第一胎是男孩说明什么 《能言马与男孩》第1期:沙斯塔出奔(1)

《能言马与男孩》第1期:沙斯塔出奔(1)  

Chapter 1 How Shasta Set out on His Travels
THIS is the story of an adventure that happened in Narnia and Calormen and the lands beeen
in the Golden Age when Peter was High King in Narnia and his brother and his o sisters were King and Queens under him.
In those days
far south in Calormen on a little creek of the sea
there lived a poor fisherman called Arsheesh
and with him there lived a boy who called him Father. The boy's name was Shasta. On most days Arsheesh went out in his boat to fish in the morning
and in the afternoon he harnessed his donkey to a cart and loaded the cart with fish and went a mile or so southward to the village to sell it. If it had sold well he would e home in a moderately good temper and say nothing to Shasta
but if it had sold badly he would find fault with him and perhaps beat him. There was always something to find fault with for Shasta had plenty of work to do
mending and washing the s
cooking the supper
and cleaning the cottage in which they both lived.
在那些岁月里，在卡乐门王国遥远的南方，大海之滨的一个小港湾里，住着一个穷苦的渔夫叫做阿什伊什，有个孩子跟他一起住在那儿，管他叫爸爸。这孩子的名字叫沙斯塔。在大部分日子里，阿什伊什早晨坐船出去打鱼，下午把他的驴了安上一辆货车，把鱼装在车子里，走上一英里光景的路，到南边的村子里去出售。如果鱼卖得顺利，他回家时脾气就比较温和，对沙斯塔也不噜苏；然而，如果卖鱼的生意不好，他就会找沙斯塔的错儿，或者打他一顿。总是可以找到沙斯塔的错的，因为沙斯塔得干许许多多的活儿：修网洗网囉，做晚饭囉，打扫他们俩合住的房屋囉。
Shasta was not at all interested in anything that lay south of his home because he had once or ice been to the village with Arsheesh and he knew that there was nothing very interesting there. In the village he only met other men who were just like his father - men with long
dirty robes
and wooden shoes turned up at the toe
and turbans on their heads
and beards
talking to one another very slowly about things that sounded dull. But he was very interested in everything that lay to the North because no one ever went that way and he was never allowed to go there himself. When he was sitting out of doors mending the s
and all alone
he would often look eagerly to the North. One could see nothing but a grassy slope running up to a level ridge and beyond that the sky with perhaps a few birds in it.
Sometimes if Arsheesh was there Shasta would say
"O my Father
what is there beyond that hill?" And then if the fisherman was in a bad temper he would box Shasta's ears and tell him to attend to his work. Or if he was in a peaceable mood he would say
"O my son
do not allow your mind to be distracted by idle questions. For one of the poets has said
`Application to business is the root of prosperity
but those who ask questions that do not concern them are steering the ship of folly towards the rock of indigence'."
Shasta thought that beyond the hill there must be some delightful secret which his father wished to hide from him. In reality
however
the fisherman talked like this because he didn't know what lay to the North. Neither did he care. He had a very practical mind.
One day there came from the South a stranger who was unlike any man that Shasta had seen before. He rode upon a strong dappled horse with flowing mane and tail and his stirrups and bridle were inlaid with silver. The spike of a helmet projected from the middle of his silken turban and he wore a shirt of chain mail. By his side hung a curving scimitar
a round shield studded with bosses of brass hung at his back
and his right hand grasped a lance. His face was dark
but this did not surprise Shasta because all the people of Calormen are like that; what did surprise him was the man's beard which was dyed crimson
and curled and gleaming with scented oil. But Arsheesh knew by the gold on the stranger's bare arm that he was a Tarkaan or great lord
and he bowed kneeling before him till his beard touched the earth and made signs to Shasta to kneel also.
The stranger demanded hospitality for the night which of course the fisherman dared not refuse. All the best they had was set before the Tarkaan for supper (and he didn't think much of it) and Shasta
as always happened when the fisherman had pany
was given a hunk of bread and turned out of the cottage. On these occasions he usually slept with the donkey in its little thatched stable. But it was much too early to go to sleep yet
and Shasta
who had never learned that it is wrong to listen behind doors
sat down with his ear to a crack in the wooden wall of the cottage to hear what the grown-ups were talking about. And this is what he heard.