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CHAPTER XII.—THE MANUFACTURE OF GODS.
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Normally and originally, I believe, all gods grow spontaneously. They evolve by degrees out of dead and deified ancestors or chieftains. The household gods are the dead of the family; the greater gods are the dead chiefs of the state or town or village. But upon this earlier and spontaneous crop of gods there supervenes later an artificial crop, deliberately1 manufactured. The importance of this later artificial class is so great, especially in connexion with the gods of agriculture, and with the habit of eating the god’s body as corn and drinking his blood as wine, that it becomes necessary for us here to examine their nature in due order. We shall find that some knowledge of them is needed preliminary to the comprehension of the Christian3 system.

We saw that in West Africa the belief in another world is so matter-of-fact and material that a chief who wishes to communicate with his dead father kills a slave as a messenger, after first impressing upon him the nature of the message he will have to deliver. If he forgets anything, says Mr. Duff Macdonald, he kills a second and sends him after “as a postscript4.” A Khond desired to be avenged5 upon an enemy; so he cut off the head of his mother, who cheerfully suggested this domestic arrangement, in order that her ghost might haunt and terrify the offender7. Similar plenitude of belief in the actuality and nearness of the Other World makes attendants, wives, and even friends of a dead man, in many countries, volunteer to kill themselves 248at his funeral, in order that they may accompany their lord and master to the nether8 realms. All these examples combine to show us two things: first, that the other life is very real and close to the people who behave so; and second, that no great unwillingness10 habitually11 exists to migration12 from this life to the next, if occasion demands it.

Starting with such ideas, it is not surprising that many races should have deliberately made for themselves gods by killing13 a man, and especially a man of divine or kingly blood, the embodiment of a god, in order that his spirit might perform some specific divine function. Nor is it even remarkable14 that the victim selected for such a purpose should voluntarily submit to death, often preceded by violent torture, so as to attain15 in the end to a position of trust and importance as a tutelary16 deity17. We have only to remember the ease with which Mahommedan fanatics18 will face death, expecting to enjoy the pleasures of Paradise, or the fervour with which Christian believers used to embrace the crown of martyrdom, in order to convince ourselves of the reality and profundity20 of such a sentiment. The further back we go in time or culture, the stronger does the sentiment in question become; it is only the civilised and sceptical thinker who hesitates to exchange the solid comforts of this world for the shadowy and uncertain delights of the next.

The existence of such artificially-manufactured gods has been more or less recognised for some time past, and attention has been called to one or other class of them by Mr. Baring Gould and Mr. J. G. Frazer; but I believe the present work will be the first in which their profound importance and their place in the genesis of the higher religions has been fully6 pointed21 out in systematic22 detail.

The best known instances of such deliberate godmaking are those which refer to the foundation of cities, city walls, and houses. In such cases, a human victim is often sacrificed in order that his blood may be used as cement, 249and his soul be built in to the very stones of the fabric23. Thereafter he becomes the tutelary deity or “fortune” of the house or city. In many cases, the victim offers himself voluntarily for the purpose; frequently he is of kingly or divine ancestry24. As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opens not his mouth. In Polynesia, where we usually stand nearest to the very core of religion, Ellis heard that the central pillar of the temple at M忙va was planted upon the body of a human victim. Among the Dyaks of Borneo, a slave girl was crushed to death under the first post of a house. In October 1881, the king of Ashanti put fifty girls to death that their blood might be mixed with the “swish” or mud used in the repair of the royal buildings. Even in Japan, a couple of centuries since, when a great wall was to be built, “some wretched slave would offer himself as a foundation.” Observe in this instance the important fact that the immolation25 was purely26 voluntary. Mr. Tylor, it is true, treats most of these cases as though the victim were intended to appease27 the earth-demons28, which is the natural interpretation29 for the elder school of thinkers to put upon such ceremonies; but those who have read Mr. Frazer and Mr. Baring Gould will know that the offering is really a piece of deliberate god-making. Many of the original witnesses, indeed, correctly report this intention on the part of the perpetrators; thus Mason was told by an eyewitness30 that at the building of the new city of Tavoy in Tennasserim “a criminal was put in each post-hole to become a protecting demon” or rather deity. So in Siam, when a new city gate was being erected31, says Mr. Speth, officers seized the first four or eight people who passed, and buried them under it “as guardian32 angels.” And in Roumania a stahic is defined as “the ghost of a person who has been immured33 in the walls of a building in order to make it more solid.” The Irish Banshee is doubtless of similar origin.

Other curious examples are reported from Africa. In Galam, 250a boy and girl used to be buried alive before the great gate of a city, to make it impregnable; and I gather here that the sacrifice was periodically renewed, as we shall see it to have been in many other cases. In Great Bassam and Yarriba, similar sacrifices were usual at the foundation of a house or village. Clearly the idea in these cases was to supply the site with a tutelary deity, a god whose existence was bound up with the place thus consecrated34 to him. He and the town henceforth were one; he was its soul, and it was his body. Human victims are said to have been buried “for spirit-watchers” under the gates of Mandelay. So too, according to legend, here a tolerably safe guide, a queen was drowned in a Burmese reservoir, to make the dyke36 safe; while the choice for such a purpose of a royal victim shows clearly the desirability of divine blood being present in the body of the future deity. When Rajah Sala Byne was building the fort of Sialkot in the Punjaub, the foundation gave way so often that he consulted a soothsayer. The soothsayer advised that the blood of an only son should be shed on the spot; and the only son of a widow was accordingly killed there. I may add that the blood of “an only-begotten son” has always been held to possess peculiar37 efficacy.

In Europe itself, not a few traces survive of such foundation-gods, or spirits of towns, town-walls, and houses. The Piets are said to have bathed their foundation-stones in human blood, especially in building their forts and castles. St. Columba himself, though nominally38 a Christian, did not scruple39 thus to secure the safety of his monastery40. Columbkille said to his people, “‘It would be well for us that our roots should pass into the earth here.’ And he said to them, ‘It is permitted to you that some one of you go under the earth to consecrate35 it.’” St. Oran volunteered to accept the task, and was ever after honoured as the patron saint of the monastery. Here again it may be noted41 that the offering was voluntary. As late as 1463, when the broken dam of the Nogat had to be repaired, 251the peasants, being advised to throw in a living man, are said to have made a beggar drunk (in which state he would of course be “full of the god”) and utilised him for the purpose. In 1885, on the restoration of Hols-worthy church in Devon, a skeleton with a mass of mortar42 plastered over the mouth was found embedded43 in an angle of the building. To make the castle of Liebenstein fast and impregnable, a child was bought for hard money of its mother, and walled into the building. Again, when the church at Blex in Oldenburg was being built, the authorities of the village crossed the Weser, “bought a child from a poor mother at Bremerleke, and built it alive into the foundations.” We shall see hereafter that “to be brought with a price” is a variant44, as it were, on the voluntary offering; great stress is often laid when a victim is offered on this particular fact, which is held to absolve45 the perpetrators from the crime of god-murder. So, we shall see in the sequel, the divine animal-victim, which is the god offered to himself, his animal embodiment to his image or altar, must always consent to its own sacrifice; if it refuse or show the slightest disinclination, it is no good victim. Legend says that the child in the case of the Liebenstein offering was beguiled46 with a cake, probably so as to make it a consenting party, and was slowly walled up before the eyes of the mother. All these details are full of incidental instructiveness and importance. As late as 1865, according to Mr. Speth, some Christian labourers, working at a-block-house at Duga, near Scutari, found two young Christian children in the hands of Mahommedan Arnauts, who were trying to bury them alive under the block-house.

