2016年5月18日功課

THE ?GEAN SEA

愛琴海

THE PEOPLE OF THE ?GEAN SEA CARRIED THE CIVILISATION OF OLD ASIA INTO THE WILDERNESS OF EUROPE

愛琴海人民將古老的亞洲文明帶入到歐洲的不毛之地。

WHEN Heinrich Schliemann was a little boy his father told him the story of Troy. He liked that story better than anything else he had ever heard and he made up his mind, that as soon as he was big enough to leave home, he would travel to Greece and "find Troy." That he was the son of a poor country parson in a Mecklenburg village did not bother him. He knew that he would need money but he decided to gather a fortune first and do the digging afterwards. As a matter of fact, he managed to get a large fortune within a very short time, and as soon as he had enough money to equip an expedition, he went to the northwest corner of Asia Minor, where he supposed that Troy had been situated.

當(dāng)海因里西.施利曼還是個(gè)小孩子的時(shí)候，他的父親給他講了特洛伊的故事。他無(wú)比地喜歡這個(gè)故事，于是立志一旦長(zhǎng)大后可以離開家鄉(xiāng)，他就去希臘尋找“特洛伊”。他只是梅克倫堡一個(gè)貧窮牧師的兒子，不過(guò)著并不妨礙他（實(shí)現(xiàn)夢(mèng)想）。但他知道自己需要錢，于是第一步他決定先攢一筆錢，然后再進(jìn)行探險(xiǎn)。事實(shí)上，他想方設(shè)法在很短時(shí)間內(nèi)取得了一大筆錢。他一獲得足夠的錢來(lái)裝備探險(xiǎn)隊(duì)，他向著小亞細(xì)亞的西南角出發(fā)了，他認(rèn)為特洛伊就在那里。

2016年5月19日功課

In that particular nook of old Asia Minor, stood a high mound covered with grainfields.According to tradition it had been the home of Priamus the king of Troy.Schliemann, whose enthusiasm was somewhat greater than his knowledge, wasted no time in preliminary explorations.At once he began to dig.And he dug with such zeal and such speed that his trench went straight through the heart of the city for which he was looking and carried him to the ruins of another buried town which was at least a thousand years older than the Troy of which Homer had written.Then something very interesting occurred.If Schliemann had found a few polished stone hammers and perhaps a few pieces of crude pottery, no one would have been surprised.Instead of discovering such objects, which people had generally associated with the prehistoric men who had lived in these regions before the coming of the Greeks, Schliemann found beautiful statuettes and very costly jewelry and ornamented vases of a pattern that was unknown to the Greeks.?

在小亞細(xì)亞那個(gè)獨(dú)特的角落里，矗立著一個(gè)長(zhǎng)滿莊稼的高大土丘。相傳，那里是特洛伊國(guó)王普里阿莫的故鄉(xiāng)。施利曼是一個(gè)熱情高于學(xué)識(shí)的人，根本沒(méi)花時(shí)間進(jìn)行預(yù)勘探。迫不及待的進(jìn)行挖掘。他以極高的熱情和極快的速度挖掘著，以至于他開挖的壕溝從他一直在尋找的城市中心直穿過(guò)去。他挖到了另一個(gè)被埋藏的城鎮(zhèn)的廢墟，依據(jù)何馬的記載，這個(gè)城鎮(zhèn)要比特洛伊至少早1000年。接著他發(fā)現(xiàn)了一些十分有趣的東西。如果施利曼發(fā)現(xiàn)的是幾個(gè)精美的石錘，或著是幾片粗陶，沒(méi)有人會(huì)感到吃驚。相反地施利曼沒(méi)發(fā)現(xiàn)些人們通常會(huì)和在希臘人到來(lái)之前就生活在這片區(qū)域的史前人聯(lián)系起來(lái)的東西，他發(fā)現(xiàn)了精美的小型雕塑和非常昂貴的珍寶，以及裝飾有希臘人都不認(rèn)識(shí)的圖案的花瓶。

2016年5月20日功課

He ventured the suggestion that fully ten centuries before the great Trojan war, the coast of the ?gean had been inhabited by a mysterious race of men who in many ways had been the superiors of the wild Greek tribes who had invaded their country and had destroyed their civilisation or absorbed it until it had lost all trace of originality. And this proved to be the case. In the late seventies of the last century, Schliemann visited the ruins of Mycen?, ruins which were so old that Roman guide-books marvelled at their antiquity. There again, beneath the flat slabs of stone of a small round enclosure, Schliemann stumbled upon a wonderful treasure-trove, which had been left behind by those mysterious people who had covered the Greek coast with their cities and who had built walls, so big and so heavy and so strong, that the Greeks called them the work of the Titans, those god-like giants who in very olden days had used to play ball with mountain peaks.

