In all these manifestations the dominant26 motive27 would seem Meaning of this desire to consist in a desire to escape from the troubles, labours, anxieties and excitements of the world, to a place where there is rest and peace with no necessity for effort. Now there can be no doubt that the intra-uterine life of the child represents by far the nearest approach to such a blissful state of repose28 that is ever enjoyed by us during any period of our earthly existence. In this pre-natal life the child lives effortlessly, free from danger and with all its needs provided; in striking contrast to post-natal (and more especially adult) life, where in general the stern rule holds that "if any will not work, neither shall he eat", and where the individual constantly finds his strength all too small to do battle with the formidable obstacles that so often stand in the way of the fulfilment of his desires.
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It is, as Ferenczi[49] has been at pains to show, only in so Difficulty of the process of adaptation to reality far as we free ourselves from the habits, associations and implications of this pre-natal life that we can learn to achieve the fulfilment of our wishes by taking the necessary steps to bring about their accomplishment30 in the outer world, instead of endeavouring to make the outer world conform to our desires by the shorter and easier method of imagination and delusion31. In the earliest stages of our existence we are in a sense indeed omnipotent32, inasmuch as provision is made for all our requirements and desires as it were automatically and without the necessity for effort on our own part. In early childhood this state persists in some degree, the child's wants being, to a large extent, fulfilled by others as soon as he indicates their nature. This power of automatically bringing about the satisfaction of our needs is destined33 to undergo a continually increasing degree of restriction34, as childhood changes through adolescence35 to maturity36; a greater individual adaptation to reality being achieved at the cost of greater individual effort and of the loss of the childish confidence in our ability to achieve our ends by the simple process of desiring their achievement. Under the stresses and difficulties of life on this developed plane, it is only too easy to sink back to the earlier and simpler state where less effort is demanded, and if we retrace37 our steps in this direction as far as they will lead us, we return eventually to the primitive38 condition of our pre-natal life. It is thus, apparently39, that a return to this earliest stage of our existence has come to stand as the supreme40 goal and object of all desire to escape from the turmoil41, labour and conflict which developed life inevitably42 brings in its train.
If the idea of life within the mother's womb is in this Life before birth and life after death way closely associated with the desire for cessation of toil43 and striving, it is not surprising that we frequently find it brought into connection with the most striking example of such cessation with which we are acquainted, i. e. the complete stoppage of all vital activities at death. As a matter of fact, the unconscious identification of the state after death with the state before birth would seem to be one of frequent and widespread occurrence, the idea of the mysterious intra-uterine life before birth[69] furnishing, through this identification, one of the causes of belief in a continuance of life after death—life of a kind, however, in which, as in the life before birth, all our desires and needs are fulfilled without the necessity for toilsome and unpleasant effort.
It is not only in our general attitude towards death that the influence of this identification may be traced, but also in many of the details as regards the beliefs and ceremonies connected with the dead. The parallelism here referred to may be seen for instance in the fact that we place our dead in coffins44 and bury them in graves or vaults45 in churches (all of which are womb symbols) or under the earth (itself among the most frequent of mother symbols); or that in many places the dead have been placed on small islands[50] caves, mountain tops, or other secluded spots, or deposited (like King Arthur) in boats and pushed out to sea. In this last practice we may probably trace the influence of an identification of the process of death with that of birth—the conception that at death we pass away by the same road that we traversed when we entered into life at birth[51]. For not only is the sea a frequent mother symbol, but the idea of water is closely connected with that of birth, occurring as it does in a great number of symbolic representations of the latter[52]. A similar identification is chiefly responsible for the belief that the dead pass across a lake or river on the way to their new home. (Cp. Lethe, Styx and Acheron in classical mythology46 or the river across which Christian passes to the Celestial47 City in Pilgrim's progress).
The idea of birth or re-birth which we here meet with, plays of itself, as we have already indicated, a part of very Birth phantasies great importance in the unconscious mental life of many individuals[53], a part indeed sometimes of even greater significance[70] than that of the idea of returning to the mother's womb, with which it is so frequently associated. In its indirect (displaced) representation in consciousness, this idea of birth or re-birth will find expression as an emergence48 from any of the places which serve as symbols for the womb—an island, grave, room, church or other building, or again—and very typically—in the process of forcing one's way through a tunnel, narrow passage, staircase or other enclosed space, out into some relatively49 open locality. More especially, however, is the idea connected in one way or another with a passage through or out of water—a pond, river, canal, lake or the sea. It is thus for instance that it appears in a typical form of myth relating to the birth of some heroic personage (e. g. Moses, Kama, Perseus, Romulus, Siegfried, Lohengrin) in which the birth is symbolically50 represented by the child's floating on the water in a cradle, boat or basket[54].