It is about city walls, however, that we oftenest read such legendary47 stories. Thus the wall of Copenhagen sank as fast as it was built; so they took an innocent little girl, and set her at a table with toys and eatables. Then, while she played and eat, twelve master masons closed a vault48 over her. With clanging music, to drown the child’s cries, 252the wall was raised, and stood fast ever after. In Italy, once more, the bridge of Arta fell in, time after time, till they walled in the master builder’s wife; the last point being a significant detail, whose meaning will come out still more clearly in the sequel. At Scutari in Servia, once more, the fortress49 could only be satisfactorily built after a human victim was walled into it; so the three brothers who wrought50 at it decided51 to offer up the first of their wives who came to the place to bring them food. (Compare the case of Jephtha’s daughter, where the first living thing met by chance is to be sacrificed to Jahweh.) So, too, in Welsh legend, Vortigern could not finish his tower till the foundation-stone was wetted with “the blood of a child born of a mother without a father”—this episode of the virgin52-born infant being a common element in the generation of man-gods, as Mr. Sidney Hartland has abundantly proved for us.

In one case cited above, we saw a mitigation of the primitive53 custom, in that a criminal was substituted for a person of royal blood or divine origin—a form of substitution of which Mr. Frazer has supplied abundant examples in other connexions. Still further mitigations are those of building-in a person who has committed sacrilege or broken some religious vow54 of chastity. In the museum at Algiers is a plaster cast of the mould left by the body of one Geronimo, a Moorish55 Christian (and therefore a recusant of Islam), who was built into a block of concrete in the angle of the fort in the sixteenth century. Faithless nuns56 were so immured in Europe during the middle ages; and Mr. Rider Haggard’s statement that he saw in the museum at Mexico bodies similarly immured by the Inquisition has roused so much Catholic wrath57 and denial that one can hardly have any hesitation58 in accepting its substantial accuracy. But in other cases, the substitution has gone further still; instead of criminals, recusants, or heretics, we get an animal victim in place of the human one. Mr. St. John saw a chicken sacrificed for a slave girl 253at a building among the Dyaks of Borneo. A lamb was walled-in under the altar of a church in Denmark, to make it stand fast; or the churchyard was hanselled by burying first a live horse, an obvious parallel to the case of St Oran. When the parish church of Chumleigh in Devonshire was taken down a few years ago, in a wall of the fifteenth century was found a carved figure of Christ, crucified to a vine—a form of substitution to which we shall find several equivalents later. In modern Greece, says Dr. Tylor, to whom I owe many of these instances, a relic59 of the idea survives in the belief that the first passer-by after a foundation-stone is laid will die within the year; so the masons compromise the matter by killing a cock or a black lamb on the foundation-stone. This animal then becomes the spirit of the building.

We shall see reason to suspect, as we proceed, that every slaughtered60 victim in every rite62 was at first a divine-human being; and that animal victims are always substitutes, though supposed to be equally divine with the man-god they personate. I will ask the reader to look out for such cases as we proceed, and also to notice, even when I do not call attention to them, the destination of the oracular head, and the frequent accompaniment of “clanging music.”

Elsewhere we find other customs which help to explain these curious survivals. The shadow is often identified with the soul; and in Roumania, when a new building is to be erected, the masons endeavour to catch the shadow of a passing stranger, and then lay the foundation-stone upon it. Or the stranger is enticed63 by stealth to the stone, when the mason secretly measures his body or his shadow, and buries the measure thus taken under the foundation. Here we have a survival of the idea that the victim must at least be not unwilling9. It is believed that the person thus measured will languish64 and die within forty days; and we may be sure that originally the belief ran that his soul became the god or guardian spirit of the edifice65. 254If the Bulgarians cannot get a human shadow to wall in, they content themselves with the shadow of the first animal that passes by. Here again we get that form of divine chance in the pointing out of a victim which is seen in the case of Jephtha’s daughter. Still milder substitutions occur in the empty coffin66 walled into a church in Germany, or the rude images of babies in swaddling-clothes similarly immured in Holland. The last trace of the custom is found in England in the modern practice of putting coins and newspapers under the foundation-stone. Here it would seem as if the victim were regarded as a sacrifice to the Earth (a late and derivative67 idea), and the coins were a money payment in lieu of the human or animal offering. I owe many of the cases here instanced to the careful research of my friend Mr. Clodd. But since this chapter was written, all other treatises68 on the subject have been superseded69 by Mr. Speth’s exhaustive and scholarly pamphlet on “Builder’s Rites70 and Ceremonies,” a few examples from which I have intercalated in my argument.

Other implications must be briefly71 treated. The best ghost or god for this purpose seems to be a divine or kingly person; and in stages when the meaning of the practice is still quite clear to the builders, the dearly-be-loved son or wife of the king is often selected for the honour of tutelary godship. Later this notion passes into the sacrifice of the child or wife of the master mason; many legends or traditions contain this more recent element. In Vortigern’s case, however, the child is clearly a divine being, as we shall see to be true a little later on in certain Semitic instances. To the last, the connexion of children with such sacrifices is most marked; thus when in 1813 the ice on the Elbe broke down one of the dams, an old peasant sneered72 at the efforts of the Government engineer, saying to him, “You will never get the dyke to hold unless you first sink an innocent child under the foundations.” Here the very epithet73 “innocent” in itself reveals some last 255echo of godship. So too, in 1843, when a new bridge was to be built at Halle in Germany, the people told the architects that the pier74 would not stand unless a living child was immured under the foundations. Schrader says that when the great railway bridge over the Ganges was begun, every mother in Bengal trembled for her infant. The Slavonic chiefs who founded Detinez sent out men to catch the first boy they met and bury him in the foundation. Here once more we have the sacred-chance victim. Briefly I would say there seems to be a preference in all such cases for children, and especially for girls; of kingly stock, if possible, but at least a near relation of the master builder.

Mr. Speth points out that horses’ heads were frequently fastened on churches or other buildings, and suggests that they belong to animal foundation-victims. This use of the skull75 is in strict accordance with its usual oracular destination.

Some notable historical or mythical76 tales of town and village gods, deliberately manufactured, may now be considered. We read in First Kings that when Hiel the Bethelite built Jericho, “he laid the foundation thereof in Abiram his first-born, and set up the gates thereof in his youngest Segub.” Here we see evidently a princely master builder, sacrificing his own two sons as guardian gods of his new city. Abundant traces exist of such deliberate production of a Fortune for a town. And it is also probable that the original sacrifice was repeated annually77, as if to keep up the constant stream of divine life, somewhat after the fashion of the human gods we had to consider in the last chapter. Dido appears to have been the Fortune or foundation-goddess of Carthage; she is represented in the legend as the foundress-queen, and is said to have lept into her divine pyre from the walls of her palace. But the annual human sacrifice appears to have been performed at the same place; for “It can hardly be doubted,” says Professor Robertson Smith, “that 256the spot at which legend placed the self-sacrifice of Dido to her husband Sicharbas was that at which the later Carthaginian human sacrifices were performed.” At Laodicea, again, an annual sacrifice took place of a deer, in lieu of a maiden78; and this sacrifice, we are expressly told, was offered to the goddess of the city. Legend said that the goddess was a maiden, who had been similarly sacrificed to consecrate the foundation of the town, and was thenceforth worshipped as its Fortune, like Dido at Carthage; “it was therefore the death of the goddess herself,” says Professor Robertson Smith, “that was annually renewed in the piacular rite.” (I do not admit the justice of the epithet “piacular.”) Again, Malalas tells us that the 22d of May was kept at Antioch as the anniversary of a maiden sacrificed at the foundation of the city, and worshipped thereafter as the Tyche, or luck, of the town. At Durna in Arabia an annual victim was similarly buried under the stone which formed the altar.

In most of the legends, as they come down to us from civilised and lettered antiquity79, the true nature of this sanguinary foundation-rite is overlaid and disguised by later rationalising guesses and I may mention that Dr. Robertson Smith in particular habitually treats the rationalising guesses as primitive, and the real old tradition of the slaughtered virgin as a myth of explanation of “the later Euhemeristic Syrians.” But after the examples we have already seen of foundation-gods, I think I can hardly be doubted that this is to reverse the true order; that a girl was really sacrificed for a tutelary deity when a town was founded, and that the substitution of an animal victim at the annual renewal80 was a later refinement81. Mr. Speth quotes a case in point of a popular tradition that a young girl had been built into the castle of Nieder-Manderschied; and when the wall was opened in 1844, the Euhemeristic workmen found a cavity enclosing a human skeleton. I would suggest, again, that in the original legend of the foundation of Rome, Romulus was represented as having built-in 257his brother Remus as a Fortune, or god, of the city, and that to this identification of Remus with the city we ought to trace such phrases as turba Remi for the Roman people. The word forum82 in its primitive signification means the empty space left before a tomb—the llan or temenos. Hence I would suggest that the Roman Forum and other Latin fora were really the tomb-enclosures of the original foundation-victims. * So, too, the English village green and “play-field” are probably the space dedicated83 to the tribal84 or village god—a slain85 man-god; and they are usually connected with the sacred stone and sacred tree. I trust this point will become clearer as we proceed, and develop the whole theory of the foundation god or goddess, the allied86 sacred stone and the tree or trunk memorial.

