2016年4月1日功课

THE NILE VALLEY

尼罗河河谷

THE BEGINNING OF CIVILISATION IN THE VALLEY OF THE NILE.

人类文明在尼罗河河谷开始。

THE history of man is the record of a hungry creature in search of food. Wherever food was plentiful, thither man has travelled to make his home.

人类的历史就是一群饥饿生物寻找食物的记录。哪里食物丰富，人类就到哪里安家。

2016年4月2日功课

The fame of the Valley of the Nile must have spread at an early date. From the interior of Africa and from the desert of Arabia and from the western part of Asia people had flocked to Egypt to claim their share of the rich farms. Together these invaders had formed a new race which called itself ``Remi'' or ``the Men'' just as we sometimes call America ``God's own country. '' They had good reason to be grateful to a Fate which had carried them to this narrow strip of land. In the summer of each year the Nile turned the valley into a shallow lake and when the waters receded all the grainfields and the pastures were covered with several inches of the most fertile clay.

尼罗河河谷的名声一定在很早就广为流传。来自非洲中部，阿拉伯半岛沙漠和亚洲西部的人们蜂拥而至，来到埃及瓜分这个富饶的农场。这些入侵者一起组成了一个新的种族，他们称自己叫做“雷米”或者“这些人”，就像我们有时称美洲为“上帝的国土。”他们有很好的原因要感恩，命运让他们生在这块狭窄的带状土地上。每年夏天尼罗河将这片土地变成一片平湖，当洪水褪去所有庄稼地和牧场上都覆盖了几英寸厚肥沃的土壤。

2016年4月3日功课

In Egypt a kindly river did the work of a million men and made it possible to feed the teeming population of the first large cities of which we have any record. It is true that all the arable land was not in the valley. But a complicated system of small canals and well-sweeps carried water from the river-level to the top of the highest banks and an even more intricate system of irrigation trenches spread it throughout the land.

在埃及，一条温和的河流能顶一百万人所做的工作，这使得有史以来最早的城市养育密集的人口成为可能。事实上不是所有的耕地都在河谷里。但一个由小水渠和圧水装置组成的复杂系统，将水从河面运到高堤的顶部，还有一个更复杂的灌溉水渠系统引向田地的各个角落。

2016年4月4日功课

While man of the prehistoric age had been obliged to spend sixteen hours out of every twenty-four gathering food for himself and the members of his tribe, the Egyptian peasant or the inhabitant of the Egyptian city found himself possessed of a certain leisure. He used this spare time to make himself many things that were merely ornamental and not in the least bit useful.

史前时期，人们每天24小时里有16个小时必须去为自己和族人采集食物。这些埃及的农民以及城市居民在寻找食物时有一些空闲时间。史前人利用这些闲暇时间给自己制作一些纯装饰性物品，这些东西一点别的用处都没有。

2016年4月5日功课

More than that.One day he discovered that his brain was capable of thinking all kinds of thoughts which had nothing to do with the problems of eating and sleeping and finding a home for the children.The Egyptian began to speculate upon many strange problems that confronted him.Where did the stars come from?Who made the noise of the thunder which frightened him so terribly?Who was he, himself, a strange little creature surrounded on all sides by death and sickness and yet happy and full of laughter?

不仅仅是这些。有一天，他发现自己的大脑可以思考各种与吃饭、睡觉以及给孩子找住处完全无关的想法。这个埃及人开始思考沉思许多他所面对的学多奇怪的问题。星星从哪里来？那让人万分惊恐的雷声是谁制造的？他自己是谁，这个被死亡、疾病所包围的同时又快乐并充满欢笑的奇怪的渺小的生物？

2016年4月6日功课

He asked these many questions and certain people obligingly stepped forward to answer these inquiries to the best of their ability. The Egyptians called them ``priests'' and they became the guardians of his thoughts and gained great respect in the community. They were highly learned men who were entrusted with the sacred task of keeping the written records. They understood that it is not good for man to think only of his immediate advantage in this world and they drew his attention to the days of the future when his soul would dwell beyond the mountains of the west and must give an account of his deeds to Osiris, the mighty God who was the Ruler of the Living and the Dead and who judged the acts of men according to their merits. Indeed, the priests made so much of that future day in the realm of Isis and Osiris that the Egyptians began to regard life merely as a short preparation for the Hereafter and turned the teeming valley of the Nile into a land devoted to the Dead.

