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LESSON 21 The Relief of Leyden
第二十一课 解放莱顿
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.
被困之城已经处在奄奄一息的边缘。市民们多日来一直惶恐不安，他们知道舰队已经出发来营救，只不过他们还知道，舰队尚未到达，而前路依旧困难重重。当看到远处星星点点的村庄，市民们便大概预估到了营救舰队的进程，此外他们还听到了舰队在抵达诺斯沃时发出的隆隆炮声；然而之后，一切又回归黑暗和悲哀，市民们时而满怀希望时而又充满了恐惧，两种情绪不知厌倦地交替着拨弄着他们每分每秒的呼吸。他们知道风向对他们不利，每天的黎明时分他们都会目不转睛地盯着尖塔上的风向标，他们明白：只要东风尚还猖獗，那便等不来日思夜想的救援舰队。
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，他们并不只是在耐心地等待，确切地说他们是在忍受饥饿。他们此时遭受的痛苦比当初在哈勒姆遭受的还要强烈、还要深彻。面包、麦芽饼、马肉全都吃光了，就连狗、猫、老鼠和其他害虫也早已成了稀有之物。他们还有少量几头用来产奶的奶牛，只不过一天天下来奶牛也逐渐被杀死，牛肉会被分成几乎难以维系生命的小块儿分发给挨饿的人们。成群的饿得发疯的人们每天围着宰杀奶牛的屠宰场，抢夺任何一块可能掉下来的食物，急切地舔食人行道上流淌的鲜血；就连被剁碎、煮烂的牛皮也会被他们贪婪地吞掉。
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沟和粪堆里挑拣食物，为了哪怕一丁点的食物他们便敢于和凶残的恶狗拼个你死我活。绿叶被从树上剥落，每一根尚还活着的香草都被做成了食物。尽管如此，他们依旧饥饿，日死亡人数让人瞠目。婴儿含着母亲早已干涸的乳头死去，母亲则饿死倒在街头，怀里还搂着自己已经死去的孩子。
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.
守夜人在巡逻时会发现很多人家里躺了一家人的尸体，父亲、母亲和孩子接连躺在一起。因为一种由饥饿和苦难引发的“瘟疫”降临了，它看似减轻了人们的痛苦，就像是怀着好心好意。正午的时候瘟疫开始在城市里蔓延，那些在劫难逃的居民就像小草一样被它的大镰刀斩之麾下。而在这场瘟疫到来之前这座城市就早已失去了六千至八千个居民，然而，人们还是毅然决然地坚持着，他们互相鼓励来抵抗外敌西班牙的入侵——那是比瘟疫和饥饿还要可怕的敌人。