     * In the case of Rome, the Forum would represent the grave
     of the later foundation-god of the compound Latin and Sabine
     city.

For, if I am right, the entire primitive ritual of the foundation of a village consisted in killing or burying alive or building into the wall a human victim, as town or village god, and raising a stone and planting a tree close by to commemorate87 him. At these two monuments the village rites were thereafter performed. The stone and tree are thus found in their usual conjunction; both coexist in the Indian village to the present day, as in the Siberian woodland or the Slavonic forest. Thus, at Rome, we have not only the legend of the death of Remus, a prince of the blood-royal of Alba Longa, intimately connected with the building of the wall of Roma Quadrata, but we have also the sacred fig-tree of Romulus in the Forum, which was regarded as the embodiment of the city life of the combined Rome, so that when it showed signs of withering88, consternation89 spread through the city; and hard by we have the sacred stone or Palladium, guarded by the sacred Vestal Virgins90 who kept the city hearth-fire, and still more closely bound up with the fortune of that secondary Rome which had its home in the Forum. Are not these three the 258triple form of the foundation-god of that united Capitoline and Palatine Rome? And may not the sacred cornel on the Palatine, again, have been similarly the holy foundation-tree of that older Roma Ouadrata which is more particularly associated with the name of Romulus? Of this tree Plutarch tells us that when it appeared to a passer-by to be drooping91, he set up a hue92 and cry, which was soon responded to by people on all sides rushing up with buckets of water to pour upon it, as if they were hastening to put out a fire. Clearly, here again we have to deal with an embodied93 Fortune.

We do not often get all three of these Fortunes combined—the human victim, the stone, and the tree, with the annual offering which renews its sanctity. But we find traces so often of one or other of the trio that we are justified94, I think, in connecting them together as parts of a whole, whereof here one element survives, and there another. “Among all primitive communities,” says Mr. Gomme, “when a village was first established, a stone was set up. To this stone, the headman of the village made an offering once a year.” To the present day, London preserves her foundation-god in the shape of London Stone, now enclosed in a railing or iron grill95 just opposite Cannon96 Street Station. Now, London Stone was for ages considered as the representative and embodiment of the entire community. Proclamations and other important state businesses were announced from its top; and the defendant97 in trials in the Lord Mayor’s court was summoned to attend from London Stone, as though the stone itself spoke98 to the wrong-doer with the united voice of the assembled citizens. The first Lord Mayor, indeed, was Henry de Lundonstone, no doubt, as Mr. Loftie suggests, the hereditary99 keeper of this urban fetish,—in short, the representative of the village headman. I have written at greater length on the implications of this interesting relic in an article on London Stone in Longman’s Magazine, to which I would refer the reader for further information. 259I will only add here the curious episode of Jack100 Cade, who, when he forced his way, under his assumed name of Mortimer, into the city in 1450, first of all proceeded to this sacred relic, the embodiment of palladium of ancient London, and having struck it with his sword exclaimed, “Now is Mortimer lord of this city.”

A similar sacred stone exists to this day at Bovey Tracey in Devon, of which Ormerod tells us that the mayor of Bovey used to ride round it on the first day of his tenure101 of office, and strike it with a stick,—which further explains Jack Cade’s proceeding102. According to the Totnes Times of May 13, 1882, the young men of the town were compelled on the same day to kiss the magic stone and pledge allegiance in upholding the ancient rights and privileges of Bovey. (I owe these details to Mr. Lawrence Gomme’s Village Community.) I do not think we can dissociate from these two cases the other sacred stones of Britain, such as the King’s Stone at Kingston in Surrey, where several of the West Saxon kings were crowned; nor the Scone103 Stone in the coronation-chair at Westminster Abbey; nor the Stone of Clackmannan, and the sacred stones already mentioned in a previous chapter on which the heads of clans104 or of Irish septs succeeded to the chieftainship of their respective families. These may in part have been ancestral and sepulchral105 monuments: but it is probable that they also partook in part of this artificial and factitious sanctity. Certainly in some cases that sanctity was renewed by an animal sacrifice.

With these fairly obvious instances I would also connect certain other statements which seem to me to have been hitherto misinterpreted. Thus Mesha, king of Moab, when he is close beleaguered106, burns his son as a holocaust107 on the wall of the city. Is not this an offering to protect the wall by the deliberate manufacture of an additional deity? For straightway the besiegers seem to feel they are overpowered, and the siege is raised. Observe 260here once more that it is the king’s own dearly-be-loved son who is chosen as victim. Again, at Amathus, human sacrifices were offered to Jupiter Hospes “before the gates”; and this Jupiter Hospes, as Ovid calls him, is the Amathusian Herakles or Malika, whose name, preserved for us by Hesychius, identifies him at once as a local deity similar to the Tyrian Melcarth. Was not this again, therefore, the Fortune of the city? At Tyre itself, the sepulchre of Herakles Melcarth was shown, where he was said to have been cremated108. For among cremating109 peoples it was natural to burn, not slaughter61, the yearly god-victim. At Tarsus, once more, there was an annual feast, at which a very fair pyre was erected, and the local Herakles or Baal was burned on it in effigy110. We cannot doubt, I think, that this was a mitigation of an earlier human holocaust. Indeed, Dr. Robertson Smith says of this instance: “This annual commemoration of the death of the god in fire must have its origin in an older rite, in which the victim was not a mere111 effigy, but a theanthropic sacrifice, i.e., an actual man or sacred animal, whose life, according to the antique conception now familiar to us, was an embodiment of the divine-human life.” This is very near my own view on the subject.

From these instances we may proceed, I think, to a more curious set, whose implications seem to me to have been even more grievously mistaken by later interpreters. I mean the case of children of kings or of ruling families, sacrificed in time of war or peril112 as additional or auxiliary113 deities114. Thus Philo of Byblos says: “It was an ancient custom in a crisis of great danger that the ruler of a city or nation should give his beloved son to die for the whole people, as a ransom115 offered to the avenging116 demons; and the children thus offered were slain with mystic rites. So Cronus, whom the Phoenicians call Israel, being king of the land, and having an only-begotten son called Jeoud (for in the Phoenicians tongue Jeoud signifies only-begotten), dressed him in royal robes and sacrificed him upon an altar 261in a time of war, when the country was in great danger from the enemy.” I do not think Philo is right in his gloss117 or guess about “the avenging demons,” but otherwise his story is interesting evidence. It helps us more or less directly to connect the common Phoenician and Hebrew child-sacrifices with this deliberate manufacture of artificial gods. I do not doubt, indeed, that the children were partly sacrificed to pre-existent and well-defined great gods; but I believe also that the practice first arose as one of deliberate manufacture of gods, and retained to the end many traces of its origin.

We know that in times of national calamity118 the Phoenicians used thus to sacrifice their dearest to Baal. Phoenician history, we know from Porphyry, is full of such sacrifices. When the Carthaginians were defeated and besieged119 by Agathocles, they ascribed their disasters to the anger of the god; for whereas in former times they used to sacrifice to him their own children, they had latterly fallen (as we shall see hereafter the Khonds did) into the habit of buying children and rearing them as victims. So two hundred young people of the noblest families were picked out for sacrifice; and these were accompanied by no less than three hundred more, who volunteered to die for the fatherland. They were sacrificed by being placed, one by one, on the sloping hands of the brazen120 image, from which they rolled into a pit of fire. So too at Jerusalem, in moments of great danger, children were sacrificed to some Molech, whether Jahweh or another, by being placed in the fiery121 arms of the image at the Tophet. I will admit that in these last cases we approach very near to the mere piacular human sacrifice; but we shall see, when we come to deal with gods of cultivation122, and the doctrine123 of the atonement, that it is difficult to draw a line between the two; while the fact that a dearly-beloved or only-begotten son is the victim—especially the son of a king of divine blood—links such cases on directly to the more obvious instances of deliberate god-making. Some such voluntary sacrifice 262seems to me to be commemorated124 in the beautiful imagery of the 53d of Isaiah. But there the language is distinctly piacular.

