Chapter 3 The Land by the Nile
第三章 尼罗河畔的国家
Here - as I promised - History begins.
历史--我答应过你--将从这里开始。
With a when and a where.
以一个"什么时候"和一个"哪里",
It is 3,100 BC, that is, 5,100 years ago, when, as we believe, a king named Menes was ruling over Egypt.
公元前3100年,也就是5100年前,我们认为那时有一位名叫美尼斯的国王统治着埃及。
If you want to know exactly where Egypt is, I suggest you ask a swallow.
如果你想了解埃及的详细位置,我建议你问一只燕子。
Every autumn, when it gets cold, swallows fly south.
它在每年秋季天气变冷的时候飞往南方。
Over the mountains to Italy, and on across a little stretch of sea, and then they're in Africa, in the part that lies nearest to Europe.
越过群山飞向意大利,然后飞越狭窄的海域,然后它就来到了非洲,来到了非洲的那个离欧洲最近的部分。
Egypt is close by.
那儿的附近处就是埃及。