Birth phantasies of this kind are frequently accompanied Birth and fear by the idea of difficulty or danger and by a corresponding emotion of fear. According to Freud[55], the connection between fear and the act of birth is a very intimate one; birth with its attendant profound changes of physiological52 and environmental conditions and its manifold dangers and discomforts53, having become, as it were, the prototype of all situations of a threatening or disquieting54 character or in which life itself appears to be menaced. Our word Anxiety—like the French Angoisse, the German Angst, the Latin anxius, angere, angustus, the Greek [Greek: anch?], all of which appear to be connected with the Sanskrit anhus or anhas, signifying narrowness or constriction—bears witness to the fundamental association of fear with pressure and shortness of breath, which—the former owing to the passage through the narrow vagina, the latter to the interruption of the foetal circulation—constitute the most menacing and terrifying aspects of the birth process.
If, and in so far as, the phantasy of re-entering the mother's The meaning of the birth phantasy womb represents a desire to escape from the difficulties and trials of life into the condition of peace and protection which the pre-natal period of life afforded, the idea of re-birth would naturally seem to give expression to the tendency to emerge [71]once more into the conflict of life and to emancipate55 oneself from the protecting influence of the mother. Such a meaning is indeed, as Jung[56] and others[57] have shown, actually associated with the phantasy in very many cases. In this sense, then, the desire to attain56 to individual independence and freedom from the parents finds symbolical51 representation as a repetition of that process whereby we first acquired the status of an independent organism distinct from that of the mother who bore us.
In other cases however the symbolism is of a rather more Spiritual regeneration remote kind, the idea symbolised being that of moral or spiritual regeneration[58]. The reality of this significance of the re-birth phantasy cannot well be doubted, being vouched57 for as it is not only by the results of psycho-analytic enquiry but also by the stereotyped58 phraseology of many religious formulae and by the nature of many of the ceremonies connected with moral or religious conversion59. Thus the rite60 of baptism, as is pretty generally recognised, consists, in one of its principal aspects, in a symbolic representation of the act of birth, and the same is true of many of the initiation61 ceremonies performed at puberty in all parts of the world[59].
The association—so often found in this connection—of re-birth with a previous return to, and brief sojourn62 in, the mother's womb, may be due perhaps to some extent to the needs of logical consistency63 for, as Nicodemus said, a man cannot literally64 "be born again" unless he has previously65 "entered the second time into his mother's womb"; but probably it has itself a further and deeper significance. As the result of his researches upon this point, Jung[60] considers that the association in question expresses the necessity of gathering66 fresh sources of psychic67 energy from the deepest strata68 of our mental life in the Unconscious, if the moral or spiritual conversion is to be successful. Starting from the consideration of[72] the products of the collective mind as exemplified in cult29 and Physical regeneration legend rather than from the phantasies of the individual, other investigators69, such as Sir J. G. Frazer[61], have come to the conclusion that it is primarily a physical rather than a moral regeneration that is symbolised by the ideas of re-birth. Thus the histories of such divine personages as Attis, Adonis or Osiris, whose death and subsequent return to life are plainly analogous70 to the phantasy of the return to the mother's womb (burial in the earth) and re-birth from it, have been interpreted as expressions of the desire for rejuvenation71 on the part of the individual or the race, or again as representations (probably magical in intention) of the periodical decay and revival72 of vegetation or of the periodical changes of the seasons upon which these depend. This view would seem to be supported by the fact that such a significance (often however associated with that of moral regeneration in Jung's sense) is inherent in many of the mysteries and superstitions73 of all ages, as in the ideas of the philosopher's stone or the elixir74 of life, and in the symbolic practices, legends and traditions characteristic of secret societies and of mysticism generally[62].