That annual human sacrifices originated in deliberate god-making of this sort is an inference which has already been almost arrived at by more orthodox thinkers. “Among the Semites,” says Dr. Robertson Smith, “the most current view of annual piacula seems to have been that they commemorate a divine tragedy—the death of some god or goddess. The origin of such myths is easily explained from the nature of the ritual. Originally, the death of the god was nothing else than the death of the theanthropic victim; but when this ceased to be understood, it was thought that the piacular sacrifice represented an historical tragedy in which the god was killed.” But we shall see hereafter that the idea of expiation125 in sacrifice is quite a late and derivative one; it seems more probable that the victim was at first a human god, for whom later an animal victim was substituted. In the Athenian Thar-gelia, the victims were human to the very end, though undoubtedly126 they were thought of as bearing vicariously the sins of the people. We shall come across similar intrusions of the idea of expiation in later chapters; that idea belongs to a stage of thought when men considered it necessary to explain away by some ethical127 reference the sanguinary element of primitive ritual. Thus in two Greek towns, as we learn from Pausanias—at Potni忙 and Patr忙,—an annual sacrifice existed which had once been the sacrifice of a human victim; but this was later explained as an expiation of an ancient crime for which satisfaction had to be made from generation to generation. Indeed, as a rule, later ages looked upon the murder of a god as obviously criminal, and therefore regarded the slaughter of the victim, who replaced the god, as being an atonement for his death, instead of regarding it as a deliberate release of his divine spirit.

I have dwelt here mainly on that particular form of artificial 263god-making which is concerned with the foundation of houses, villages, cities, walls, and fortresses128, because this is the commonest and most striking case, outside agriculture, and because it is specially2 connected with the world-wide institution of the village or city god. But other types occur in abundance; and to them a few lines must now be devoted129.

When a ship was launched, it was a common practice to provide her with a guardian spirit or god by making her roll over the body of a human victim. The Norwegian vikings used to “redden their rollers” with human blood. That is to say, when a warship130 was launched, human victims were lashed131 to the round logs over which the galley132 was run down to the sea, so that the stem was sprinkled with their spurting133 blood. Thus the victim was incorporated, as it were, in the very planks134 of the vessel135. Captain Cook found the South Sea Islanders similarly christening their war-canoes with blood. In 1784, says Mr. William Simpson, at the launching of one of the Bey of Tripoli’s cruisers, “a black slave was led forward and fastened at the prow136 of the vessel to influence a happy reception in the ocean.” And Mr. Speth quotes a newspaper account of the sacrifice of a sheep when the first caique for “Constantinople at Olympia” was launched in the Bosphorus. In many other cases, it is noted that a victim, human or animal, is slaughtered at the launching of a ship. Our own ceremony of breaking a bottle of wine over the bows is the last relic of this barbarous practice. Here as elsewhere red wine does duty for blood, in virtue137 of its colour. I do not doubt that the images of gods in the bow of a ship were originally idols138 in which the spirits thus liberated139 might dwell, and that it was to them the sailors prayed for assistance in storm or peril. The god was bound up in the very fabric of the vessel. The modern figure-head still represents these gods; figure-heads essentially140 similar to the domestic idols occur on New Zealand and Polynesian war-canoes.

The 264canoes of the Solomon Islanders, for example, “often have as figure-head a carved representation of the upper half of a man, who holds in his hands a human head.” This head, known as the “canoe-god” or “charm,” “represents the life taken when the canoe was first used.” A canoe of importance “required a life for its inauguration,” says Dr. Codrington.

Another curious instance is to be found in the customs and beliefs regarding river gods. Rivers, I have suggested, are often divine because they spring near or are connected with the grave of a hero. But often their divinity has been deliberately given them, and is annually renewed by a god-making sacrifice: just as at the Jewish Passover an annual animal-victim was slain, and his blood smeared141 on the lintels, as a renewal of the foundation sacrifice. The best instance I have found of this curious custom is one cited by Mr. Gomme from Major Ellis. Along the banks of the Prah in West Africa there are many deities, all bearing the common name of Prah, and all regarded as spirits of the river. At each town or considerable village along the stream, a sacrifice is held on a day about the middle of October. The usual sacrifice was two human adults, one male and one female. The inhabitants of each village believe in a separate spirit of the Prah, who resides in some part of the river close to their own hamlet. Everywhere along the river the priests of these gods officiate in groups of three, two male and one female, an arrangement which is peculiar to the river gods. Here, unless I mistake, we have an obvious case of deliberate god-making.

This savage142 instance, and others like it, which space precludes143 me from detailing, suggest the conclusion that many river gods are of artificial origin. The Wohhanda in Esthonia received offerings of little children, whom we may fairly compare with the children immured in buildings or offered to the Molech. Many other rivers spontaneously 265take their victim annually; thus the Devonshire rhyme goes,=

                River of Dart144, river of Dart,

                Every year thou claimest a heart.=

The Spey also takes one life each year, and so do several British rivers elsewhere. Originally, no doubt, the victim was deliberately chosen and slain annually; but later on, as a mitigation of the custom, the river itself seems to have selected its own spirit by divine chance, such as we have already seen in action more than once in the earlier cases. In other words, if a passer-by happened to be accidentally drowned, he was accepted in place of a deliberate victim. * Hence the danger of rescuing a man from drowning; you interfere145 with the course of divine selection, and you will pay for it yourself by being the next victim. “When, in the Solomon Islands, a man accidentally falls into a river, and a shark attacks him, he is not allowed to escape. If he succeeds in eluding146 the shark, his fellow-tribesmen throw him back to his doom147, believing him to be marked out for sacrifice to the god of the river.” Similarly, in Britain itself, the Lancashire Ribble has a water-spirit called Peg148 o’ Nell, represented by a stone image, now headless, which stands at the spring where the river rises in the grounds of Waddon. (Compare the Adonis tomb and grove149 by the spring at Aphaca.) This Peg o’ Nell was originally, according to tradition, a girl of the neighbourhood; but she was done to death by incantations, and now demands every seven years that a life should be quenched150 in the waters of the Ribble. When “Peg’s night” came round at the close of the septennate, unless a bird, a cat, or a dog was drowned in the river, it was sure to claim its human victim. This name of Peg is evidently a corruption151 of some old local Celtic or pre-Celtic word 266for a nymph or water-spirit; for there is another Peg in the Tees, known as Peg Powler; and children used there to be warned against playing on the banks of the stream, for fear Peg should drag them into the water. Such traces of a child-sacrifice are extremely significant.

     * Here is an analogue152 in foundation sacrifices. A house was
     being built at Hind153 Head while this book was in progress. A
     workman fell from a beam and was killed. The other workmen
     declared this was luck for the house and would ensure its
     stability.

I cannot do more than suggest here in passing that we have in these stories and practices the most probable origin of the common myth which accounts for the existence of river gods or river nymphs by some episode of a youth or maiden drowned there. Arethusa is the example that occurs to everyone. Grossly Euhemeristic as it may sound to say so, I yet believe that such myths of metamorphosis have their origin in the deliberate manufacture of a water-deity by immolation in the stream; and that the annual renewal of such a sacrifice was due in part to the desire to keep alive the memory of the gods—to be sure they were there, to make them “fresh and fresh,” if one may venture to say so—and in part to the analogy of those very important artificial gods of agriculture whose origin and meaning we have still to consider. I would add that the commonness of sea-horses and river-horses in the mythology154 of the world doubtless owes its origin partly to the natural idea of “white horses” on the waves, but partly also to the deliberate sacrifice of horses to the sea or rivers, which this notion suggested, and which tended to intensify155 it. It is as though the worshipper wished to keep up a continuous supply of such divine and ghostly steeds. At Rhodes, for example, four horses were annually cast into the sea; and I need hardly refer to the conventional horses of Poseidon and Neptune156. The Ugly Burn in Ross-shire is the abode157 of a water-horse; in the remains158 of the Roman temple at Lydney, the god Nodens, who represents the Severn, is shown in the mosaic159 pavement as drawn160 in a chariot by four horses; and the Yore, near Middleham, is still infested161 by a water-horse who annually claims at least one human victim. Elsewhere other animals take the place of the horse. The Ostyaks 267sacrifice to the river Ob by casting in a live reindeer162 when fish are scanty163.

