世界小史 第43期:尼布甲尼撒
英语课
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 feats 1 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 cisterns 2 dug in order to retain the water and irrigate 3 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 silt 4 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 marshy 5 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 rubble 6 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。
功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 )
- He used to astound his friends with feats of physical endurance. 过去，他表现出来的惊人耐力常让朋友们大吃一惊。
- His heroic feats made him a legend in his own time. 他的英雄业绩使他成了他那个时代的传奇人物。
n.蓄水池，储水箱( cistern的名词复数 )；地下储水池
- Continental production and flower pots, cisterns, nursery toys, chemical preservative products. 兼产欧式花盆、水箱、幼儿园玩具、化工防腐产品。 来自互联网
- And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells. 还有声音在空的水池、干的井里歌唱。 来自互联网
vt.灌溉，修水利，冲洗伤口，使潮湿
- The farmer dug several trenches to irrigate the rice fields.这个农民挖了好几条沟以灌溉稻田。
- They have built canals to irrigate the desert.他们建造成水渠以灌溉沙漠。
n.淤泥，淤沙，粉砂层，泥沙层；vt.使淤塞；vi.被淤塞
- The lake was almost solid with silt and vegetation.湖里几乎快被淤泥和植物填满了。
- During the annual floods the river deposits its silt on the fields.每年河水泛滥时都会在田野上沉积一层淤泥。
adj.沼泽的
- In August 1935,we began our march across the marshy grassland. 1935年8月，我们开始过草地。
- The surrounding land is low and marshy. 周围的地低洼而多沼泽。