休止，也永不安寧。口渴要喝水，有了水，還非要喝完不可。在紛擾的現實生活中，能夠從中體察出一點有價值的思想，即防止永無止境的利慾之心，是完全有必要的。人生還是灑脫一點兒好，“人到無求品自高”。
簡單的英語閱讀故事學習Once upon a time...
Long, long ago, far, far away on the other side of the world, some young men left the camp where they lived to get some food for their wives and children. The sun was hot, but they liked heat, and as they went they ran races and tried who could hurl his spear the farthest, or was cleverest in throwing a strange weapon called a boomerang, which always returns to the thrower. They did not get on very fast at this rate, but presently they reached a flat place that in time of flood was full of water, but was now, in the height of summer, only a set of pools, each surrounded with a fringe of plants, with bulrushes standing in the inside of all. In that country the people are fond of the roots of bulrushes, which they think as good as onions, and one of the young men said that they had better collect some of the roots and carry them back to the camp. It did not take them long to weave the tops of the willows into a basket, and they were just going to wade into the water and pull up the bulrush roots when a youth suddenly called out: 'After all, why should we waste our time in doing work that is only fit for women and children? Let them come and get the roots for themselves; but we will fish for eels and anything else we can get.'
This delighted the rest of the party, and they all began to arrange their fishing lines, made from the bark of the yellow mimosa, and to search for bait for their hooks. Most of them used worms, but one, who had put a piece of raw meat for dinner into his skin wallet, cut off a little bit and baited his line with it, unseen by his companions.
For a long time they cast patiently, without receiving a single bite; the sun had grown low in the sky, and it seemed as if they would have to go home empty-handed, not even with a basket of roots to show; when the youth, who had baited his hook with raw meat, suddenly saw his line disappear under the water. Something, a very heavy fish he supposed, was pulling so hard that he could hardly keep his feet, and for a few minutes it seemed either as if he must let go or be dragged into the pool. He cried to his friends to help him, and at last, trembling with fright at what they were going to see, they managed between them to land on the bank a creature that was neither a calf nor a seal, but something of both, with a long, broad tail. They looked at each other with horror, cold shivers running down their spines; for though they had never beheld it, there was not a man amongst them who did not know what it was-- the cub of the awful Bunyip!
All of a sudden the silence was broken by a low wail, answered by another from the other side of the pool, as the mother rose up from her den and came towards them, rage flashing from her horrible yellow eyes. 'Let it go! let it go!' whispered the young men to each other; but the captor declared that he had caught it, and was going to keep it. 'He had promised his sweetheart,' he said, 'that he would bring back enough meat for her father's house to feast on for three days, and though they could not eat the little Bunyip, her brothers and sisters should have it to play with.' So, flinging his spear at the mother to keep her back, he threw the little Bunyip on to his shoulders, and set out for the camp, never heeding the poor mother's cries of distress.
By this time it was getting near sunset, and the plain was in shadow, though the tops of the mountains were still quite bright. The youths had all ceased to be afraid, when they were startled by a low rushing sound behind them, and, looking round, saw that the pool was slowly rising, and the spot where they had landed the Bunyip was quite covered. 'What could it be?' they asked one of another; ' there was not a cloud in the sky, yet the water had risen higher already than they had ever known it do before.' For an instant they stood watching as if they were frozen, then they turned and ran with all their might, the man with the Bunyip run- ning faster than all. When he reached a high peak over- looking all the plain he stopped to take breath, and turned to see if he was safe yet. Safe! why only the tops of the trees remained above that sea of water, and these were fast disappearing. They must run fast indeed if they were to escape. So on they flew, scarcely feeling the ground as they went, till they flung themselves on the ground before the holes scooped out of the earth where they had all been born. The old men were sitting in front, the children were playing, and the women chattering together, when the little Bunyip fell into their midst, and there was scarcely a child among them who did not know that something terrible was upon them. 'The water! the water!' gasped one of the young men; and there it was, slowly but steadily mounting the ridge itself. Parents and children clung together, as if by that means they could drive back the advancing flood; and the youth who had caused all this terrible catastrophe, seized his sweetheart, and cried: 'I will climb with you to the top of that tree, and there no waters can reach us.' But, as he spoke, something cold touched him, and quickly he glanced down at his feet. Then with a shudder he saw that they were feet no longer, but bird's claws. He looked at the girl he was clasping, and beheld a great black bird standing at his side; he turned to his friends, but a flock of great awkward flapping creatures stood in their place He put up his hands to cover his face, but they were no more hands, only the ends of wings; and when he tried to speak, a noise such as he had never heard before seemed to come from his throat, which had suddenly become narrow and slender. Already the water had risen to his waist, and he found himself sitting easily upon it, while its surface reflected back the image of a black swan, one of many.
Never again did the swans become men; but they are still different from other swans, for in the night-time those who listen can hear them talk in a language that is certainly not swan's language; and there are even sounds of laughing and talking, unlike any noise made by the swans whom we know.
The little Bunyip was carried home by its mother, and after that the waters sank back to their own channels. The side of the pool where she lives is always shunned by everyone, as nobody knows when she may suddenly put out her head and draw him into her mighty jaws. But people say that underneath the black waters of the pool she has a house filled with beautiful things, such as mortals who dwell on the earth have no idea of. Though how they know I cannot tell you, as nobody has ever seen it.