I do not deny that in many of these cases two distinct ideas—the earlier idea of the victim as future god, and the later idea of the victim as prey164 or sacrifice—have got inextricably mixed up; but I do think enough’ has been said to suggest the probability that many river-gods are artificially produced, and that this is in large part the origin of nymphs and kelpies. Legend, indeed, almost always represents them so; it is only our mythologists, with their blind hatred165 of Euhemerism, who fail to perceive the obvious implication. And that even the accidental victim was often envisaged166 as a river-god, after his death, we see clearly from the Bohemian custom of going to pray on the river bank where a man has been drowned, and casting into the river a loaf of new bread and a pair of wax candles, obvious offerings to his spirit.

Many other classes of manufactured gods seem to me to exist, whose existence I must here pass over almost in silence. Such are the gods produced at the beginning of a war, by human or other sacrifice; gods intended to aid the warriors167 in their coming enterprise by being set free from fleshly bonds for that very purpose. Thus, according to Phylarchus, a human sacrifice was at one time customary in Greece at the beginning of hostilities168; and we know that as late as the age of Themistocles three captives were thus offered up before the battle of Salamis. The sacrifice of Iphigenia is a good legendary case in point, because it is one of a virgin, a princess, the daughter of the leader, and therefore a typical release of a divine or royal spirit. Here, as usual, later philosophising represents the act as an expiation for mortal guilt169; but we may be sure the original story contained no such ethical or piacular element. Among the early Hebrews, the summons to a war seems similarly to have been made by sending round pieces of the human victim; in later Hebrew usage, this rite declines into the sacrifice of a burnt 268offering; though we get an intermediate stage when Saul sends round portions of a slaughtered ox, as the Levite in Judges had sent round the severed170 limbs of his concubine to rouse the Israelites. In Africa, a war is still opened with a solemn sacrifice, human or otherwise; and Mr. H. O. Forbes gives a graphic171 account of the similar ceremony which precedes an expedition in the island of Timor.

In conclusion, I will only say that a great many other obscure rites or doubtful legends seem to me explicable by similar deliberate exercises of god-making. How common such sacrifice was in agricultural relations we shall see in the sequel; but I believe that even in other fields of life future research will so explain many other customs. The self-immolation of Codrus, of Sardanapa-lus, of P. Decius Mus, as of so many other kings or heroes or gods or goddesses; the divine beings who fling themselves from cliffs into the sea; M. Curtius devoting himself in the gulf172 in the Forum; the tombs of the lovers whom Semiramis buried alive; all these, I take it, have more or less similar implications. Even such tales as that of T. Manlius Torquatus and his son must be assimilated, I think, to the story of the king of Moab killing his son on the wall, or to that of the Carthaginians offering up their children to the offended deity; only, in later times, the tale was misinterpreted and used to point the supposed moral of the stern and inflexible173 old Roman discipline.

Frequent reiteration174 of sacrifices seems necessary, also, in order to keep up the sanctity of images and sacred rites—to put, as it were, a new soul into them. Thus, rivers needed a fresh river-god every year; and recently in Ashantee it was discovered that a fetish would no longer “work” unless human victims were abundantly immolated175 for it.

This is also perhaps the proper place to observe that just as the great god Baal has been resolved by modern scholarship 269into many local Baalim, and just as the great god Adonis has been reduced by recent research in each case to some particular Adon or lord out of many, so each such separate deity, artificially manufactured, though called by the common name of the Prah or the Tiber,’ yet retains to the last some distinct identity. In fact, the great gods appear to be rather classes than individuals. That there were many Nymphs and many Fauni, many Silvani and many Martes, has long been known; it is beginning to be clear that there were also many Saturns176, many Jupiters, many Junones, many Vest忙. Even in Greece it is more than probable that the generalised names of the great gods were given in later ages to various old sacred stones and holy sites of diverse origin: the real object of worship was in each case the spontaneous or artificial god; the name was but a general title applied177 in common, perhaps adjectivally, to several such separate deities. In the Roman pantheon, this principle is now, quite well established; in the Semitic it is probable; in most others, the progress of modern research is gradually leading up to it. Even the elemental gods themselves do not seem in their first origin to be really singular; they grow, apparently178, from generalised phrases, like our “Heaven” and “Providence,” applied at first to the particular deity of whom at the moment the speaker is thinking. The Zeus or Jupiter varies with the locality. Thus, when the Latin pr忙tor, at the outbreak of the Latin war, defied the Roman Jupiter, we may be sure it was the actual god there visible before him at whom he hurled179 his sacrilegious challenge, not the ideal deity in the sky above his head. Indeed, we now know that each village and each farm had a Jovis of its own, regarded as essentially a god of wine, and specially worshipped at the wine-feast in April, when the first cask was broached180. This individuality of the gods is an important point to bear in mind; for the tendency of language is always to treat many similar deities as practically identical, especially in late 270and etherealised forms of religion. And mythologists have made the most of this syncretic tendency.

A single concrete instance will help to make this general principle yet clearer. Boundaries, I believe, were originally put under the charge of local and artificial deities, by slaughtering181 a human victim at each turning-point in the limits, and erecting182 a sacred stone on the spot where he died to preserve his memory. Often, too, in accordance with the common rule, a sacred tree seems to have been planted beside the sacred stone monument. Each such victim became forthwith a boundary god, a protecting and watching spirit, and was known thenceforth as a Hermes or a Terminus. But there were many Herm忙 and many Termini, not in Greece and Italy alone, but throughout the world. Only much later did a generalised god, Hermes or Terminus, arise from the union into a single abstract concept of all these separate and individual deities. Once more, the boundary god was renewed each year by a fresh victim. Our own practice of “beating the bounds” appears to be the last expiring relic of such annual sacrifices. The bounds are beaten, apparently, in order to expel all foreign gods or hostile spirits; the boys who play a large part in the ceremony are the representatives of the human victims. They are whipped at each terminus stone, partly in order to make them shed tears as a rain-charm (after the fashion with which Mr. Frazer has made us familiar), but partly also because all artificially-made gods are scourged183 or tortured before being put to death, for some reason which I do not think we yet fully understand. The rationalising gloss that the boys are whipped “in order to make them remember the boundaries” is one of the usual shallow explanations so glibly184 offered by the eighteenth century. The fact that the ceremony takes place at sacred stones or “Gospel oaks” sufficiently185 proclaims its original meaning.

The idea underlying186 Christian martyrdom, where the martyr19 271voluntarily devotes himself or herself to death in order to gain the crown and palm in heaven, is essentially similar to the self-immolation of the artificial gods, and helps to explain the nature of such self-sacrifice. For Christianity is only nominally a monotheistic religion, and the saints and martyrs187 form in it practically a secondary or minor188 rank of deities.

On the other hand, the point of view of the god-slayers cannot be more graphically189 put than in the story which Mr. William Simpson relates of Sir Richard Burton. Burton, it seems, was exploring a remote Mahommedan region on the Indian frontier, and in order to do so with greater freedom and ease had disguised himself as a fakir of Islam. So great was his knowledge of Muslim devotions that the people soon began to entertain a great respect for him as a most holy person. He was congratulating himself upon the success of his disguise, and looking forward to a considerable stay in the valley, when one night one of the elders of the village came to him stealthily, and begged him, if he valued his own safety, to go away. Burton asked whether the people did not like him. The elder answered, yes; that was the root of the trouble. They had conceived, in fact, the highest possible opinion of his exceptional sanctity, and they thought it would be an excellent thing for the village to possess the tomb of so holy a man. So they were casting about now how they could best kill him. Whether this particular story is true or not, it at least exhibits in very vivid colours the state of mind of the ordinary god-slayer.

