世界小史 第43期:尼布甲尼撒

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 The last great Babylonian king was Nebuchadnezzar.

最后一个伟大的巴比伦国王是尼布甲尼撒。

He lived around 600 BC and is remembered for his feats1 of war.

他生活在公元前600年左右，他的几次战绩使他出了名。

He fought against Egypt and brought a vast number of foreign captives home to Babylon as slaves.

他曾与埃及人作战并把大批外族俘虏带到巴比伦当奴隶。

And yet his truly greatest deeds were not his wars: he had huge canals and water cisterns2 dug in order to retain the water and irrigate3 the land,

但是他真正最伟大的业绩并不是他的战绩，而是他为浇灌土地而修建的水渠和蓄水池，

so that it became rich and fertile.

因而这块土地变得富饶肥沃。

Only when those canals became blocked with silt4 and the cisterns filled with mud did the land become what it is today:

自从这些水渠被掩埋，蓄水池被淤塞，这地方才变成今天这样：

a desert wasteland and marshy5 plain with, here and there, one of those hills I mentioned.

到处都是荒漠或像沼泽似的平原，也就是我提到过的那些山。

So, whenever we are glad that the week is nearly over, and Sunday is coming round again,

当我们为一周就要结束、星期日就要来临而感到高兴时，

we must spare a thought for those hills of rubble6 in that hot and marshy plain, and for those fierce kings with their long, black beards.

我们应该花些时间想想那个炎热的沼泽地里的那些废墟，想到那些蓄着长长的黑胡子的国王。

For now we know how it all fits together.

因为我们现在知道，这一切与我们现在有着某种关联。