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Chapter 33
第三十三章
Pope vs. emperor
教皇與皇帝之爭
The strange double loyalty of the people of the middle ages and how it led to endless quarrels between the popes and the holy roman emperors
中世紀(jì)人民奇特的雙重效忠制度，以及由此引發(fā)的教皇與神圣羅馬帝國皇帝之間的無盡爭斗
It is very difficult to understand the people of by-gone ages. Your own grandfather, whom you see every day, is a mysterious being who lives in a different world of ideas and clothes and manners. I am now telling you the story of some of your grandfathers who are twenty-five generations removed, and I do not expect you to catch the meaning of what I write without re-reading this chapter a number of times.
要想真正理解以往時代的人們，搞清楚他們的行為方式、他們思想動機(jī)，是一件異常困難的事情。你每天都能看見的自己的祖父，他仿佛就是一個無論在思想、衣著和行為態(tài)度上，都生活在一個不同世界的神秘人物。你難道不是費(fèi)盡心思地認(rèn)識他，絞盡腦汁地想要理解他，但往往無功而返嗎。我現(xiàn)在給你講述的，是比你祖父早25代的老爺爺們的故事。如果你們不把這一章重讀幾遍，我想你們是不能真正理解其意義的。
The average man of the Middle Ages lived a very simple and uneventful life. Even if he was a free citizen, able to come and go at will, he rarely left his own neighbourhood. There were no printed books and only a few manuscripts. Here and there, a small band of industrious monks taught reading and writing and some arithmetic. But science and history and geography lay buried beneath the ruins of Greece and Rome.
中世紀(jì)的普通老百姓生活簡樸，平淡無奇的歲月中少有特別的事情發(fā)生。即便是一個自由 市民，可以隨心所欲地來去，他的生活范圍也極少超出自己居住的鄰區(qū)。讀物當(dāng)然少得可憐，除少量的手抄本在極小的范圍內(nèi)流傳，根本不存在印刷的書籍。在各個地方，總有一小批勤勉的僧侶在教人讀書、寫字、學(xué)習(xí) 簡單的算術(shù)。至于科學(xué)、歷史和地理，它們早已深埋于古希臘和古羅馬的廢墟之下，湮滅無聞了。
Whatever people knew about the past they had learned by listening to stories and legends. Such information, which goes from father to son, is often slightly incorrect in details, but it will preserve the main facts of history with astonishing accuracy. After more than two thousand years, the mothers of India still frighten their naughty children by telling them that "Iskander will get them," and Iskander is none other than Alexander the Great, who visited India in the year 330 before the birth of Christ, but whose story has lived through all these ages.
人們對過去時代的了解，大都來自于他們?nèi)粘Ｂ犅劦墓适潞蛡髌妗＿@些由父親講給兒子的代代相傳的故事，能以令人驚奇的準(zhǔn)確性保存了歷史的主要事實(shí)，只在細(xì)節(jié)上有輕微的出人。2000多年過去了，印度的母親們?yōu)樽屘詺獾暮⒆影察o下來，依然會嚇唬他們說，"再不聽話，伊斯坎達(dá)爾要來捉你了！"這位伊斯坎達(dá)爾不是別人，他就是公元前330年率軍橫掃印度的亞歷山大大帝。他的故事經(jīng)過幾千年，依然在印度的大地上流傳。
