The Greek myth of Apollo's curse - Iseult Gillespie · TED-Ed
讲述特洛伊公主卡珊德拉因拒绝阿波罗的追求而获得无法被相信的预言能力，她多次警告却无人理会，最终导致特洛伊的毁灭。适合练习阅读理解与词汇积累。
Troy’s princess, Cassandra, wasn’t cruel to her soon-to-be sister-in-law, the legendary beauty Helen, out of spite.
特洛伊的公主卡珊德拉对她的准嫂子——那位传说中的绝美女子海伦——并没有出于恶意而表现出残忍的态度。
It was because she was suffering under the weight of a tortuously twisted curse, which haunted her with appalling visions linked to Helen’s arrival.
她之所以如此痛苦，是因为她背负着一个极其邪恶的诅咒；这个诅咒让她不断看到一些可怕的幻象，而这些幻象都与海伦的到来有关。
Helen was already married to the Spartan king Menelaus, after all.
毕竟，海伦早已嫁给了斯巴达国王墨涅拉俄斯。
And when Cassandra’s brother, Prince Paris, prepared to sail to Sparta, she foresaw his calamitous attachment to Helen and begged him to stay.
当卡桑德拉的哥哥——帕里斯王子准备启程前往斯巴达时，她预见了他会因对海伦的迷恋而遭遇不幸，于是恳求他留下。
But he’d merely dismissed her, fallen for Helen, and returned to Troy with her in tow.
但他只是简单地拒绝了她，然后爱上了海伦，并带着她回到了特洛伊。
Beset by violent premonitions, Cassandra then warned that Menelaus’ vengeful crusade would lead to the brutal fall of their family and the city of Troy.
卡桑德拉被种种可怕的预感所困扰，她警告说：墨涅拉俄斯出于复仇的冲动所发起的战争，将会导致他们家族以及特洛伊城的毁灭。
But once again, people ignored her.
但又一次，人们忽视了她。
In fact, they always did.
事实上，他们一直都是这样做的。
And this was the crux of her curse.
而这正是她所受诅咒的核心所在。
As a young woman she had been pursued by the god Apollo.
年轻时，她曾受到阿波罗神的追求。
He offered her the gift of prophecy.
他赠予她“预言”的能力（即能够预知未来的能力）。
But when she withdrew from his advances, he twisted his gift into a maddening hex:
然而，当她拒绝了他的追求时，他却将自己的“礼物”变成了一个令人发狂的诅咒……
from that day on, Cassandra would be able to precisely see and describe the future— but her prophecies would never be believed.
从那天起，卡桑德拉便能够准确地预见并描述未来的事情——然而她的预言却永远无人相信。
Despite this, Cassandra resolved to always speak the truth, even as her family fell deeper into denial.
尽管如此，卡桑德拉仍决心始终说真话，即使她的家人越来越倾向于否认现实（即他们所面临的问题）。
Her dire warnings became increasingly repellent to her father, Trojan King Priam.
她那些严厉的警告让特洛伊国王普里阿摩斯越来越感到反感。
And when the war began, as she’d predicted, he declared that her meddling was bad for morale and confined her to a high tower.
当战争爆发时，正如她所预测的那样，他宣称她的干涉会损害军队的士气，并将她关进了一座高塔里。
From this unobstructed lookout, Cassandra watched everything unfold.
从这个毫无遮挡的观景位置，卡桑德拉目睹了一切的发生。
Over 10 agonizing years, she witnessed her own grisly visions of senseless destruction come to pass on the battlefield below.
在长达十多年的时间里，她亲眼目睹了自己所预见的那些可怕景象——那些毫无意义的破坏行为，最终在战场上变成了现实。
When dawn broke one day to reveal a huge wooden horse in place of the Greek encampment,
有一天，黎明破晓时，人们发现希腊军队的营地被一匹巨大的木马取代了……
the Trojans believed that the victory had finally been secured.
特洛伊人认为他们终于赢得了这场战争。
Their enemies appeared to have fled, leaving this inscrutable token of peace behind.
他们的敌人似乎已经逃走了，只留下了这个难以理解的“和平象征”。
But as others streamed into the streets to celebrate, Cassandra realized the insidious truth.
然而，当其他人纷纷涌上街头庆祝时，卡桑德拉却意识到了那个隐藏在表面之下的残酷真相。
Brandishing a battle-axe and a flaming torch, she descended from the tower and ran at the wooden horse,
她挥舞着战斧和燃烧的火把，从塔楼下来，冲向那匹木马。
alerting everyone that it was a trick.
提醒所有人：这其实只是一个骗局。
Instead of heeding Cassandra’s warnings, they wrestled her to the ground and scoffed that she was getting more paranoid with age,
他们没有理会卡桑德拉的警告，反而将她强行按倒在地，并嘲笑她只是因为年龄增长而变得越来越多疑罢了。
then proceeded to tug the behemoth gift horse inside the city’s walls.
随后，人们将这匹巨大的“礼物马”拉进了城墙之内。
As Troy fell into an oblivious slumber that night, Greek soldiers descended from the wooden horse's belly.
那天晚上，当特洛伊人陷入沉沉的睡梦中时，希腊士兵们从木马的“腹中”爬了出来。
All had gone according to plan, and they scattered among the city streets, intoxicated with their victory, to unleash a torrent of pent up,
一切都在按计划进行。他们散布在城市的大街小巷中，为胜利而欣喜若狂，准备释放那些长期压抑在内心的情感与能量。
violent chaos.
剧烈的混乱；一片混乱的景象。
Cassandra had seen her city burn and heard her people’s screams many times, but that didn't make the reality any easier to bear.
卡桑德拉多次目睹自己的城市被烧毁，也听到过人民的惨叫声；然而，这些现实并不会让她更容易承受。
Her nightmare had come to pass.
她的噩梦成真了。
As dawn neared, the commander of the Greek army, Agamemnon himself, arrived to claim Cassandra as his prize.
随着黎明的临近，希腊军队的指挥官——阿伽门农本人也来到了现场，想要将卡珊德拉据为己有。
He dragged her back to his ship, boasting relentlessly of his victory as they set sail.
他强行将她带回自己的船上，在启航时不停地夸耀自己的胜利。
But Cassandra told him plainly that he'd be punished.
但是卡桑德拉直截了当地告诉他，他会受到惩罚。
Earlier in the years of battle, Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter to the war effort, hoping the gods would favor the Greeks in return.
在战争初期，阿伽门农将自己的女儿献祭给了战神，希望众神能因此偏袒希腊人。
Now Cassandra saw that his wife, Clytemnestra, awaited his return, poised for revenge.
现在，卡珊德拉明白了：他的妻子克吕泰涅斯特拉正在等待他的归来，并已准备好实施报复。
But just as certainly as she saw that Agamemnon was sailing towards his own murder, Cassandra saw that she would also be killed in the fallout.
但正如她清楚地看到阿伽门农正在走向自己的死亡一样，卡珊德拉也预感到自己将在这场灾难中丧生。
As always, she confronted the grim fate.
一如既往，她勇敢地面对了那残酷的命运。
In her lonely pact with the truth, no matter how ugly, Cassandra had always stood apart.
在与真相（无论真相多么丑陋）的“孤独契约”中，卡桑德拉始终保持着自己的独立立场。
After all, was it not her but everyone else who had fallen victim to the curse, living in deceit’s shadow,
毕竟，真正受到诅咒、生活在欺骗与谎言阴影中的人，不是她，而是其他所有人啊。