All these interpretations76 are probably correct, so far as The literal interpretation75 of the womb and birth phantasies they go and as regards certain cases. Certainly the desire for the preservation77 or recovery of youth, the attainment78 of immortality79, the ensuring of a good harvest or even the felt need of spiritual regeneration are sufficiently80 strong and recurrent motives81 of the human mind to justify82 their frequent appearance in symbolic form. Nevertheless, from what we know of the conditions governing the most deeply rooted and widespread human phantasies and from the general laws which underlie83 the use of symbolism[63], it would seem likely that in a considerable number of cases the meaning of the ideas of re-entering the womb and of re-birth is not exhausted84 by these interpretations. The frequency and relative uniformity of these womb and birth phantasies make it probable that, in one of their aspects at least, they are no mere85 symbols but represent things actually desired on their own account. The actual return to the womb does, as we have seen, represent the extreme expression[73] of the tendency to escape from the troubles of the outer world to a condition in which there is complete immunity86 from effort, responsibility, difficulty and danger. Further, psychoanalytic Sexual significance of the phantasies investigation87 of the womb and birth phantasies as they occur in individuals seems to show that they often have a sexual or quasi-sexual significance, being the expression of sexual tendencies and arousing sexual feeling[64]. Through the extreme intimacy88 which a child establishes with its mother by the processes of gestation89 and birth, it may find in imagination by means of these processes a not unsuitable method of gratifying the sexual inclinations90 which it feels towards its mother; and the phantasies of entering or emerging from the womb or of being carried in it may thus come to take on a directly sexual character, in the same way as any other of the numerous activities or processes associated with erotic feeling. It is probable too that in men and boys, the process of passing to or from the womb through the vagina is treated, on the principle of totum pro1 parte, as a substitute for the more directly sexual act appropriate to later life—the individual having enjoyed, on the occasion of his birth, the privilege of being in that place, whence his incestuous desires impel91 him to return. In this sense then, the womb and birth phantasies express the incestuous tendencies in a milder and less objectionable form[65].
[74]
In girls (or in boys, in so far as they possess homosexual inclinations) the return to the mother may be used as a means of attaining92 sexual intimacy with the father, indirectly93 through fusion94, or identification, with the mother[66].
The directly Sexual feeling thus attaching to these phantasies Sexual curiosity is in many cases powerfully reinforced by the curiosity which is experienced by children in relation to the processes of conception, gestation and birth. Most children would seem to possess at an early age a very lively interest in all matters directly or indirectly connected with the reproductive function. The question "Where do babies come from?" is one of the most absorbing of all the problems of our early years; one which, in its more sublimated95 forms, may lay the foundation of that restless desire to know the causes and origins of things, which is the driving force of much that is best in science and philosophy; and one for which, in infancy96 and childhood, a solution is sought in many of the childish theories of reproduction which have recently attracted the attention of psycho-analysts[67].
Curiosity of this kind is also found to underlie much of Children's questions that desire for knowledge which manifests itself in the incessant97 asking of questions so characteristic of children at a certain age. Where this is the case, the actual questions asked are[75] often only substitutes for the real problem which so insistently98 demands solution—the problem of the origin of men—and are shown to be of little importance in themselves by the listless and uninterested way in which the child frequently receives the answers that are given him, making them, as he does only too often, the starting point for fresh questions, the answers to which prove in their turn to be equally unsatisfying. In all such questioning the true nature of the real problem is for the most part kept below the threshold of consciousness, through the operation of repressive influences, originating perhaps to some extent in the natural course of development of the child's own mind, but probably to a greater degree due to the attitude of his adult environment, which, directly or by implication, has taught the child to regard such questions as taboo99. This notion The forbidden question in myth and legend of the question which is forbidden but which nevertheless imperiously demands an answer is one that is of frequent occurrence in myth and legend, the forbidden question often disclosing itself as one which has reference to the birthplace, parentage or birth of the hero (as for instance in the Lohengrin legend) or the origin and nature of man in general (as in the case of ?dipus)[68].
Under these circumstances, it may well seem to the child that his curiosity concerning the process by which he and other children came into the world could be most satisfactorily gratified by the experience in his own person of those events concerning which information is required. The motive thus aroused will then in many cases add very considerably100 to the fascination101 which the ideas of gestation and birth may already possess in virtue102 of their purely103 sexual significance. The desire thus satisfied may again in some cases be still further reinforced by the notion that the position of the child within the womb is a favourable104 one for finding out many things about the life of the mother and her relations to the father which may be otherwise difficult to discover; as in the not infrequent phantasy of observing the sexual act between the parents from this point of vantage.
[76]
Summarising our discussion as to the significance of the Summary womb and birth phantasies, we have seen that they may have any or all of the following meanings:—
As to the return to the womb:—
(1) An expression of the tendency to withdraw from the labours and difficulties of life to the place where the greatest possible freedom from such troubles may be found; in which the emphasis may be laid upon:—
(a) the desire for the effortless gratification of all needs and wishes,
(b) the desire for protection from the dangers of the outer world,
(c) the equation of life after death with life before birth, the former being invested with all the supposed advantages of the latter.