Dr. Tylor, Mr. Speth, and other writers on foundation sacrifices treat them as springing from primitive animism. To me, they seem rather to imply the exact opposite. For if everything has already a soul by nature, why kill a man or criminal to supply it with one?

点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 deliberately Gulzvq     
adv.审慎地;蓄意地;故意地
参考例句:
  • The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
  • They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。
2 specially Hviwq     
adv.特定地;特殊地;明确地
参考例句:
  • They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
  • The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。
3 Christian KVByl     
adj.基督教徒的;n.基督教徒
参考例句:
  • They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
  • His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。
4 postscript gPhxp     
n.附言,又及;(正文后的)补充说明
参考例句:
  • There was the usual romantic postscript at the end of his letter.他的信末又是一贯的浪漫附言。
  • She mentioned in a postscript to her letter that the parcel had arrived.她在信末附笔中说包裹已寄到。
5 avenged 8b22eed1219df9af89cbe4206361ac5e     
v.为…复仇,报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 );为…报复
参考例句:
  • She avenged her mother's death upon the Nazi soldiers. 她惩处了纳粹士兵以报杀母之仇。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The Indians avenged the burning of their village on〔upon〕 the settlers. 印第安人因为村庄被焚毁向拓居者们进行报复。 来自《简明英汉词典》
6 fully Gfuzd     
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地
参考例句:
  • The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气,然后全部呼出。
  • They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。
7 offender ZmYzse     
n.冒犯者,违反者,犯罪者
参考例句:
  • They all sued out a pardon for an offender.他们请求法院赦免一名罪犯。
  • The authorities often know that sex offenders will attack again when they are released.当局一般都知道性犯罪者在获释后往往会再次犯案。
8 nether P1pyY     
adj.下部的,下面的;n.阴间;下层社会
参考例句:
  • This terracotta army well represents his ambition yet to be realized in the nether-world.这一批兵马俑很可能代表他死后也要去实现的雄心。
  • He was escorted back to the nether regions of Main Street.他被护送回中央大道南面的地方。
9 unwilling CjpwB     
adj.不情愿的
参考例句:
  • The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
  • His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。
10 unwillingness 0aca33eefc696aef7800706b9c45297d     
n. 不愿意,不情愿
参考例句:
  • Her unwillingness to answer questions undermined the strength of her position. 她不愿回答问题,这不利于她所处的形势。
  • His apparent unwillingness would disappear if we paid him enough. 如果我们付足了钱,他露出的那副不乐意的神情就会消失。
11 habitually 4rKzgk     
ad.习惯地,通常地
参考例句:
  • The pain of the disease caused him habitually to furrow his brow. 病痛使他习惯性地紧皱眉头。
  • Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair. 我已经习惯于服从约翰,我来到他的椅子跟前。
12 migration mDpxj     
n.迁移,移居,(鸟类等的)迁徙
参考例句:
  • Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
  • He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。
13 killing kpBziQ     
n.巨额利润;突然赚大钱,发大财
参考例句:
  • Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
  • Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。
14 remarkable 8Vbx6     
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的
参考例句:
  • She has made remarkable headway in her writing skills.她在写作技巧方面有了长足进步。
  • These cars are remarkable for the quietness of their engines.这些汽车因发动机没有噪音而不同凡响。
15 attain HvYzX     
vt.达到,获得,完成
参考例句:
  • I used the scientific method to attain this end. 我用科学的方法来达到这一目的。
  • His painstaking to attain his goal in life is praiseworthy. 他为实现人生目标所下的苦功是值得称赞的。
16 tutelary tlTwv     
adj.保护的;守护的
参考例句:
  • Brazil's democratic constitution gives the army vague tutelary powers.巴西民主宪法赋予军方含糊不清的监护权。
  • The gloomy family of care and distrust shall be banished from our dwelling,guarded by the kind and tutelary deity.我们居住的地方不再有忧虑和不信任的阴影笼罩,只有仁慈的守护神保卫我们。
17 deity UmRzp     
n.神,神性;被奉若神明的人(或物)
参考例句:
  • Many animals were seen as the manifestation of a deity.许多动物被看作神的化身。
  • The deity was hidden in the deepest recesses of the temple.神藏在庙宇壁龛的最深处。
18 fanatics b39691a04ddffdf6b4b620155fcc8d78     
狂热者,入迷者( fanatic的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • The heathen temple was torn down by a crowd of religions fanatics. 异教徒的神殿被一群宗教狂热分子拆除了。
  • Placing nukes in the hands of baby-faced fanatics? 把核弹交给一些宗教狂热者手里?
19 martyr o7jzm     
n.烈士,殉难者;vt.杀害,折磨,牺牲
参考例句:
  • The martyr laid down his life for the cause of national independence.这位烈士是为了民族独立的事业而献身的。
  • The newspaper carried the martyr's photo framed in black.报上登载了框有黑边的烈士遗像。
20 profundity mQTxZ     
n.渊博;深奥,深刻
参考例句:
  • He impressed his audience by the profundity of his knowledge.他知识渊博给听众留下了深刻的印象。
  • He pretended profundity by eye-beamings at people.他用神采奕奕的眼光看着人们,故作深沉。
21 pointed Il8zB4     
adj.尖的,直截了当的
参考例句:
  • He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
  • She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。
22 systematic SqMwo     
adj.有系统的,有计划的,有方法的
参考例句:
  • The way he works isn't very systematic.他的工作不是很有条理。
  • The teacher made a systematic work of teaching.这个教师进行系统的教学工作。
23 fabric 3hezG     
n.织物,织品,布;构造,结构,组织
参考例句:
  • The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
  • I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。
24 ancestry BNvzf     
n.祖先,家世
参考例句:
  • Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
  • He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。
25 immolation wazx9     
n.牺牲品
参考例句:
  • We still do;living in a world in which underclared aggression, war,hypocrisy,chicanery,anarchy and impending immolation are part of our daily lives, we all want a code to live by. 我们仍然有这种感觉;生活在一个不宣而战的侵略、战争、虚伪、诈骗、混乱以及迫在眉睫的杀戮充斥着我们日常生活的世界里,我们都想有一种能赖以生存的准则。
  • The Emperor had these clay figures made instead of burying slave-workers alive as immolation. 秦始皇用泥塑造了这批俑,没有活埋奴隶作为殉葬。
26 purely 8Sqxf     
adv.纯粹地,完全地
参考例句:
  • I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
  • This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。
27 appease uVhzM     
v.安抚,缓和,平息,满足
参考例句:
  • He tried to appease the crying child by giving him candy.他试图给那个啼哭的孩子糖果使他不哭。
  • The government tried to appease discontented workers.政府试图安抚不满的工人们。
28 demons 8f23f80251f9c0b6518bce3312ca1a61     
n.恶人( demon的名词复数 );恶魔;精力过人的人;邪念
参考例句:
  • demons torturing the sinners in Hell 地狱里折磨罪人的魔鬼
  • He is plagued by demons which go back to his traumatic childhood. 他为心魔所困扰,那可追溯至他饱受创伤的童年。 来自《简明英汉词典》
29 interpretation P5jxQ     
n.解释,说明,描述;艺术处理
参考例句:
  • His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
  • Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。
30 eyewitness VlVxj     
n.目击者,见证人
参考例句:
  • The police questioned several eyewitness to the murder.警察询问了谋杀案的几位目击者。
  • He was the only eyewitness of the robbery.他是那起抢劫案的唯一目击者。
31 ERECTED ERECTED     
adj. 直立的,竖立的,笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立,建立
