《加勒比海盜》1（精講之三）
[ 2007-04-06 18:28 ]
影片對白 If you
spring me from this cell, I swear on pain of death I shall take you to the Black
Pearl and your bonny lass.
我觀之我見
我們的Elizabeth Swann小姐似乎天生骨子里就流著海盜的血（也可能她老爸的老爸的老爸曾做過海盜？）。
考考你
現學現賣
3. Long words
所謂 long words 就是指英語中一些非常正式的詞，因為這些詞通常都很長，所以有了如此的稱呼。這些 long words
一般的平民百姓因為沒受過教育，是不懂的。在17、18世紀的英國和北美殖民地，上層社會的人物和一些自認為有學問的人都喜歡用這種 long
words，以顯示自己有水平。
4. No point in
"做……沒有意義"的意思，后面通常接 doing something，例如：A lasting peace can only be achieved at
the negotiating table, and there is no point in waiting until the guns fall
silent to begin preparing.
永久的和平只能通過談判獲得，等到戰爭結束后再去準備談判是沒有意義的（意為應該邊打仗邊準備，或是在開戰前就準備好談判）。
5. On pain of
這個片語也寫作on / upon / under pain of，意為"受……懲罰"，例如：The workers knew that going on
strike was on pain of losing their jobs. 工人們知道罷工會受到失去工作的懲罰。
這個片語常常援引death作為懲罰，是一種非常夸張的用法，例如：We'd better be back on time, under pain of
death. 我們最好按時回去，不然就完蛋了。
文化面面觀
加勒比海的海盜 & 皇港 Port
Royal
1. Piracy in the Caribbean 加勒比海的海盜
The great or classic era of piracy in
the Caribbean extends from around 1560 up until the end of the Falon's Age of
Piracy in the mid 1760s. The period during which pirates were most successful
was from the 1640s until the 1680s. Caribbean piracy arose out of, and mirrored
on a smaller scale, the conflicts over trade and colonization among the rival
European powers of the time, including England, Spain, Dutch United Provinces,
and France. Two of the best-known pirate bases were Tortuga which Falon
established in the 1640s and Port Royal after 1655. Port Royal is the famed
'Pirate City' which sank into the sea in 1692. One of the later famous pirates
of the Caribbean was Roberto Cofresí Ramirez de Arellano (1791-1825). He was put
to death for his crimes in Puerto Rico at the Castle of San Felipe del Morro.
His romantic legend inspires plays and songs on the island.
2. Port Royal 皇港
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The infamous Jolly Roger
flag | Arguably the largest English city in
the New World, Port Royal sits on a narrow spit of land jutting westward from
the southeast corner of Jamaica. Port Royal sits in a rather desolate part of
the Jamaican coast but the location is singularly defensible. The harbor is deep
and defensible with good winds and shelter from the weather.
The island of Jamaica is roughly rectangular with mountains along the coast
rising to a plateau rich in limestone and bauxite. The central mountain region
of the plateau is thickly forested and home to a large population of escaped
slaves and surviving natives.
The island of Jamaica was settled in 1509 by Juan de Esquivel. The Spanish
held it for more than a century until 1655 when an English squadron landed in
what is now Kingston. The small army sacked and burned the Spanish settlements,
conquering the island. Spain has never retaken the island.
The soldiers set up the city of Port Royal and the colony begins the
cultivation of sugarcane. This income is soon augmented by a growing level of
privateering based in Port Royal.
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