JOHN JULIUS NORWICH is the author of more than a dozen books on Norman Sicily①, the Sahara, Mount Athos② and the Venetian and Byzantine empires. （1）Yet even his immense knowledge is not enough to keep his latest chronicle—of 5,000 years of Mediterranean history—from appearing somewhat lopsided[1].

约翰•朱利叶斯•诺威奇撰写过不少关于诺尔曼-西西里岛、撒哈拉沙漠、阿陀斯山以及威尼斯和拜占庭帝国的作品。然而，尽管知识渊博，他最近一部记述地中海沿岸五千年历史的编年体著作仍免不了有失偏颇。

Lord Norwich's first test, he notes in his introduction to “The Middle Sea”, was to compensate for an ignorance of Spain. He records that he was fortuitously invited to dinner by “my dear friend” the Spanish ambassador to London and “a few weeks later there came an invitation for my wife and me to spend ten days in Spain.” （2）It is hard to believe that was all the effort he made, for he acquits himself well, even in the convoluted[2] diplomacy that ended in the war of the Spanish succession.

诺威奇勋爵在《中央之海》一书序言中指出，他的首要任务就是让人们了解西班牙的一些不为人知之处。书中写道，他幸运地被他“亲爱的朋友”——西班牙驻伦敦大使邀请参加晚宴，并“在几个星期之后收到了邀请他及其夫人到西班牙度假十天的请柬”。人们难以相信这就是他所作的全部努力，因为他表现出色，尤其是在美西错综复杂的外交斡旋中表现优异，不过双方的外交在西班牙王位继承战后中止。

Lord Norwich's second task was to strike a balance over time. “The Middle Sea” reaches from ancient Egypt to the first world war. Like many long, chronological narratives, it becomes progressively more detailed, though it is debatable whether this is a good thing. （3）Few people have changed the region as much as the Romans, yet their republic's five centuries get only a page more than the great siege of Gibraltar which began in 1779.

诺威奇勋爵要做的第二件事则是对各时期的史实都等量齐观。《中央之海》的触角从古埃及一直延伸到第一次世界大战。如同许多长篇编年体叙事性作品一样，它注重挖掘细节，不过这是否可取尚有争议。罗马人民对该地区产生的影响没有哪个民族能与之相比，然而本书关于罗马共和国五个世纪的历史的记述也就比始于1977年的直布罗陀包围战多了一页而已。

（4）Lord Norwich's final, and arguably most important, challenge is the area that is most likely to engage modern readers: the intermittent, but frequently savage, conflict between Muslims and Christians. Impatient with the notion, echoed most recently and disastrously by Pope Benedict, that the Koran sanctions the spreading of Islam by the sword, Lord Norwich is no Islamophobe. He is hostile to the Crusades and fulsome[3] in his praise of that traditional Western schoolbook villain, Saladin③.

诺威奇勋爵最后需要面对的最为重要的问题是，如何评述穆斯林与基督教徒之间间或发生但常常十分残酷的冲突，而这方面的内容可能对现代读者最具吸引力。有人认为，古兰经是允许伊斯兰教进行武力扩张的，可悲的是，最近本笃教皇也附和了这一观点。诺威奇对这种观点很反感，他并没有“伊斯兰恐惧症”。他愤恨十字军东征，不过对西方传统教科书中的反面角色萨拉丁的赞美却又言过其实了。

Yet his account remains disappointingly focused from Christendom[4] outwards. （5）It is true that Muslims do appear in his book—usually in battle—but they rarely speak. Only two items in the 170-volume bibliography are by Arab scholars and only one is by a Turk. This is unabashedly history of the old school: Eurocentric (Octavian④, the author declares without irony, was the “undisputed master of the known world”) and largely uninterested in what other economic, social and technological changes may have shaped events.

