英文注释:When a country is beset by internal conflicts, when disease and famine ravage the population, when corruption and crime are rampant, then it will be unable to deal with an outside threat. This is the time to attack.
探源 Origin
英文:In the story of Journey to the West, Xuan Zang and his disciples embarked on a pilgrimage to India to obtain Buddhist scriptures. They passed through a temple on the way to their destination. The abbot hospitably received them. He requested to borrow Xuan Zang's beautiful cassock to get a better look and Xuan Zang agreed. In the dead of night, the abbot bolted the door when Xuan Zang and his disciples fell asleep, and then set the bedroom on fire. Meanwhile, the Monkey King had stayed awake due to his suspicions of the evil intentions of the abbot. To spoil the abbot's scheme, he transformed himself into a honeybee and lingered outside. The Monkey King blew a strong puff of wind. The enormous fire spread to the entire temple and all of the Buddhist monks joined the task of extinguishing the flames. However, a black bear monster came out unexpectedly. He concealed the cassock under the shield of the fire. Although the Monkey King had severely penalized the black-hearted abbot, he lost the master's cassock once again. With no idea of its current possessor or how to reclaim it, he turned to the Bodhisattva Guanyin for assistance. She helped him defeat the black monster and finally acquired the cassock.
ravage: 摧毁,蹂躏;表示摧毁的常用词还有devastate,它们的区别是:devastate表示完全的大范围的一种破坏,如:war devastate a country(战争摧毁了一个国家),ravage强调的是一种严重的暴力行为,常是累积的造成破坏,如:a hurricane which ravaged the Gulf coast(飓风蹂躏了整个海湾地区)
conceal: 隐蔽,隐藏;该词常与hide通用,多指有意将某事物隐藏起来或不予以泄漏,它只作及物动词,hide还可以作不及物动词,指有意或无意地将某物(或人)藏(躲)在人们不易看到或发现的地方,如:He concealed his motives.(他隐藏了他的动机。) The moon was hidden by the clouds.(月亮被云彩遮住了。)