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There are ghosts in this place.You don't notice them right away.
这里有鬼魂出没 但你不会立刻注意到
At first glance, Binham Priory in Norfolk looks much like any other English country church
乍看之下 诺福克郡的宾汉姆修道院 与其它英格兰乡间教堂无异
plain and simple, limestone, limewash. Nothing fancy, really.
全由石灰筑造粉刷 朴实无华 简洁明朗
But then you look around and realise something else is going on here.
但你四处环顾后 便会意识到 这里确有异常之处
That grandiose, timber-vaulted roof. Those multi-storey arcades.
堂皇的木质穹顶 多层拱形游廊
Aren't they all just a bit too big for a parish church?
作为区区教区教堂 是否略显雄伟呢
And then you start to fill in the gaps,
而后你连珠成线
and bit by bit a lost world remakes itself,a world of monks and masses,of colour and plainsong.
一个失落的世界便一点点浮出水面 这个世界满是僧侣与聚集的民众 绚丽的色彩与圣歌
A world of brilliant images.The world of Catholic England.
和各色光辉的形象 这是天主教英格兰的世界
For centuries, this didn't sound strained.
几个世纪以来 这一切都理所当然
Catholic England was just another way of saying Christian England, really.
天主教英格兰不过是基督教英格兰的别称
And then, in a generation,it stopped being a truism and started being treason.
然而在这一代自明之理却摇身变为了逆君叛国
Images of the Virgin,the apostles and the saints once cherished and glorified,were now mocked and vandalised.
圣母 信徒与圣人 这曾备受赞美与崇敬的形象 如今却被万众践踏 嗤之以鼻
Here at Binham, the saints on the rood screen were expunged,
在宾汉姆 基督受难像上的圣徒被抹除
painted over with verses from an English Bible.
代之以英文《圣经》中的诗篇
Today, they're restored,but the world over which they once presided is dead and gone.
如今 它们虽被修复 而他们曾统治时代 却早就一去不复返
We can't bring back the lost world of Binham's painted saints whole and alive again.
属于宾汉姆画像上的圣人 那失落的世界 已经难以被完整而生动地再现
But just because the death of that world was so shocking,so utterly improbable,
但因为它消失得如此令人错愕 始料不及
and because the Reformation and the wars of religion it triggered
加之其所引发的改革与宗教战争
cut so deep a mark on the body of our country,
在我们的国家打下了深不可灭的烙印
we need to try and reassemble the fragments of that world as best we can.
我们需得极尽所能去尝试 拼接起那些零落碎片
Only then can we hope to answer one of the most poignant questions in our history:
只有如此 才有望回答 我们历史上最为尖刻的问题
Whatever did happen to Catholic England?
天主教英格兰究竟怎样了
