評論
打印
"Especially after 11 September 2001, when the firemen were so involved in New York, the helmet attained new significance for me personally, because I had been given a fireman's helmet way back in the 1980s by a Boston fireman which was heavy, which was classically made, made of leather with copper and metal spine on it and so on. I was given this, and I had a great sense of receiving a ritual gift, not unlike the way Beowulf receives the gift from Hrothgar after he kills Grendel."
911事件中,紐約的消防隊員舍生忘死。在那之后.頭盔對 我個人而言有了全新的意義。早在二十世紀八十年代，一名波士頓消防員就送過我一個消防員頭盔，分量極沉，用傳統工藝制成，原料是皮革和黃銅等等，還有一道金屬脊。接受這件禮物對我而言有宗教儀式般的感覺，就和貝奧武甫殺死哥倫多后接受來自荷羅斯加的禮物一樣。
In a sense, the whole Sutton Hoo burial ship is a great ritual gift, a spectacular assertion of wealth and power on behalf of two people-the man who was buried there and commanded huge respect, and the man who organised this lavish farewell and commanded huge resources. We are clearly in the presence of power.
從某種意義上說，整個薩頓胡墓葬都是一件儀式性的禮物，展示了兩位歷史人物的財富與權力：一位是埋葬在這里的受人尊敬的逝者，另一位是擁有巨大財富、安排了這次豪華葬禮的人。
The Sutton Hoo grave ship brought the poetry of Beowulf unexpectedly close to historical fact. In the process it profoundly changed our understanding of this whole chapter of British history. Long dismissed as the Dark Ages, this period-the centuries after the Romans withdrew-could now be seen as a time of high sophistication and extensive international contacts, that linked East Anglia not just to Scandinavia and the Atlantic, but ultimately to the eastern Mediterranean and beyond.
薩頓胡船葬無意中將詩歌《貝奧武甫》拉近了歷史現實。在這個過程中，它徹底改變了我們對英國這一時期歷史的認識。羅馬撤離后的幾 個世紀曾長期被認為是“黑暗時代”，現在我們了解，這其實是個高度發達的社會，貿易范圍十分廣泛，東安格利亞不僅與斯堪的納維亞和大西 洋地區建立了密切聯系，甚至與東地中海以外的地區也有往來。
The very idea of ship burial is Scandinavian, and the Sutton Hoo ship was of a kind that easily crossed the North Sea, so making East Anglia an integral part of a world that included modern Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The helmet is, as you might expect, of Scandinavian design.
船葬是斯堪的納維亞常見的墓葬形式。我們的薩頓胡船輕松地穿越北海，使東安格利亞成為包括現代丹麥、挪威和瑞典在內的一個更廣闊 世界的一部分。你也許猜到了，頭盔也是斯堪的納維亞式的。
