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And then I think of the date.
这时我想起了它的年代
This painting was done in 1670,
这幅画创作于1670年
and that was a moment of tension and nervousness
当时荷兰人在欧洲孤立无援
that the Dutch had about going it alone in Europe.
国内充满了紧张与不安
You think, correctly, that the great powers out there,
你会正当地认为那些列强
jealous of your prosperity in the world,
嫉妒你在全世界繁荣兴盛
are plotting against you,
对你居心叵测
England and France, as indeed they were.
英格兰和法国正是如此
And, two years after this painting was done,
这幅作品完成两年之后
the Dutch Republic was almost engulfed by a pincer movement
荷兰共和国就几乎被这两个敌对国家的
between those two hostile states.
钳形攻势吞噬殆尽
And there's no doubt that that windmill,
毫无疑问 这座
with the light shining on it,
沐浴着阳光的风车
is a guardian against peril.
就是直面危险的卫士
The sails of the mill,
风车的帆叶
not accidentally, form the cross of the Redeemer.
有意组成了耶稣基督的十字架
There's a saviour, and the saviour is the windmill.
救世主确实存在 而他就是这座风车
And that cross, just in case you're wondering,
如果你想知道 这个十字
is echoed visually by an opening in the sky,
在视觉上和天空中的一个洞相呼应
down which this gorgeous light falls,
通过这个洞射入一道美丽的光
the only warm bit in the painting,
是画中唯一一处暖色
and, if you're Dutch, you remember an old saying which says,
如果你是荷兰人 你一定知道这样一句谚语
"Just as a windmill needs the wind to move its sails,
就好像风车需要风来转动
"so man needs the breath of God to act."
人类需要上帝的气息来行动
The moral is never forget the word of God.
道德寓意永远不要忘记上帝之言
You have a covenant with God.
你和上帝有个神约
You are his modern, chosen people.
你是他现代的选民
Just remember that when you look at the mill.
当你看到这个风车时请记住这点
When nations feel threatened,
当国家受到威胁
or when they're actually torn apart,
或被分裂
the sense of God-protected homeland,
上帝保护领土的感觉
somehow sheltered from catastrophe,
以某种方式从灾难中幸存
comes swimming into view.
跃然眼前
Civil wars, as we've seen over and again,
频繁发生的内战
are the nurseries of great landscape painting.
是伟大风景画的温床
What held for the tight-bounded Dutch Republic,
适用于紧凑的荷兰共和国的
looking heavenwards to its boundless skies,
这些望向无垠的天空
was magnified on a continental scale in the 1860s,
在十九世纪六十年代的一个大陆范围内
in the bitterly divided American republic.
在经历分裂苦难的美国中被放大
Though the American Civil War was in part a war about land
尽管某种程度上美国内战是为了争夺领土
and the right to extend slavery into new western territories,
和向西扩张领土推行奴隶制
