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LESSON 21 The Relief of Leyden
第二十一課 解放萊頓
A. D. 1574
公元1574年
The besieged city was at its last gasp. The burghers had been in a state of uncertainty for many days; being aware that the fleet had set forth for their relief, but knowing full well the thousand obstacles which it had to surmount. They had guessed its progress by the illumination from the blazing villages; they had heard its salvos of artillery on its arrival at North Aa; but since then all had been dark and mournful again, hope and fear, in sickening alternation, distracting every breast. They knew that the wind was unfavourable, and at the dawn of each day every eye was turned wistfully to the vanes of the steeples. So long as the easterly breeze prevailed, they felt, as they anxiously stood on towers and house-tops, that they must look in vain for the welcome ocean.
被困之城已經處在奄奄一息的邊緣。市民們多日來一直惶恐不安，他們知道艦隊已經出發來營救，只不過他們還知道，艦隊尚未到達，而前路依舊困難重重。當看到遠處星星點點的村莊，市民們便大概預估到了營救艦隊的進程，此外他們還聽到了艦隊在抵達諾斯沃時發出的隆隆炮聲；然而之后，一切又回歸黑暗和悲哀，市民們時而滿懷希望時而又充滿了恐懼，兩種情緒不知厭倦地交替著撥弄著他們每分每秒的呼吸。他們知道風向對他們不利，每天的黎明時分他們都會目不轉睛地盯著尖塔上的風向標，他們明白：只要東風尚還猖獗，那便等不來日思夜想的救援艦隊。
Yet, while thus patiently waiting, they were literally starving; for even the misery endured at Haar'lem had not reached that depth and intensity of agony to which Ley'den was now reduced. Bread, malt-cake, horse-flesh, had entirely disappeared; dogs, cats, rats and other vermin, were esteemed luxuries. A small number of cows, kept as long as possible for their milk, still remained; but a few were killed from day to day, and distributed in minute portions, hardly sufficient to support life, among the famishing population. Starving wretches swarmed daily around the shambles where these cattle were slaughtered, contending for any morsel which might fall, and lapping eagerly the blood as it ran along the pavement; while the hides, chopped and boiled, were greedily devoured.
然而，他們并不只是在耐心地等待，確切地說他們是在忍受饑餓。他們此時遭受的痛苦比當初在哈勒姆遭受的還要強烈、還要深徹。面包、麥芽餅、馬肉全都吃光了，就連狗、貓、老鼠和其他害蟲也早已成了稀有之物。他們還有少量幾頭用來產奶的奶牛，只不過一天天下來奶牛也逐漸被殺死，牛肉會被分成幾乎難以維系生命的小塊兒分發給挨餓的人們。成群的餓得發瘋的人們每天圍著宰殺奶牛的屠宰場，搶奪任何一塊可能掉下來的食物，急切地舔食人行道上流淌的鮮血；就連被剁碎、煮爛的牛皮也會被他們貪婪地吞掉。
Women and children, all day long, were seen searching gutters and dunghills for morsels of food, which they disputed fiercely with the famishing dogs. The green leaves were stripped from the trees, every living herb was converted into human food; but these expedients could not avert starvation. The daily mortality was frightful. Infants starved to death on the maternal breasts which famine had parched and withered; mothers dropped dead in the streets, with their dead children in their arms.
女人和小孩整天地在臭水溝和糞堆里挑揀食物，為了哪怕一丁點的食物他們便敢于和兇殘的惡狗拼個你死我活。綠葉被從樹上剝落，每一根尚還活著的香草都被做成了食物。盡管如此，他們依舊饑餓，日死亡人數讓人瞠目。嬰兒含著母親早已干涸的乳頭死去，母親則餓死倒在街頭，懷里還摟著自己已經死去的孩子。
In many a house the watchmen, in their rounds, found a whole family of corpses—father, mother, children—side by side; for a disorder called "the Plague," naturally engendered of hardship and famine, now came, as if in kindness, to abridge the agony of the people. Pestilence stalked at noonday through the city, and the doomed inhabitants fell like grass beneath his scythe. From six thousand to eight thousand human beings sank before this scourge alone; yet the people resolutely held out, women and men mutually encouraging each other to resist the entrance of their foreign foe—an evil more horrible than pest or famine.
守夜人在巡邏時會發現很多人家里躺了一家人的尸體，父親、母親和孩子接連躺在一起。因為一種由饑餓和苦難引發的“瘟疫”降臨了，它看似減輕了人們的痛苦，就像是懷著好心好意。正午的時候瘟疫開始在城市里蔓延，那些在劫難逃的居民就像小草一樣被它的大鐮刀斬之麾下。而在這場瘟疫到來之前這座城市就早已失去了六千至八千個居民，然而，人們還是毅然決然地堅持著，他們互相鼓勵來抵抗外敵西班牙的入侵——那是比瘟疫和饑餓還要可怕的敵人。
