劍橋雅思 17 閱讀原文翻譯 T1P3—To Catch a King

本篇文章共分 6 段，從事件發生的歷史背景、查理二世戰敗逃亡的艱辛過程、多年後積極將這段事蹟流傳後世的緣由一一說明，同時分析書籍作者成功之處，並將本書推薦給讀者。

本篇考題英文原文與對應之中文翻譯整理如下。練習作答解題時若有對語意不清楚之處，請仔細查閱對照，以提升閱讀理解能力。

1. 歷史背景

   Anna Keay reviews Charles Spencer s book about the hunt for King Charles II during the English Civil War of the seventeenth century.

   Charles Spencer’s latest book, To Catch a King, tells us the story of the hunt for King Charles II in the six weeks after his resounding defeat at the Battle of Worcester in September 1651. And what a story it is. After his father was executed by the Parliamentarians in 1649, the young Charles II sacrificed one of the very principles his father had died for and did a deal with the Scots, thereby accepting Presbyterianism* as the national religion in return for being crowned King of Scots. His arrival in Edinburgh prompted the English Parliamentary army to invade Scotland in a pre-emptive strike. This was followed by a Scottish invasion of England. The two sides finally faced one another at Worcester in the west of England in 1651. After being comprehensively defeated on the meadows outside the city by the Parliamentarian army, the 21-year-old king found himself the subject of a national manhunt, with a huge sum offered for his capture. Over the following six weeks he managed, through a series of heart-poundingly close escapes, to evade the Parliamentarians before seeking refuge in France. For the next nine years, the penniless and defeated Charles wandered around Europe with only a small group of loyal supporters.

   安娜-基伊評論了查理斯-斯賓塞關於十七世紀英國內戰期間追捕國王查理二世的書籍。

   查理斯-斯賓塞的新書《追捕國王》向我們講述了 1651 年 9 月查理斯二世在伍斯特戰役中大敗後六個星期內追捕國王的故事。這是一個怎樣的故事啊。在他的父親於 1649 年被議會黨人處決後，年輕的查理二世犧牲了他父親為之犧牲的原則之一，與蘇格蘭人做了一筆交易，從而接受長老會為國教，作為對被加冕為蘇格蘭王的回報。他來到愛丁堡後，促使英國議會軍隊先發制人地入侵蘇格蘭。隨後，蘇格蘭人也入侵了英格蘭。雙方最終於 1651 年在英格蘭西部的伍斯特對峙。在城外的草地上被議會黨人軍隊全面擊敗後，這位 21 歲的國王發現自己成了全國追捕的對象，並為捕捉他提供了巨額獎金。在接下來的六個星期裡，他通過一系列令人心驚肉跳的逃亡，成功地躲過了議會黨人的追捕，然後到法國尋求庇護。在接下來的 9 年裡，身無分文、戰敗的查理在歐洲四處流浪，只有一小群忠實的支持者。

2. 回憶當年

   Years later, after his restoration as king, the 50-year-old Charles II requested a meeting with the writer and diarist Samuel Pepys. His intention when asking Pepys to commit his story to paper was to ensure that this most extraordinary episode was never forgotten. Over two three-hour sittings, the king related to him in great detail his personal recollections of the six weeks he had spent as a fugitive. As the king and secretary settled down (a scene that is surely a gift for a future scriptwriter), Charles commenced his story: ‘After the battle was so absolutely lost as to be beyond hope of recovery, I began to think of the best way of saving myself.’

   多年後，50 歲的查理二世在復辟為國王後，要求與作家兼日記家撒母耳-佩皮斯會面。他要求佩皮斯把他的故事寫下來的目的是為了確保這段最不尋常的經歷永遠不會被遺忘。在兩次三小時的會談中， 國王向他詳細講述了他作為逃亡者所度過的六個星期的個人回憶。當國王和秘書落座後（這一幕肯定是給未來編劇的禮物），查理斯開始了他的故事：“在戰鬥完全失敗，以至於復原無望後，我開始思考拯救自己的最佳方法。”

3. 親臨其境

   One of the joys of Spencer’s book, a result not least of its use of Charles II’s own narrative as well as those of his supporters, is just how close the reader gets to the action. The day-by­ day retelling of the fugitives’ doings provides delicious details: the cutting of the king’s long hair with agricultural shears, the use of walnut leaves to dye his pale skin, and the day Charles spent lying on a branch of the great oak tree in Boscobel Wood as the Parliamentary soldiers scoured the forest floor below. Spencer draws out both the humour – such as the preposterous refusal of Charles’s friend Henry Wilmot to adopt disguise on the grounds that it was beneath his dignity – and the emotional tension when the secret of the king’s presence was cautiously revealed to his supporters.

