Preface

[原文]　Ｗhat an odd thing to see an entire species---billions of people---playing with, listening to, meaningless tonal patterns, occupied and preoccupied for much time by what they call"music." This, at least, was one of the things about human beings that puzzled the highly cerebral alien beings, the Overloads, in Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End. Curiosity brings them down to the Earth's surface to attend a concert, they listen politely, and at the end, congratulate the composer on his "great ingenuity"---while still finding the entire business unintelligible. They cannot think what goes on in human beings when they make or listen to music, because nothing goes on with them. They themselves, as a species, lack music.

[中文]科幻大師克拉克小說＜童年末日＞中提到的智慧高超的外星人---{主宰}如果降落在地球上，看到幾十億人口花那麼多時間聆聽叫做［音樂］的東西，並為了那種聲音心醉神馳，必然會覺得不可思議。那些外星人或許會在好奇心的驅使下，參加地球人的音樂會。他們很客氣地從頭聽到尾，讚嘆作曲家的巧思，但仍然不知道為什麼人類對音樂這麼著迷。由於他們是缺乏音樂的種族，所以完全不能了解，地球人在演奏或聆聽音樂時倒到底是怎麼了。

［譯評］此句順序調動很大，念起來雖然通順，但仔細對照之下，語意反而有些不清:例；1. 應把
playing with, listening to , meanless tonal patterns, 因為在短短的一段之中，作者從對音樂的描述分成三層次: totnal patterns 表聲音的記號; 聆聽叫做"音樂"的東西; 他們是缺乏音樂的種族(music這個字不再特別強調)2. occupied and preoccupied 不一定指聆聽，而應該指地球人大部分的時間花在和"音樂有關的事物上"