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Since the age of 25, hers has been a life of meeting, greeting, touring and red boxes. Six decades on, the Queen is busier than ever. As Charles Nevin explains, you can put it down to her sense of duty…
We cannot, by convention, ask the Queen directly for her thoughts on 60 years of hard reigning[注：reign：When a king or queen reigns, he or she rules a country，当政，统治；dismay：Dismay is a strong feeling of fear, worry, or sadness that is caused by something unpleasant and unexpected. (FORMAL)，沮丧。], but she is unlikely to be either impressed or dismayed to find herself still working at the age of 85. A great deal of official and unofficial fawning surrounds the British monarch, but it seems clear that her leading characteristic, a result of both temperament and upbringing, is a formidable sense of duty.[注：fawning：奉承的；monarch：The monarch of a country is the king, queen, emperor, or empress，君主，最高统治者；temperament：Your temperament is your basic nature, especially as it is shown in the way that you react to situations or to other people，性格，性情，气质；upbringing：Your upbringing is the way that your parents treat you and the things that they teach you when you are growing up，教养；formidable：If you describe something or someone as formidable, you mean that you feel slightly frightened by them because they are very great or impressive，令人惊叹［钦佩］的，令人敬畏的。]
After 60 years, the figures are arresting[注：arresting：If something interesting or surprising arrests your attention, you suddenly notice it and then continue to look at it or consider it carefully. (FORMAL)，引人注意的，可观的；]. She has made over 300 state visits abroad, some 25,000 visits around Britain to greet, meet, open and tour, hosted more than 100 state banquets for foreign heads of state, including Robert Mugabe and Nicolae Ceausescu, conferred 400,000 honours, dealt with around 150 prime ministers in Britain and the Commonwealth, received 3.5m pieces of correspondence and attended to daily red boxes containing various matters of state, cabinet minutes, appointments, legislation.[注：banquet：A banquet is a grand formal dinner，宴会；Robert Mugabe：罗伯特•穆加贝，津巴布韦政治人物，1980年起出任总理，至1987年出任总统至今；Nicolae Ceausescu：尼古拉•齐奥塞斯库，1967年至1989年任罗马尼亚领导人；confer：To confer something such as power or an honour on someone means to give it to them. (FORMAL)，授予, 赋予（奖项、学位、荣誉或权利）；cabinet：内阁；legislation：立法，法律的制定［通过］。] According to a new biography, “Our Queen” by Robert Hardman, she has fallen asleep at work once, very briefly, in 2004, during a lecture on new insights into biology and medicine with the use of magnets[注：magnet：磁铁，磁体。] at the Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf.
She is the third British monarch to reach the age of 80, and the first to remain active: George III was pronounced mad, and Queen Victoria withdrew. Elizabeth II’s daily schedule remains little changed from 20 years ago, and in some respects has increased: as the royal family has become more open, entertaining has risen by 50% in the last five years. After a famously frugal and inflexible breakfast involving cereal in Tupperware, BBC Radio 4, the Daily Telegraph, the Racing Post and a bagpiper beneath the window, she takes to her desk to read the rest of the British newspapers and deal with correspondence and the first of the red boxes.[注：frugal：People who are frugal or who live frugal lives do not eat much or spend much money on themselves，俭朴的，节俭的；cereal：谷物；Tupperware：公司名，塑料保鲜容器；bagpiper：风笛手。] She then telephones her senior private secretary and asks if he is free to come up, a command masquerading[注：masquerading：冒充，伪装；exemplify：是……的典型；subtlety：微妙之处，精细之处。] as a question which exemplifies the style of a monarch bound by the unwritten subtleties of the British constitution.
Various meetings and engagements will follow, including audiences with British and foreign diplomats, and senior clergy from the Church of England, of which she is the supreme and interested governor.[注：engagement：An engagement is an arrangement that you have made to do something at a particular time. (FORMAL)；diplomat：外交官；clergy：神职人员；supreme：最高的，至上的。] Often, too, there is an investiture, where she will stand for an hour bestowing official honours, formally and individually.[注：investiture：授权，授职（仪式）；bestow：赠给，授予。] In the afternoon and evening there will be public engagements: as Andrew Marr puts it in his new biography, “The Diamond Queen”, it has been “a life of turning up”. And as the Buckingham Palace website puts it, “Often, one of the last lights on in the Palace at night is the Queen finishing her ‘red box’ of official papers.”
We are even less likely to learn what she thinks of this endless reading, and page-ticking[注：page-ticking：tick：（表示正确无误的）记号。], of government papers proposing[注：propose：提议，建议。], reporting and ordering matters on her behalf over which she has no power: duty, again. Hers not to question why, except in private, with the prime minister, unminuted[注：unminuted：不做会议记录的。], at his weekly audience. She will keep on, aided by her personal constitution: “She sleeps well, she’s got very good legs, and she can stand for a long time,” Lord Charteris, a former private secretary once said. “The Queen is as strong as a yak[注：yak：牦牛。].”