施利曼追隨著一個(gè)傳說(shuō)而來(lái)。相傳在特洛伊戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)前1000年，愛琴海沿岸曾居住著一個(gè)神秘的民族，這個(gè)民族在個(gè)方面都比野蠻的希臘部落高級(jí)。希臘人入侵了這個(gè)民族，摧毀了他們的文明，將他們同化的一點(diǎn)痕跡都不剩。這個(gè)傳說(shuō)被證明是真實(shí)的。在上世紀(jì)70年代末（指19世紀(jì)：施澤注），施利曼訪問(wèn)了邁錫尼遺址，這片遺址年代如此久遠(yuǎn)，以至于羅馬教科書都驚嘆與它的古老。在那里歷史重演，施利曼在一個(gè)圓形圍墻的石板下面發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個(gè)精美的地下寶藏。寶藏是那些神秘民族留下來(lái)的，他們的城市曾經(jīng)布滿希臘海岸。他們建造的圍墻如此高大、沉重、堅(jiān)強(qiáng)，以至于希臘人將其稱之為泰坦的杰作。泰坦是經(jīng)常在群山之間踢球的巨神。

2016年5月21日功課

A very careful study of these many relics has done away with some of the romantic features of the story.The makers of these early works of art and the builders of these strong fortresses were no sorcerers, but simple sailors and traders.They had lived in Crete, and on the many small islands of the ?gean Sea.They had been hardy mariners and they had turned the ?gean into a center of commerce for the exchange of goods between the highly civilised east and the slowly developing wilderness of the European mainland.

對(duì)這些遺跡進(jìn)行深入研究后，使其褪去神話故事的浪漫色彩。這些早期藝術(shù)品的制造者以及強(qiáng)大城堡的建造者不是魔術(shù)師，只不過(guò)是一些普通的士兵和商人。他們居住在克里特島，以及愛琴海其它的眾多小島上。他們?cè)?jīng)是勇敢的水手，是他們將愛琴海轉(zhuǎn)變成一個(gè)貿(mào)易中心，可供東方高度發(fā)達(dá)的文明與欠發(fā)達(dá)的荒蠻歐洲大陸交換貨物。

2016年5月22日功課

For more than a thousand years they had maintained an island empire which had developed a very high form of art.Indeed their most important city, Cnossus, on the northern coast of Crete, had been entirely modern in its insistence upon hygiene and comfort.The palace had been properly drained and the houses had been provided with stoves and the Cnossians had been the first people to make a daily use of the hitherto unknown bathtub.The palace of their King had been famous for its winding staircases and its large banqueting hall.The cellars underneath this palace, where the wine and the grain and the olive-oil were stored, had been so vast and had so greatly impressed the first Greek visitors, that they had given rise to the story of the "labyrinth," the name which we give to a structure with so many complicated passages that it is almost impossible to find our way out, once the front door has closed upon our frightened selves.

幾千年以來(lái)，他們經(jīng)營(yíng)著這個(gè)島上王國(guó)，并發(fā)展出高級(jí)的藝術(shù)形式。實(shí)際上，他們最重要的城市，位于克里特島南岸的克里索斯已經(jīng)完全是現(xiàn)代化城市的樣子，從這個(gè)城市主張的衛(wèi)生和舒適度來(lái)看。這個(gè)地方的排水系統(tǒng)完好，房子都配有火爐。克里索斯人最早開始使用浴缸，到現(xiàn)在人們還在使用。他們的王宮以旋轉(zhuǎn)樓梯和大宴會(huì)廳聞名。王宮用來(lái)存放葡萄酒、糧食和橄欖油的地下室非常廣闊，給第一次訪問(wèn)地窖的希臘人留下了深刻的印象，這讓希臘人聯(lián)想到“迷宮”的故事?！懊詫m”是指一種擁有許多復(fù)雜通道的建筑物，讓人幾乎找不到出口。地宮的大門關(guān)閉，一陣恐懼感襲來(lái)。

2016年5月23日功課

But what finally became of this great ?gean Empire and what caused its sudden downfall, that I can not tell.

不過(guò)，是什么成就了愛琴文明，又是什么促使她突然衰落，原因不得而知。

The Cretans were familiar with the art of writing, but no one has yet been able to decipher their inscriptions. Their history therefore is unknown to us. We have to reconstruct the record of their adventures from the ruins which the ?geans have left behind. These ruins make it clear that the ?gean world was suddenly conquered by a less civilised race which had recently come from the plains of northern Europe. Unless we are very much mistaken, the savages who were responsible for the destruction of the Cretan and the ?gean civilisation were none other than certain tribes of wandering shepherds who had just taken possession of the rocky peninsula between the Adriatic and the ?gean seas and who are known to us as Greeks.

克里特島人熟悉書寫的藝術(shù)，但至今沒(méi)有人可以參透他們碑文的意義。因此，對(duì)于他們的歷史我們無(wú)從而知。我們不得不通過(guò)愛琴人留下的遺跡來(lái)重建克里特島人冒險(xiǎn)歷史。那些歷史遺跡非常清晰的表明，愛琴文明是被一個(gè)剛從北歐平原出來(lái)的低級(jí)民族突然征服的。除非我們嚴(yán)重判斷錯(cuò)誤，否則葬送克里特島和愛琴文明的劊子手就應(yīng)該是那個(gè)游牧民族，他們占領(lǐng)了亞的里亞海與愛琴海之間的石頭半島，既我們所熟悉的希臘人。