然而令人失望的是，他依旧站在基督教的角度来记述历史。穆斯林在他的书中的确登场亮相了——往往都是在战争之中——但他却很少介绍穆斯林对历史的看法。在多达170条的参考书目中，仅有2条引自阿拉伯学者，1条引自土耳其人。这是守旧派记述历史的突出风格——以欧洲为中心（作者断言，渥大维乃“已知世界无可争辩的主人”，这话并无半点挖苦意味），而对其他地域由经济、社会和技术变革所引发的历史事件一般都不感兴趣。

What fires Lord Norwich is recounting the doings of princes and preachers, warriors, courtiers and courtesans[5]. And he does it with consummate[6] skill. He spices his narrative liberally with entertaining anecdotes, deft portraits and brisk judgments. Aristotle, for example, is given short shrift[7] as “one of the most reactionary intellectuals that ever lived”. Lord Norwich's control of his vast and complex subject matter is masterly. And the subject matter itself is as colourful as history can get. No sooner have readers bidden farewell to a short, fat, dissolute sultan, Selim the Sot, than they encounter the “piratical Uskoks, a heterogeneous, but exceedingly troublesome community”. （6）Although few will resist the temptation to keep turning the pages, readers will close this monumental work exhilarated and informed, but with plenty of questions still unanswered.

说起王子与传教士，武士，朝臣与官妓们的所作所为，诺威奇勋爵顿时激情迸发，如数家珍，行文堪称完美。他在记述中大量揉入了有趣的奇闻轶事、精巧的人物描写和尖酸刻薄的评说，读起来饶有意趣。例如，亚里士多德就被斥以“有史以来最反动的知识分子之一”。本书的主题宽泛而复杂，但诺威奇勋爵却驾轻就熟，而且其内容将历史的多姿多彩表现得淋漓尽致。读者的目光刚从身材矮胖、放荡不羁的苏丹“醉鬼塞利姆”身上移开，便又碰见“鱼龙混杂但极度可恶的海盗般的乌斯科克人”。绝大多数读者都将恨不得一口气读完全书，但当他们合上这本不朽的著作时，一定会感到精神振奋，受益匪浅，只是心中依然充满悬而未决的疑问。

[QUIZ]

英译汉（将划线部分英文翻译成中文）：

[NOTES](LONGMAN)

1. lopsided adj. 倾向一方的

2. convolute v. 旋转，盘旋

3. fulsome adj. 过分的，令人生厌的

4. Christendom n. 基督教（总称）

5. courtesan n. 官妓，情妇

6. consummate adj. 完美的，圆满的，绝顶的；老练的

7. give short shrift to 对……漠不关心

背景知识：

①Sicily西西里：意大利南部一岛屿，位于意大利半岛南端以西的地中海。从公元前 8世纪起成为希腊殖民地，希腊人赶走了早期定居在此的腓尼基人。迦太基人成为下一个征服者，他们在

公元前 3世纪又被罗马人所征服。在经过其他人相继统治之后，

公元 11世纪该岛被置于诺曼人管辖之下，并形成了两西西里王国的核心部分，由西西里和意大利南部组成。该岛继续多次易手，直到1860年朱森珀·加里波第征服了最后一个王国为止，它成为统一后的意大利的一部分

②Mount Athos阿陀斯山：位于希腊东北部的一座山峰，海拔约2,034米（6,670英尺），它是实际上独立的阿陀斯山

修道院社区所在地，该修道院最初建于10世纪

③Saladin萨拉丁：埃及和叙利亚的苏丹，1187年占领耶路撒冷，抗击第三次十字军东征期间(1189-1192年）保卫此城

④Octavian渥大维，即奥古斯都：罗马帝国第一任皇帝（公元前 27年─

公元 14年），尤利斯·凯撒的侄孙。他于公元前31年打败马克·安东尼及克娄巴特拉，然后得到了整个帝国的统治权，于公元前29年称皇帝，并于公元前27年被授予奥古斯都荣誉称号

⑤Uskok流亡于达尔马提亚地区的一支克罗地亚人,常参与对土作战。