   斯賓塞這本書的樂趣之一，尤其是它使用了查理二世本人以及他的支持者的敘述，就是讀者可以非常接近逃亡行動。逐日複述逃亡者的所作所為，提供了頗堪玩味的細節：用農用剪子剪掉國王的長髮，用核桃葉為他蒼白的皮膚染色，以及當議會黨士兵在下面的森林裡搜索時，查理斯躺在博斯科貝爾森林的大橡樹的樹枝上度過的一天。斯賓塞既展現了幽默感—例如查理斯的朋友亨利-威爾莫特以有損其尊嚴為由荒謬地拒絕偽裝—又展現了國王所在的秘密被謹慎地透露給其支持者時的情緒緊張。

4. 強力推銷

   Charles’s adventures after losing the Battle of Worcester hide the uncomfortable truth that whilst almost everyone in England had been appalled by the execution of his father, they had not welcomed the arrival of his son with the Scots army, but had instead firmly bolted their doors. This was partly because he rode at the head of what looked like a foreign invasion force and partly because, after almost a decade of civil war, people were desperate to avoid it beginning again. This makes it all the more interesting that Charles II himself loved the story so much ever after. As well as retelling it to anyone who would listen, causing eye­ rolling among courtiers, he set in train a series of initiatives to memorialise it. There was to be a new order of chivalry, the Knights of the Royal Oak. A series of enormous oil paintings depicting the episode were produced, including a two-metre-wide canvas of Boscobel Wood and a set of six similarly enormous paintings of the king on the run. In 1660, Charles II commissioned the artist John Michael Wright to paint a flying squadron of cherubs* carrying an oak tree to the heavens on the ceiling of his bedchamber. It is hard to imagine many other kings marking the lowest point in their life so enthusiastically, or indeed pulling off such an escape in the first place.

   查理斯在伍斯特戰役失利後的冒險經歷隱藏了一個令人不安的事實：雖然英格蘭幾乎所有人都對他父親被處決感到震驚，但他們並不歡迎他兒子和蘇格蘭軍隊的到來，而是堅定地閂上了門。這一方面是因為他率領的是一支看起來像外國入侵的軍隊，另一方面是因為經過近十年的內戰，人們迫切希望避免內戰再次爆發。這使得查理二世本人後來如此喜愛這個故事變得更加有趣。除了向任何願意聽的人複述這個故事，引起朝臣們的側目之外，他還制定了一系列舉措來紀念這個故事。將會出現一個新的騎士團，即皇家橡樹騎士團。一系列描繪這一事件的巨大油畫被製作出來，包括一幅兩米寬的博斯科貝爾森林畫布和一套六幅同樣巨大的國王逃亡畫。1660 年，查理二世委託藝術家約翰-邁克爾-賴特在他寢宮的天花板上畫了一個飛行小天使中隊，將一棵橡樹抬到天上。很難想像其他許多國王會如此熱情地紀念他們生命中的最低潮，甚或說最初就能完成這樣一次逃亡。

5. 書籍優點

   Charles Spencer is the perfect person to pass the story on to a new generation. His pacey, readable prose steers deftly clear of modern idioms and elegantly brings to life the details of the great tale. He has even-handed sympathy for both the fugitive king and the fierce republican regime that hunted him, and he succeeds in his desire to explore far more of the background of the story than previous books on the subject have done. Indeed, the opening third of the book is about how Charles II found himself at Worcester in the first place, which for some will be reason alone to read To Catch a King.

   查理斯-斯賓塞是將這個故事傳給新一代的最佳人選。他的散文節奏明快，可讀性強，巧妙地避開了現代成語，優雅地將這個偉大故事的細節帶入生活。他對逃亡的國王和追捕他的兇猛的共和政權都抱有不偏不倚的同情，而且他成功地探索了這個故事的背景，比以前關於這個主題的書做得更多。事實上，本書開頭的三分之一是關於查理二世當初如何在伍斯特找到自我，對某些人來說，光這個就構成閱讀《追捕國王》的理由。

6. 瑕不掩瑜

   The tantalising question left, in the end, is that of what it all meant. Would Charles II have been a different king had these six weeks never happened? The days and nights spent in hiding must have affected him in some way. Did the need to assume disguises, to survive on wit and charm alone, to use trickery and subterfuge to escape from tight corners help form him? This is the one area where the book doesn’t quite hit the mark. Instead its depiction of Charles II in his final years as an ineffective, pleasure-loving monarch doesn’t do justice to the man (neither is it accurate), or to the complexity of his character. But this one niggle aside, To Catch a King is an excellent read, and those who come to it knowing little of the famous tale will find they have a treat in store.

   最後，剩下的誘人問題是，這一切意味著什麼。如果這六個星期沒有發生，查理二世會成為一個不同的國王嗎？躲藏的日日夜夜肯定對他有某種影響。偽裝的需要，僅靠機智和魅力生存的需要，使用詭計和潛規則從狹小的角落裡逃脫的需要，是否有助於塑造他這個人？這是該書沒有完全擊中要害的地方。相反，它對查理二世最後幾年作為一個一事無成、愛好享樂的君主的描寫並沒有對這個人做出公正的評價（而且事實亦非如此），也沒有對他的性格的複雜性做出評價。但撇開這一點不談，《追捕國王》是一本極好的讀物，那些對這個著名的故事知之甚少的人將會發現他們現在有個好機會了。