节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-04-19
难易度:Medium
关键字:grace, toil, secure, shield, mortal, wretch, snare, veil
Hello, friend.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
We're glad you're joining us at Studio Classroom today for a lesson about a
famous English song.
It's an English song that has been translated into many languages.
It's a song you might especially hear at church with this tune...
(Music).
Do you know what it is?
That's right -- Amazing Grace.
And I should correct myself.
I said that this lesson is about a famous English song, but our lesson today is
actually just the lyrics of the song.
Well, there's a lot to learn about English and about life from this song.
So open up your magazine and let's begin.
(Music).
"Amazing Grace"
Celebrating the wonder of God's love.
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
How precious did that Grace appear the hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come;
'Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far.
And Grace will lead me home.
(Music).
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.
(Chinese).
Thank you, Michelle.
All right. Did you understand all of that?
Since our lesson is the words of a song, the style is a little different from
normal.
And since this is a song that was written a long time ago, some of the words are
not words we normally use today.
So we hope to help you understand the meaning behind these verses.
Now, let's go back to the title, Amazing Grace.
Grace can mean different things.
But for the purpose of our lesson, it is God or the power of God.
Sometimes we also think of Grace as the good things that God gives us that we
don't deserve.
Now we see when John Newton lived here, from 1725 to 1807,
he wrote the song to be sung on New Year's Day in 1773.
And we just heard three stanzas of the song.
He wrote most of these stanzas, but we see here that Stanza 6 was written by
anonymous.
Who's anonymous?
Was he a famous song writer, too?
Um, no, Carolyn.
If we see "by anonymous" next to a song, that means nobody knows who wrote it.
Or maybe someone knows but they don't want others to know that they wrote it.
Sometimes people request to remain anonymous so nobody knows that they did
something.
Well, before that first verse, or stanza, we see the phrase: Celebrating the
wonder of God's love.
And when I think of wonder, I... in this sense, I think of the amazing things
that God has created, like the wonders of the universe.
Or maybe even some of the wonders within our world, like beautiful mountains and
clouds.
And what's more wonderful is when God shows us that He loves us in personal
ways.
And that's what this song is really about.
Wait, I thought this song was about Grace.
It is! But true Grace is given to us by God.
We could even say that God is Grace.
OK. So, put your poetry hat on today, friends, and many words are symbols of
other things.
Right.
And we read: Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
When John Newton first thought of the phrase "Amazing Grace," his heart's
response to God's Grace was what a sweet thing that is!
So Amazing Grace saved a wretch like me.
But wretch is kind of a strong word, right?
Yeah, it is.
A wretch is someone whom others pity because of how miserable, unhappy or
unfortunate they are.
Maybe they've done so many terrible things, they just don't think that there's
any hope.
And I actually prepared a picture of a wretch.
You did?
Yes.
Carolyn, very funny.
That's not a wretch. That's me!
I know. I'm just playing, Gabe.
Yeah.
Well, back to our song and back to the wretch here.
He says, "I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see."
I once was lost.
Does this mean that he was lost one time?
Good question.
"Once" here does not mean one time.
The writer means he used to be lost.
Right. And now he's found.
Wait. If he's found, who found him?
Well, God found him.
Newton would probably say that Grace found him.
And was the writer physically blind?
No. He could see with his eyes, but he could not understand that God was there
with him.
He couldn't see that God cared about him.
Well, we move on to the second stanza.
'Twas Grace that taught my heart to fear.
And Grace, my fears relieved.
If we reworded this, the message is: Grace taught me how to fear, and Grace
relieved me of my fears.
But what is that first word, 'twas?
What does that mean?
Yeah. That is short for two words: it was.
Some songs and poems shorten words to fit the rhythm of the song.
Now what I'm curious about is that word "fear."
I thought that fear was a negative thing.
It can be.
We see "fear" here used as a verb and as a noun.
What do you fear?
That's what you are afraid of.
Some common fears are the fear of heights, the fear of speaking in public or the
fear of death.
So why would God, or Grace, teach us to fear?
Fear can also be a good thing.
Imagine a truck is quickly heading towards you, your fear of getting hit will
make you move out of the way.
The fear of God teaches us how to be wise.
John Newton recognized that when he had proper respect for God - sometimes known
as fear - he started to be less and less afraid of other things, like the fears
mentioned just now.
That's what "Grace my fears relieved" means.
And Newton wrote: How precious did that Grace appear the hour I first believed.
Does the hour he writes here mean like, um, 12 o'clock or 3 o'clock in the
afternoon?
No, no. It means around a certain time.
So he is talking about the time he first really started believing that God was
real and that He truly cared about him.
And the next stanza begins: Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have
already come.
This means that he has already experienced many dangerous situations like the
storm in this picture,
troubles and traps of life and snares, which are things that distract you from
doing what you should be doing.
Now little further we read: It is Grace that brought me safe thus far and Grace
will lead me home.
But where is home?
We'll talk about that as we discuss the last stanza later on.
But for now, Steve and Ken want to share something interesting and quite
humorous with us in the Information Cloud.
If you've ever misheard song lyrics, you have experienced a mondegreen.
It's easy to do, and it happens all the time.
You think you hear something sung one way, and so you sing it that way for
years.
But then you realize or someone tells you that you've got the words all wrong.
Amazing Grace's third verse starts "Through many dangers, toils and snares," but
some people have heard it as "Through many dangerous toys and snails."
Makes no sense, right?
But that's part of the fun of mondegreens.
Many are familiar with the Christmas song, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,
right?
But why does the song mention a reindeer named Olive?
Olive?
Yeah, you know, "Olive" the other reindeer?
Good one! Of course, the real words are: "all of" the other reindeer.
OK, here's a mondegreen we love discussing at the Info Cloud.
It comes from the hit song "Without You."
A woman on a TV talent show sang it, but when she got to the chorus, the part
where she should have sung "I can't live," she sang...
The name of my distinguished co-host, Ken Lee.
"Ken Lee" anymore... "Ken Lee"...
OK, OK, this Ken Lee really can't live anymore if you keep on singing.
(Chinese).