VOA慢速英语:How Culture Affected Shakespeare, and He Affected Culture

pay off还清(债务等)付清,报复,赢利

例句：Next he undertook to pay off the debts.
      然后他同意负责偿还债务。

      The investor believes that his investment will pay off handsomely soon.
      这个投资者相信他的投资不久会有相当大的收益。

2.Without this important publication, eighteen of Shakespeare's plays would have been lost.

Without虚拟语气

非真实条件句中的条件从句有时不表示出来，只暗含在短语或上下文中，这种句子叫做储蓄条件句。常见的有but,for ,without等引导的短语，以及or, or else, otherwise, but 等后面的分句。
例：But for your help we couldn’t have succeeded in the experiment.
如果没有你的帮助，我们的实验室是不会成功的。
例：We could have done better under more favourable conditions.
在更有利的条件下，我们能够做得更好些。