(2) A sexual significance, as representing:—
(a) the closest possible intimacy with the mother,
(b) a means of attaining sexual intimacy with the father through fusion with the mother,
(c) a means of satisfying sexual curiosity.
As to re-birth:—
(1) A more or less symbolic significance; in which the emphasis may be laid upon:—
(a) the desire for a more vigorous and independent mode of life, involving greater freedom from the protecting and guarding influence of the parents and especially of the mother,
(b) the desire for physical rejuvenation (of the individual, of the race, or of the means of subsistence),
(c) the desire for moral or religious improvement or conversion.
(2) A more literal significance, in which the emphasis may be laid upon:—
(a) a directly sexual pleasure in the contemplation of the act, the process of birth being treated as a substitute for sexual intercourse,
(b) the possibility of satisfying sexual curiosity[69].
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1 pro | |
n.赞成,赞成的意见,赞成者 | |
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2 anthropologist | |
n.人类学家,人类学者 | |
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3 symbolic | |
adj.象征性的,符号的,象征主义的 | |
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4 manifestations | |
n.表示,显示(manifestation的复数形式) | |
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adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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6 inaccessible | |
adj.达不到的,难接近的 | |
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7 disturbances | |
n.骚乱( disturbance的名词复数 );打扰;困扰;障碍 | |
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n.退休,退职 | |
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10 cosiness | |
n.舒适,安逸 | |
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11 insanity | |
n.疯狂,精神错乱;极端的愚蠢,荒唐 | |
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12 sanity | |
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14 noted | |
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16 monasteries | |
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17 Buddhist | |
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18 monks | |
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19 secluded | |
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20 entirely | |
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21 intercourse | |
n.性交;交流,交往,交际 | |
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22 bustle | |
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23 neurotic | |
adj.神经病的,神经过敏的;n.神经过敏者,神经病患者 | |
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24 morbid | |
adj.病的;致病的;病态的;可怕的 | |
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26 dominant | |
adj.支配的,统治的;占优势的;显性的;n.主因,要素,主要的人(或物);显性基因 | |
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27 motive | |
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28 repose | |
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29 cult | |
n.异教,邪教;时尚,狂热的崇拜 | |
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30 accomplishment | |
n.完成,成就,(pl.)造诣,技能 | |
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31 delusion | |
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32 omnipotent | |
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33 destined | |
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34 restriction | |
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35 adolescence | |
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36 maturity | |
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37 retrace | |
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38 primitive | |
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39 apparently | |
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40 supreme | |
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41 turmoil | |
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42 inevitably | |
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43 toil | |
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44 coffins | |
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45 vaults | |
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46 mythology | |
n.神话,神话学,神话集 | |
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47 celestial | |
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48 emergence | |
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49 relatively | |
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50 symbolically | |
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52 physiological | |
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53 discomforts | |
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54 disquieting | |
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55 emancipate | |
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56 attain | |
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57 vouched | |
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58 stereotyped | |
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59 conversion | |
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60 rite | |
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61 initiation | |
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62 sojourn | |
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67 psychic | |
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70 analogous | |
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71 rejuvenation | |
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75 interpretation | |
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77 preservation | |
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78 attainment | |
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79 immortality | |
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81 motives | |
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86 immunity | |
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87 investigation | |
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88 intimacy | |
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89 gestation | |
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90 inclinations | |
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91 impel | |
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92 attaining | |
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93 indirectly | |
adv.间接地,不直接了当地 | |
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94 fusion | |
n.溶化;熔解;熔化状态,熔和;熔接 | |
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95 sublimated | |
v.(使某物质)升华( sublimate的过去式和过去分词 );使净化;纯化 | |
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96 infancy | |
n.婴儿期;幼年期;初期 | |
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97 incessant | |
adj.不停的,连续的 | |
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98 insistently | |
ad.坚持地 | |
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99 taboo | |
n.禁忌,禁止接近,禁止使用;adj.禁忌的;v.禁忌,禁制,禁止 | |
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100 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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101 fascination | |
n.令人着迷的事物,魅力,迷恋 | |
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102 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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103 purely | |
adv.纯粹地,完全地 | |
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104 favourable | |
adj.赞成的,称赞的,有利的,良好的,顺利的 | |
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