The Alfred Jewel, late 9th Century
阿爾弗雷德寶石(9世紀後期)
Another object in the exhibition is something of a mystery. Made of gold, rock crystal and enamel, it dates from the late 9th Century, and the inscription around the outer edge says “Alfred ordered me to be made”; from the context, scholars have concluded that this refers to Alfred the Great.
展覽中的另一個物件是一個神秘的東西。由黃金、白水晶和琺瑯製成，其可追溯至9世紀後期，外緣上的銘文寫著：「阿爾弗雷德命吾予以製成」；從背景上來看，學者們得出的結論是，這個指的是阿爾弗雷德大帝。
What is known as the Alfred Jewel contains an empty socket, suggesting it could have been designed as a reading pointer, or æstel. If so, this object, and others like it, indicate the importance of literacy under Alfred’s reign – and especially literacy in English, which Alfred knew he needed to promote to help constitute a ‘united kingdom’ of England.
這個被稱為阿爾弗雷德寶石的東西包含了一個空的凹槽，可能它是被設計成一個指示棒或是æstel的樣子。如果真的是這樣的話，這個物件以及其他跟它類似的東西就顯示了在阿爾弗雷德的統治之下，識字有多重要，特別是英語的識字能力，阿爾弗雷德知道他得提倡英語的識字能力，才能構建出一個統一的英格蘭王國。
“King Alfred was very educated and clearly loved reading,” says Wellesley. “[He felt] there had been a terrible decline in learning in England, and in the more peaceful final four years of his reign he instituted a programme to promote the vernacular. It’s a wily political move, because he’s the first king to use the phrase ‘king of the English’.” In the Anglo-Saxon period, English was “very much a vernacular, a lesser language; not the language of the educated elite” – which was Latin.
韋爾斯利說：「阿爾弗雷德國王受過良好的教育，而且顯然非常喜歡閱讀。[他認為]在學習上，英格蘭出現了一股可怕的下降趨勢，而在他統治的最後四年裡，他制定出一個推動白話文的計劃。這是個相當有權謀的政治舉措，因為他是第一個使用『英格蘭的國王』這個詞的國王。」在盎格魯─撒克遜時期，英語是「一個非常白話而較為次級的語言；而不是那些受教育的精英所說的語言」，也就是拉丁語。
According to Wellesley, Alfred had translations made of books that were “‘most needful for men to know’; these include Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Care, Augustine’s Soliloquies, Boethius’s Consolations of Philosophy and others”. She argues that “he juxtaposes the concepts of wealth and wisdom… he is also [with æstels like the Alfred Jewel] kind of bribing the bishops to whom he sends these works”.
根據韋爾斯利的說法，阿爾弗雷德要人翻譯的書籍都是那些「最需要人民知曉的」書籍；其中包括聖額我略一世的《牧民》、聖奧古斯丁的《獨語錄》、博埃齊的《哲學的慰藉》等。她認為：「他將財富和智慧的概念相提並論......他也藉由獻上這些作品[以及像是阿爾弗雷德寶石這樣的æstel]來收買主教。」
A page from the only manuscript of Beowulf known to exist
現存唯一一份《貝奧武夫》手稿中的一頁
The most famous Anglo-Saxon literary text is also included in the exhibition. Set in Scandinavia, Beowulf concerns a hero’s epic encounters with, and slaying of, monsters such as the man-thing Grendel and a dragon.
最著名的盎格魯─撒克遜文學文本也出現在這次的展覽中。背景設在斯堪地那維亞半島上的《貝奧武夫》是一個關於英雄與似人的格倫戴爾和龍等怪物史詩般的相遇與殺戮的故事。
The copy we have (the only existing manuscript of Beowulf), which was scorched by fire in the 18th Century, is thought to date from around the end of the 10th Century. Yet the tale was probably much older than that and likely existed as part of an oral tradition of story-telling.