Picture: The Queen in 1952, the year of her accession, on her way to her first State Opening of Parliament
Charles Nevin is a freelance writer who spent 25 years on Fleet Street. He is the author of “The Book of Jacks”
1952年2月英王乔治六世病逝。作为长女的伊丽莎白接替父王正式即位，并于次年6月2日在伦敦威斯敏斯特教堂举行加冕仪式。伊丽莎白二世是英国温莎王朝的第四代君主。
这张照片就摄于1952年，她即位的那一年。女王当时正前往上议院，准备第一次主持国会开幕大典。
国会开幕大典是英国通常在每年11月初，于上议院议事厅举行的仪典。在仪典中，两院议员聚首一堂，恭听君主致辞，标志着新一届国会会期的正式开始；至于遇着有国会大选的年份，有关仪典则会紧接在大选后的首次国会会议召开前进行。
We cannot, by convention, ask the Queen directly for her thoughts on 60 years of hard reigning[注：reign：When a king or queen reigns, he or she rules a country，当政，统治；dismay：Dismay is a strong feeling of fear, worry, or sadness that is caused by something unpleasant and unexpected. (FORMAL)，沮丧。], but she is unlikely to be either impressed or dismayed to find herself still working at the age of 85. A great deal of official and unofficial fawning surrounds the British monarch, but it seems clear that her leading characteristic, a result of both temperament and upbringing, is a formidable sense of duty.[注：fawning：奉承的；monarch：The monarch of a country is the king, queen, emperor, or empress，君主，最高统治者；temperament：Your temperament is your basic nature, especially as it is shown in the way that you react to situations or to other people，性格，性情，气质；upbringing：Your upbringing is the way that your parents treat you and the things that they teach you when you are growing up，教养；formidable：If you describe something or someone as formidable, you mean that you feel slightly frightened by them because they are very great or impressive，令人惊叹［钦佩］的，令人敬畏的。]
After 60 years, the figures are arresting[注：arresting：If something interesting or surprising arrests your attention, you suddenly notice it and then continue to look at it or consider it carefully. (FORMAL)，引人注意的，可观的；]. She has made over 300 state visits abroad, some 25,000 visits around Britain to greet, meet, open and tour, hosted more than 100 state banquets for foreign heads of state, including Robert Mugabe and Nicolae Ceausescu, conferred 400,000 honours, dealt with around 150 prime ministers in Britain and the Commonwealth, received 3.5m pieces of correspondence and attended to daily red boxes containing various matters of state, cabinet minutes, appointments, legislation.[注：banquet：A banquet is a grand formal dinner，宴会；Robert Mugabe：罗伯特•穆加贝，津巴布韦政治人物，1980年起出任总理，至1987年出任总统至今；Nicolae Ceausescu：尼古拉•齐奥塞斯库，1967年至1989年任罗马尼亚领导人；confer：To confer something such as power or an honour on someone means to give it to them. (FORMAL)，授予, 赋予（奖项、学位、荣誉或权利）；cabinet：内阁；legislation：立法，法律的制定［通过］。] According to a new biography, “Our Queen” by Robert Hardman, she has fallen asleep at work once, very briefly, in 2004, during a lecture on new insights into biology and medicine with the use of magnets[注：magnet：磁铁，磁体。] at the Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf.
She is the third British monarch to reach the age of 80, and the first to remain active: George III was pronounced mad, and Queen Victoria withdrew. Elizabeth II’s daily schedule remains little changed from 20 years ago, and in some respects has increased: as the royal family has become more open, entertaining has risen by 50% in the last five years. After a famously frugal and inflexible breakfast involving cereal in Tupperware, BBC Radio 4, the Daily Telegraph, the Racing Post and a bagpiper beneath the window, she takes to her desk to read the rest of the British newspapers and deal with correspondence and the first of the red boxes.[注：frugal：People who are frugal or who live frugal lives do not eat much or spend much money on themselves，俭朴的，节俭的；cereal：谷物；Tupperware：公司名，塑料保鲜容器；bagpiper：风笛手。] She then telephones her senior private secretary and asks if he is free to come up, a command masquerading[注：masquerading：冒充，伪装；exemplify：是……的典型；subtlety：微妙之处，精细之处。] as a question which exemplifies the style of a monarch bound by the unwritten subtleties of the British constitution.
Various meetings and engagements will follow, including audiences with British and foreign diplomats, and senior clergy from the Church of England, of which she is the supreme and interested governor.[注：engagement：An engagement is an arrangement that you have made to do something at a particular time. (FORMAL)；diplomat：外交官；clergy：神职人员；supreme：最高的，至上的。] Often, too, there is an investiture, where she will stand for an hour bestowing official honours, formally and individually.[注：investiture：授权，授职（仪式）；bestow：赠给，授予。] In the afternoon and evening there will be public engagements: as Andrew Marr puts it in his new biography, “The Diamond Queen”, it has been “a life of turning up”. And as the Buckingham Palace website puts it, “Often, one of the last lights on in the Palace at night is the Queen finishing her ‘red box’ of official papers.”
We are even less likely to learn what she thinks of this endless reading, and page-ticking[注：page-ticking：tick：（表示正确无误的）记号。], of government papers proposing[注：propose：提议，建议。], reporting and ordering matters on her behalf over which she has no power: duty, again. Hers not to question why, except in private, with the prime minister, unminuted[注：unminuted：不做会议记录的。], at his weekly audience. She will keep on, aided by her personal constitution: “She sleeps well, she’s got very good legs, and she can stand for a long time,” Lord Charteris, a former private secretary once said. “The Queen is as strong as a yak[注：yak：牦牛。].”
Picture: The Queen in 1952, the year of her accession, on her way to her first State Opening of Parliament
Charles Nevin is a freelance writer who spent 25 years on Fleet Street. He is the author of “The Book of Jacks”
1952年2月英王乔治六世病逝。作为长女的伊丽莎白接替父王正式即位，并于次年6月2日在伦敦威斯敏斯特教堂举行加冕仪式。伊丽莎白二世是英国温莎王朝的第四代君主。
这张照片就摄于1952年，她即位的那一年。女王当时正前往上议院，准备第一次主持国会开幕大典。
国会开幕大典是英国通常在每年11月初，于上议院议事厅举行的仪典。在仪典中，两院议员聚首一堂，恭听君主致辞，标志着新一届国会会期的正式开始；至于遇着有国会大选的年份，有关仪典则会紧接在大选后的首次国会会议召开前进行。