From there the skulls ranged upward in size to the three great monsters of song and story, the dragons that Aegon Targaryen and his sisters had unleashed on the Seven Kingdoms of old. The singers had given them the names of gods: Balerion, Meraxes, Vhaghar. Tyrion had stood between their gaping jaws, wordless and awed. You could have ridden a horse down Vhaghar’s gullet, although you would not have ridden it out again. Meraxes was even bigger. And the greatest of them, Balerion, the Black Dread, could have swallowed an aurochs whole, or even one of the hairy mammoths said to roam the cold wastes beyond the Port of Ibben.
其他的龍頭則一個比一個大,最大的三頭便是歌謠和傳說里最恐怖的巨獸,即伊耿·坦格利安和他的妹妹們攻打古代七國時所騎乘的那三頭龍。吟游詩人為他們都取了神的名字:貝勒里恩、米拉西斯和瓦格哈爾。提利昂站在他們的血盆大口間,震懾得說不出話來。瓦格哈爾的咽喉之大,大到你可以騎馬進去,當然別想活著出來。米拉西斯體型更加驚人。而最碩大無朋,人稱"黑死神"的貝勒里恩,則可一口吞下整只野牛,或是傳說中漫游于伊班港以北冰冷荒原上的長毛象。
Tyrion stood in that dank cellar for a long time, staring at Balerion’s huge, empty-eyed skull until his torch burned low, trying to grasp the size of the living animal, to imagine how it must have looked when it spread its great black wings and swept across the skies, breathing fire.
提利昂在陰濕地窖里佇立良久,盯著貝勒里恩空洞而巨大的眼窩,試著想像眼前這只巨獸生前的模樣,想像它開展雙翼,橫掃天際,口吐烈焰的景象,直到火把燃盡。
背景介紹:
《權力的游戲》是一部中世紀史詩奇幻題材的電視連續劇。該劇以美國作家喬治·R·R·馬丁的奇幻巨作《冰與火之歌》七部曲為基礎改編創作,由大衛·貝尼奧夫和丹尼爾·威斯編劇、HBO電視網推出。喬治·雷蒙德·理查德·馬丁是歐美奇幻小說大師。馬丁的作品主要以人物為關注點,描寫細膩豐富,突破了幻想文學界固有的創作模式,多次引領閱讀潮流。由于馬丁的輝煌成就,他被譽為美國的托爾金和新世紀的海明威。從1989年開始,馬丁淡出文學界,轉而投身演藝界發展,1996年他才重返文壇而開始奇幻文學的創作,處女作便是《權力的游戲》,即為《冰與火之歌》的首部曲?!稒嗔Φ挠螒颉犯Τ霰隳孟铝薆ritish Fantasy Society、 世界奇幻獎和星云獎年度最佳幻想作品提名,在非官方的不記名奇幻作品投票中,《冰與火之歌》儼然已經可以和《魔戒》平起平坐,作者網站的訪問量也是和斯蒂芬·金、J.K.羅琳等不相上下,其受歡迎的程度可見一斑。喬治馬丁被時代雜志評選為2011年影響世界的一百人之一。