我們所擁有的抄本（《貝奧武夫》唯一的現存手稿）在18世紀時被火給燒了，這個抄本被認為可以追溯至10世紀末。然而，這個故事可能比那個時間還要早得多，而且有部分可能是以口頭流傳的形式存在。
Page from The Marvels of the East, 11th Century
《東方神奇》中的一頁(11世紀)
The manuscript was included in a larger collection that attests to the fascination of the period with remote places and exotic monsters. A lurid 11th-Century manuscript commonly called “Marvels of the East” (a page of which is reproduced here) catalogues (in both Latin and English) weird creatures purportedly found in the ‘Far East’.
這份手稿被納入了一個更龐大典藏之中，證明了這個時期對於遙遠的地區以及異國的怪物有著強烈的愛好。一本被稱為《東方神奇》（其中一頁在此重現）駭人聽聞的11世紀手稿，（以拉丁文和英語）紀錄了謠傳在「遠東」所發現的奇怪生物。
These include people with lions’ manes who sweat blood and people with legs 12ft (3.6m) long who capture and eat anyone passing. The manuscript of Beowulf, meanwhile, describes Grendel crunching on the bones of warriors. It’s literature that offers visually arresting images to readers more used to hearing stories being told.
這些人包括長著獅毛、流著血汗的人以及腿長12英尺（3.6米）、會把所有路過的人抓來吃的人。而《貝爾武夫》手稿中描述的格倫戴爾則會啃食戰士的骸骨。這個著作上有趣又吸引人的圖像是為那些更習慣於聽故事的讀者們所提供的。
The Sutton Hoo gold belt buckle, early 7th Century
薩頓胡黃金皮帶扣環(7世紀初期)
The Sutton Hoo belt buckle, from an early 7th-Century burial mound in Suffolk, England, is primarily made of gold and weighs over 400g (14oz), but beyond the bling, its intricacy speaks to the surprising sophistication of early Anglo-Saxon culture – and how that fed into the development of the English language.
薩頓胡皮帶扣環來自英國薩福克一座7世紀初期的墓塚，其主要是由黃金製成，重量超過400克（14盎司），但除了其金光閃閃的外表，它精細的做工顯示了早期盎格魯─撒克遜文化中驚人的發展，以及它是如何融入英語發展之中的。
The surface is covered in the zoomorphic interlace which can be seen elsewhere in designs of the period, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels (also in the British Library collection): apparently it is possible to puzzle out 13 snakes, birds and beasts of various sorts tangled together in the web.
它的表面被交織著的獸形圖樣給覆蓋，這種風格也可以在此時期其它的文物中看到，例如林迪斯法恩福音書（同樣也是大英圖書館的收藏）：據說它可以拼出13種纏繞在網上的各式蛇類、鳥類與獸類。
The Fonthill Letter, early 10th Century
方特希書信(10世紀初期)
In 920, Ordlaf, a regional official in Wiltshire, England, wrote to King Edward the Elder. This, the Fonthill Letter, is the earliest surviving letter in the English language. (Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great, was thought to have been “glorious in the power of his rule”. He was neglected by historians until recently and is now thought to be one of England’s great kings.)
在西元920年，英國威爾特郡的一位地區官員奧德拉夫寫信給國王長者愛德華。這封方特希書信就是現存中最早的一封英語書信。（阿爾弗雷德大帝的兒子，長者愛德華被認為「在他的統治之下創造出一片輝煌的盛世」。過去他一直被歷史學家所忽視，直到最近才認為他也是一個偉大的英格蘭國王。）
The letter is about what is in essence a convoluted legal dispute. Like many of the most important documents of this period, it survived for centuries through a combination of accident and neglect: it ended up in the archives of the Cathedral Church at Canterbury, where in the 12th Century it was marked “useless” but none-the-less kept. Despite its designated uselessness, the Fonthill Letter gives us a precious glimpse of everyday Anglo-Saxon red tape, as well as the high level of literacy in English which Alfred promoted.
