1. Wearing masks and costumes, they often impersonated other people, animals, or supernatural beings, and mined the desired effect – success in hunt or battle, the coming rain, the revival of the Sun – as an actor might.
戴着面具身着盛装的人们，经常扮演各种其他人物、动物或超自然生灵，并且作为一个扮演者所能做的，就是期盼一个在狩猎或战役中获胜、降雨的来临，阳光的重现的结果。
2.But these factors do not account for the interesting question of how there came to be such a concentration of pregnant ichthyosaurs in a particular place very close to their time of giving birth.
但是这些事实不能解释这个令人感兴趣的问题，就是为什么在一个特殊的靠近他们出生的地方如此的集中了这么多怀孕的鱼龙。
3.A series of mechanical improvements continuing well into the nineteenth century, including the introduction of pedals to sustain tone or to soften it, the perfection of a metal frame, and steel wire of the finest quality, finally produced an instruments capable of myriad tonal effects from the most delicate harmonies to an almost orchestral fullness of sound, from a liquid, singing tone to a ship, percussive brilliance.
十九世纪一系列持续的机械进步，包括踏板的传入、金属结构的完善和钢丝最完美的质量，最后产生了一种能容纳无数音调——从最精致的和弦到一个成熟管弦的声音或从一个清澈的歌声到辉煌的敲击乐的效果——的乐器。
4.Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1972 as “silent”, the film has never been, in the full sense of the word, silent.
虽然我们习惯于谈到1972年以前的电影是无声的，但用一句完全感性的话来说，电影从来就不是没有声音的。
5.For a number of years the selection of music for each film program rested entirely in the hands of the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often the principal qualifications for holding such a position was not skill or taste so much as the ownership of a large personal library of musical pieces.