他有这么多的疑问，就有特定的人亲切的主动站出来竭尽全力回答这些咨询。埃及人称他们为“祭司”，他们成为人们思想的守护者，在社区中获得极高的尊敬。他们是饱学之士，被委以神圣的职责——进行书写记录。祭司们认为人们仅仅思索自己现世眼前的利益是不好的，于是祭司们把人们的注意力引向未来的时刻——当他们的灵魂栖息在西方的群山之上，必须向欧里西斯解释自己的行为之时。欧里西斯是主宰生死的万能上帝，依据人们的功过评判人们的所作所为。事实上，祭司们做了那么多关于未来在伊希斯和欧里西斯的国土的事情，以至于埃及人开始认为生命仅仅是为死后做的短暂的准备，将富饶的尼罗河河谷视为一块献给死亡的土地。

2016年4月7日功课

In a strange way, the Egyptians had come to believe that no soul could enter the realm of Osiris without the possession of the body which had been its place of residence in this world. Therefore as soon as a man was dead his relatives took his corpse and had it embalmed. For weeks it was soaked in a solution of natron and then it was filled with pitch. The Persian word for pitch was ``Mumiai'' and the embalmed body was called a ``Mummy. '' It was wrapped in yards and yards of specially prepared linen and it was placed in a specially prepared coffin ready to be removed to its final home. But an Egyptian grave was a real home where the body was surrounded by pieces of furniture and musical instruments (to while away the dreary hours of waiting) and by little statues of cooks and bakers and barbers (that the occupant of this dark home might be decently provided with food and need not go about unshaven).

不可思议的是，埃及人开始相信抛开这具在凡世栖身的皮囊，没有灵魂可以进入奥西里斯的国土。所以，一旦一个埃及人死去，他的亲人们马上会接过他的尸体并做防腐处理。尸体在泡碱溶液里浸泡数周时间，然后涂抹上沥青。沥青在波斯语中叫做“木米艾”，做过防腐处理的尸体叫做“木乃伊”。尸体在一个备有特质抹布的院子里进行包裹，它被放在一个事先准备好的特殊棺材里面，这将会被移送到它最终的家园。一个埃及人的墓穴可是一个真正的家，尸体周围摆满了家具和乐器（用来打发等候时枯燥的时间），还有厨师、面包师和理发师的塑像（也许这黑暗家园的主人还得适当地备些食物，也不能不修边幅的走动）。

2016年4月8日功课

Originally these graves had been dug into the rocks of the western mountains but as the Egyptians moved northward they were obliged to build their cemeteries in the desert.The desert however is full of wild animals and equally wild robbers and they broke into the graves and disturbed the mummy or stole the jewelry that had been buried with the body.To prevent such unholy desecration the Egyptians used to build small mounds of stones on top of the graves. These little mounds gradually grew in size, because the rich people built higher mounds than the poor and there was a good deal of competition to see who could make the highest hill of stones. The record was made by King Khufu, whom the Greeks called Cheops and who lived thirty centuries before our era. His mound, which the Greeks called a pyramid (because the Egyptian word for high was pir-em-us) was over five hundred feet high.

最初，埃及人的墓穴挖在西面山上的岩石里，但随着埃及人向北迁移，他们不得不把墓地建在沙漠里。不过，沙漠里充满了野兽和野蛮的强盗。盗贼毁坏墓穴，惊扰木乃伊还盗窃陪葬的珠宝。为了避免这种罪恶的亵渎亡人的行为，埃及人通常用石头在坟上垒一个石丘。这些小石丘的尺寸渐渐变大了，因为富人要比穷人建更高的石丘。曾有大量的比赛，看看谁能建出最高的石头山丘。最高的石丘记录是由胡夫法老创造的，希腊人称之为吉奥普斯，他生活在据我们30世纪之前的时代。希腊人称他的坟墓为金字塔（因为埃及文中表示高的词是“庇里穆斯”），高度超过500英尺。

2016年4月9日功课

It covered more than thirteen acres of desert which is three times as much space as that occupied by the church of St. Peter, the largest edifice of the Christian world.

胡夫金字塔占了超过13英亩的沙漠，是圣彼得大教堂的三倍还多，是基督建筑世界里最大的大厦了。

During twenty years, over a hundred thousand men were busy carrying the necessary stones from the other side of the river -- ferrying them across the Nile (how they ever managed to do this, we do not understand), dragging them in many instances a long distance across the desert and finally hoisting them into their correct position. But so well did the King's architects and engineers perform their task that the narrow passage-way which leads to the royal tomb in the heart of the stone monster has never yet been pushed out of shape by the weight of those thousands of tons of stone which press upon it from all sides.

20多年间，成千上万的人忙于从河的对岸运输必须的石材——从尼罗河的对岸摆渡过来（它们怎样设法做到这些的，我们无从得知）。多数情况下需要在沙漠上拖运很长的距离，最终把它们升高安放在合适的位置上。不过，国王的建筑师与工程师们把工作做的如此好，通往这个石头庞然大物核心的皇家墓室的狭窄通道在经受了来自四面八方的几千顿石头的重压后从未被挤压变形。