参考例句:
  • A monument to him was erected in St Paul's Cathedral. 在圣保罗大教堂为他修了一座纪念碑。
  • A monument was erected to the memory of that great scientist. 树立了一块纪念碑纪念那位伟大的科学家。
32 guardian 8ekxv     
n.监护人;守卫者,保护者
参考例句:
  • The form must be signed by the child's parents or guardian. 这张表格须由孩子的家长或监护人签字。
  • The press is a guardian of the public weal. 报刊是公共福利的卫护者。
33 immured 8727048a152406d66991e43b6eeaa1c8     
v.禁闭,监禁( immure的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • She was like a prisoner so long immured that freedom dazes him. 她象一个长年累月被关闭的囚犯,自由使她迷乱茫然。 来自辞典例句
  • He immured himself in a small room to work undisturbed. 他自己关在小屋里埋头工作,以免受到骚扰。 来自辞典例句
34 consecrated consecrated     
adj.神圣的,被视为神圣的v.把…奉为神圣,给…祝圣( consecrate的过去式和过去分词 );奉献
参考例句:
  • The church was consecrated in 1853. 这座教堂于1853年祝圣。
  • They consecrated a temple to their god. 他们把庙奉献给神。 来自《简明英汉词典》
35 consecrate 6Yzzq     
v.使圣化,奉…为神圣;尊崇;奉献
参考例句:
  • Consecrate your life to the church.把你的生命奉献给教堂吧。
  • The priest promised God he would consecrate his life to helping the poor.牧师对上帝允诺他将献身帮助穷人。
36 dyke 1krzI     
n.堤,水坝,排水沟
参考例句:
  • If one sheep leap over the dyke,all the rest will follow.一只羊跳过沟,其余的羊也跟着跳。
  • One ant-hole may cause the collapse of a thousand-li dyke.千里长堤,溃于蚁穴。
37 peculiar cinyo     
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的
参考例句:
  • He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
  • He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。
38 nominally a449bd0900819694017a87f9891f2cff     
在名义上,表面地; 应名儿
参考例句:
  • Dad, nominally a Methodist, entered Churches only for weddings and funerals. 爸名义上是卫理公会教徒,可只去教堂参加婚礼和葬礼。
  • The company could not indicate a person even nominally responsible for staff training. 该公司甚至不能指出一个名义上负责职员培训的人。
39 scruple eDOz7     
n./v.顾忌,迟疑
参考例句:
  • It'seemed to her now that she could marry him without the remnant of a scruple.她觉得现在她可以跟他成婚而不需要有任何顾忌。
  • He makes no scruple to tell a lie.他说起谎来无所顾忌。
40 monastery 2EOxe     
n.修道院,僧院,寺院
参考例句:
  • They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
  • She was appointed the superior of the monastery two years ago.两年前她被任命为这个修道院的院长。
41 noted 5n4zXc     
adj.著名的,知名的
参考例句:
  • The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
  • Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。
42 mortar 9EsxR     
n.灰浆,灰泥;迫击炮;v.把…用灰浆涂接合
参考例句:
  • The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
  • The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。
43 embedded lt9ztS     
a.扎牢的
参考例句:
  • an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
  • He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。
44 variant GfuzRt     
adj.不同的,变异的;n.变体,异体
参考例句:
  • We give professional suggestions according to variant tanning stages for each customer.我们针对每位顾客不同的日晒阶段,提供强度适合的晒黑建议。
  • In a variant of this approach,the tests are data- driven.这个方法的一个变种,是数据驱动的测试。
45 absolve LIeyN     
v.赦免,解除(责任等)
参考例句:
  • I absolve you,on the ground of invincible ignorance.鉴于你不可救药的无知,我原谅你。
  • They agree to absolve you from your obligation.他们同意免除你的责任。
46 beguiled f25585f8de5e119077c49118f769e600     
v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 );使陶醉;使高兴;消磨(时间等)
参考例句:
  • She beguiled them into believing her version of events. 她哄骗他们相信了她叙述的事情。
  • He beguiled me into signing this contract. 他诱骗我签订了这项合同。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
47 legendary u1Vxg     
adj.传奇(中)的,闻名遐迩的;n.传奇(文学)
参考例句:
  • Legendary stories are passed down from parents to children.传奇故事是由父母传给孩子们的。
  • Odysseus was a legendary Greek hero.奥狄修斯是传说中的希腊英雄。
48 vault 3K3zW     
n.拱形圆顶,地窖,地下室
参考例句:
  • The vault of this cathedral is very high.这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
  • The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。
49 fortress Mf2zz     
n.堡垒,防御工事
参考例句:
  • They made an attempt on a fortress.他们试图夺取这一要塞。
  • The soldier scaled the wall of the fortress by turret.士兵通过塔车攀登上了要塞的城墙。
50 wrought EoZyr     
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的
参考例句:
  • Events in Paris wrought a change in British opinion towards France and Germany.巴黎发生的事件改变了英国对法国和德国的看法。
  • It's a walking stick with a gold head wrought in the form of a flower.那是一个金质花形包头的拐杖。
51 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
52 virgin phPwj     
n.处女,未婚女子;adj.未经使用的;未经开发的
参考例句:
  • Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗?
  • There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。
53 primitive vSwz0     
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物
参考例句:
  • It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
  • His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。
54 vow 0h9wL     
n.誓(言),誓约;v.起誓,立誓
参考例句:
  • My parents are under a vow to go to church every Sunday.我父母许愿,每星期日都去做礼拜。
  • I am under a vow to drink no wine.我已立誓戒酒。
55 moorish 7f328536fad334de99af56e40a379603     
adj.沼地的,荒野的,生[住]在沼地的
参考例句:
  • There was great excitement among the Moorish people at the waterside. 海边的摩尔人一阵轰动。 来自辞典例句
  • All the doors are arched with the special arch we see in Moorish pictures. 门户造成拱形,形状独特,跟摩尔风暴画片里所见的一样。 来自辞典例句
56 nuns ce03d5da0bb9bc79f7cd2b229ef14d4a     
n.(通常指基督教的)修女, (佛教的)尼姑( nun的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Ah Q had always had the greatest contempt for such people as little nuns. 小尼姑之流是阿Q本来视如草芥的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • Nuns are under vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. 修女须立誓保持清贫、贞洁、顺从。 来自辞典例句
57 wrath nVNzv     
n.愤怒,愤慨,暴怒
参考例句:
  • His silence marked his wrath. 他的沉默表明了他的愤怒。
  • The wrath of the people is now aroused. 人们被激怒了。
58 hesitation tdsz5     
n.犹豫,踌躇
参考例句:
  • After a long hesitation, he told the truth at last.踌躇了半天,他终于直说了。
  • There was a certain hesitation in her manner.她的态度有些犹豫不决。
59 relic 4V2xd     
n.神圣的遗物,遗迹,纪念物
参考例句:
  • This stone axe is a relic of ancient times.这石斧是古代的遗物。
  • He found himself thinking of the man as a relic from the past.他把这个男人看成是过去时代的人物。
60 slaughtered 59ed88f0d23c16f58790fb11c4a5055d     
v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • The invading army slaughtered a lot of people. 侵略军杀了许多人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Hundreds of innocent civilians were cruelly slaughtered. 数百名无辜平民遭残杀。 来自《简明英汉词典》
61 slaughter 8Tpz1     
n.屠杀,屠宰;vt.屠杀,宰杀
参考例句:
  • I couldn't stand to watch them slaughter the cattle.我不忍看他们宰牛。
  • Wholesale slaughter was carried out in the name of progress.大规模的屠杀在维护进步的名义下进行。
62 rite yCmzq     
n.典礼,惯例,习俗
参考例句:
  • This festival descends from a religious rite.这个节日起源于宗教仪式。
  • Most traditional societies have transition rites at puberty.大多数传统社会都为青春期的孩子举行成人礼。
63 enticed e343c8812ee0e250a29e7b0ccd6b8a2c     
诱惑,怂恿( entice的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He enticed his former employer into another dice game. 他挑逗他原来的老板再赌一次掷骰子。