這封信基本上就是一封晦澀的法律爭端書信。如同這個時期中許多其他重要的文件，它能夠存活幾世紀就只是一個陰錯陽差的結果而已：它最終出現在坎特伯里大教堂的檔案室之中，在12世紀時它被標記為「無用」，儘管如此，它還是被保存下來。雖然方特希書信被認為無用，但是它卻讓我們得以一窺盎格魯─撒克遜平日官樣文章是什麼樣子的，以及阿爾弗雷德大帝所推廣出來的高水準的英語識字能力。
A 19th-Century engraving of the Ruthwell Cross, Scotland
一個於十九世紀雕出的蘇格蘭魯斯韋爾十字碑
The Ruthwell Cross is an 8th- or early 9th-Century sandstone monument around 16ft 4in (5m) tall which now stands inside the church at Ruthwell, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. It would once have been in the churchyard. (A replica of it appears in the exhibition.)
魯斯韋爾十字碑是一座8世紀或9世紀初期的砂岩紀念碑，大約16英尺4英寸（5米）高，現今矗立在蘇格蘭鄧弗里斯郡魯斯韋爾的教堂之內。它曾一度被放在教堂的墓地裡。（展覽中的是它的復刻品。）
From bottom to top, the front of the cross represents the Crucifixion; the Annunciation; Christ curing a blind man; Mary Magdalene drying Christ’s feet; and Mary and Martha. On the other side are depicted the Flight into Egypt; the hermits Paul and Antony; Christ recognised by beasts; and John the Baptist. The narrow sides have elegant vine-scroll ornamentation, around which is an unusual runic inscription of Old English verses that seem to echo and probably draw on the oral tradition of The Dream of the Rood (a ‘dream vision’ of the Cross), an Old English poetic masterpiece that survives in one place, as part of the Vercelli Book from the 10th Century.
由下至上，十字架的正面描繪出十字架受難、天使報喜、基督治好一個盲人、抹大拉的瑪麗亞擦乾基督的腳，以及瑪爾大與瑪利亞。另一面則描繪了前往埃及途中、隱修士保羅與安東尼、基督為百獸所認可，以及施洗者約翰。比較窄的兩面有著優雅的藤蔓捲裝飾，周圍則繞著一個用符文寫著古英語詩詞的碑文，似乎是呼應或者可能是關於口頭流傳的《十字架之夢》（十字架的「夢中版」），其作為10世紀《維其利稿本》中的一部分是某個地方倖存下來的古英語詩歌傑作。
The opening page of The Dream of the Rood, 10th Century
《十字架之夢》的開頭(10世紀)
The first word, starting with the big ‘h’, is hwæt, or ‘Listen!’. (Runic ‘w’ looks like a ‘p’.) Since the English runes would have been unintelligible to the indigenous British population of the area, it has been speculated that the cross was a creation of an English monastic community.
以一個大h開頭的第一個字是hwæt，或是「聽啊！」。（符文中的「w」看起來像「p」。）由於英語的符文對於該地區本土的不列顛居民來說太難理解，因此推測該十字架是由英格蘭修道士群體所創造出來的。
The Anglo-Saxons seem remote – they are remote, for at their furthest they are over 1,500 years away from us – and we will probably never fathom many of the details of their lives, but there are also moments where they leap into focus and feel like they might be our grandparents, squabbling about this or that or telling stories in a letter. So much is both alien and familiar. It is fascinating to witness the evolution of the written language; and to imagine our descendants puzzling over our use of it in an exhibition 1,500 years from now.
盎格魯─撒克遜人看似離我們相當遙遠，確實也是如此，畢竟他們距離我們最近的年代也已經超過了1500年，而我們可能永遠都無法弄清他們生活中的許多細節，但也有他們躍為焦點的時刻，也會覺得他們就像我們的祖父母一樣，為了這個或那個駡駡咧咧地或是會在信中講故事。既陌生又熟悉。能夠目睹書面語言的演變，以及想像我們的後代會在1500年後的某個展覽中，同樣對我們是如何使用這些語言而感到迷惑，這樣的感覺著實令人入迷。
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