  • Consumers are courted, enticed, and implored by sellers of goods and services. 消费者受到商品和劳务出售者奉承,劝诱和央求。
64 languish K9Mze     
vi.变得衰弱无力,失去活力,(植物等)凋萎
参考例句:
  • Without the founder's drive and direction,the company gradually languished.没有了创始人的斗志与指引,公司逐渐走向没落。
  • New products languish on the drawing board.新产品在计划阶段即告失败。
65 edifice kqgxv     
n.宏伟的建筑物(如宫殿,教室)
参考例句:
  • The American consulate was a magnificent edifice in the centre of Bordeaux.美国领事馆是位于波尔多市中心的一座宏伟的大厦。
  • There is a huge Victorian edifice in the area.该地区有一幢维多利亚式的庞大建筑物。
66 coffin XWRy7     
n.棺材,灵柩
参考例句:
  • When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
  • The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。
67 derivative iwXxI     
n.派(衍)生物;adj.非独创性的,模仿他人的
参考例句:
  • His paintings are really quite derivative.他的画实在没有创意。
  • Derivative works are far more complicated.派生作品更加复杂。
68 treatises 9ff9125c93810e8709abcafe0c3289ca     
n.专题著作,专题论文,专著( treatise的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Many treatises in different languages have been published on pigeons. 关于鸽类的著作,用各种文字写的很多。 来自辞典例句
  • Many other treatises incorporated the new rigor. 许多其它的专题论文体现了新的严密性。 来自辞典例句
69 superseded 382fa69b4a5ff1a290d502df1ee98010     
[医]被代替的,废弃的
参考例句:
  • The theory has been superseded by more recent research. 这一理论已为新近的研究所取代。
  • The use of machinery has superseded manual labour. 机器的使用已经取代了手工劳动。
70 rites 5026f3cfef698ee535d713fec44bcf27     
仪式,典礼( rite的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • to administer the last rites to sb 给某人举行临终圣事
  • He is interested in mystic rites and ceremonies. 他对神秘的仪式感兴趣。
71 briefly 9Styo     
adv.简单地,简短地
参考例句:
  • I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
  • He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。
72 sneered 0e3b5b35e54fb2ad006040792a867d9f     
讥笑,冷笑( sneer的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He sneered at people who liked pop music. 他嘲笑喜欢流行音乐的人。
  • It's very discouraging to be sneered at all the time. 成天受嘲讽是很令人泄气的。
73 epithet QZHzY     
n.(用于褒贬人物等的)表述形容词,修饰语
参考例句:
  • In "Alfred the Great","the Great"is an epithet.“阿尔弗雷德大帝”中的“大帝”是个称号。
  • It is an epithet that sums up my feelings.这是一个简洁地表达了我思想感情的形容词。
74 pier U22zk     
n.码头;桥墩,桥柱;[建]窗间壁,支柱
参考例句:
  • The pier of the bridge has been so badly damaged that experts worry it is unable to bear weight.这座桥的桥桩破损厉害,专家担心它已不能负重。
  • The ship was making towards the pier.船正驶向码头。
75 skull CETyO     
n.头骨;颅骨
参考例句:
  • The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
  • He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去,跌裂了颅骨。
76 mythical 4FrxJ     
adj.神话的;虚构的;想像的
参考例句:
  • Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认,他是一个神话般的人物。
  • Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。
77 annually VzYzNO     
adv.一年一次,每年
参考例句:
  • Many migratory birds visit this lake annually.许多候鸟每年到这个湖上作短期逗留。
  • They celebrate their wedding anniversary annually.他们每年庆祝一番结婚纪念日。
78 maiden yRpz7     
n.少女,处女;adj.未婚的,纯洁的,无经验的
参考例句:
  • The prince fell in love with a fair young maiden.王子爱上了一位年轻美丽的少女。
  • The aircraft makes its maiden flight tomorrow.这架飞机明天首航。
79 antiquity SNuzc     
n.古老;高龄;古物,古迹
参考例句:
  • The museum contains the remains of Chinese antiquity.博物馆藏有中国古代的遗物。
  • There are many legends about the heroes of antiquity.有许多关于古代英雄的传说。
80 renewal UtZyW     
adj.(契约)延期,续订,更新,复活,重来
参考例句:
  • Her contract is coming up for renewal in the autumn.她的合同秋天就应该续签了。
  • Easter eggs symbolize the renewal of life.复活蛋象征新生。
81 refinement kinyX     
n.文雅;高尚;精美;精制;精炼
参考例句:
  • Sally is a woman of great refinement and beauty. 莎莉是个温文尔雅又很漂亮的女士。
  • Good manners and correct speech are marks of refinement.彬彬有礼和谈吐得体是文雅的标志。
82 forum cilx0     
n.论坛,讨论会
参考例句:
  • They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
  • The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。
83 dedicated duHzy2     
adj.一心一意的;献身的;热诚的
参考例句:
  • He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
  • His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。
84 tribal ifwzzw     
adj.部族的,种族的
参考例句:
  • He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
  • The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。
85 slain slain     
杀死,宰杀,杀戮( slay的过去分词 ); (slay的过去分词)
参考例句:
  • The soldiers slain in the battle were burried that night. 在那天夜晚埋葬了在战斗中牺牲了的战士。
  • His boy was dead, slain by the hand of the false Amulius. 他的儿子被奸诈的阿缪利乌斯杀死了。
86 allied iLtys     
adj.协约国的;同盟国的
参考例句:
  • Britain was allied with the United States many times in history.历史上英国曾多次与美国结盟。
  • Allied forces sustained heavy losses in the first few weeks of the campaign.同盟国在最初几周内遭受了巨大的损失。
87 commemorate xbEyN     
vt.纪念,庆祝
参考例句:
  • This building was built to commemorate the Fire of London.这栋大楼是为纪念“伦敦大火”而兴建的。
  • We commemorate the founding of our nation with a public holiday.我们放假一日以庆祝国庆。
88 withering 8b1e725193ea9294ced015cd87181307     
使人畏缩的,使人害羞的,使人难堪的
参考例句:
  • She gave him a withering look. 她极其蔑视地看了他一眼。
  • The grass is gradually dried-up and withering and pallen leaves. 草渐渐干枯、枯萎并落叶。
89 consternation 8OfzB     
n.大为吃惊,惊骇
参考例句:
  • He was filled with consternation to hear that his friend was so ill.他听说朋友病得那么厉害,感到非常震惊。
  • Sam stared at him in consternation.萨姆惊恐不安地注视着他。
90 virgins 2d584d81af9df5624db4e51d856706e5     
处女,童男( virgin的名词复数 ); 童贞玛利亚(耶稣之母)
参考例句:
  • They were both virgins when they met and married. 他们从相识到结婚前都未曾经历男女之事。
  • Men want virgins as concubines. 人家买姨太太的要整货。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子
91 drooping drooping     
adj. 下垂的,无力的 动词droop的现在分词
参考例句:
  • The drooping willows are waving gently in the morning breeze. 晨风中垂柳袅袅。
  • The branches of the drooping willows were swaying lightly. 垂柳轻飘飘地摆动。
92 hue qdszS     
n.色度;色调;样子
参考例句:
  • The diamond shone with every hue under the sun.金刚石在阳光下放出五颜六色的光芒。
  • The same hue will look different in different light.同一颜色在不同的光线下看起来会有所不同。
93 embodied 12aaccf12ed540b26a8c02d23d463865     
v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 );象征;包括;包含
参考例句:
  • a politician who embodied the hopes of black youth 代表黑人青年希望的政治家
  • The heroic deeds of him embodied the glorious tradition of the troops. 他的英雄事迹体现了军队的光荣传统。 来自《简明英汉词典》
94 justified 7pSzrk     
a.正当的,有理的
参考例句:
  • She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
  • The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。
95 grill wQ8zb     
n.烤架,铁格子,烤肉;v.烧,烤,严加盘问
参考例句:
  • Put it under the grill for a minute to brown the top.放在烤架下烤一分钟把上面烤成金黄色。
  • I'll grill you some mutton.我来给你烤一些羊肉吃。
96 cannon 3T8yc     
n.大炮,火炮;飞机上的机关炮
参考例句:
  • The soldiers fired the cannon.士兵们开炮。
  • The cannon thundered in the hills.大炮在山间轰鸣。
97 defendant mYdzW     
n.被告;adj.处于被告地位的
参考例句:
  • The judge rejected a bribe from the defendant's family.法官拒收被告家属的贿赂。
  • The defendant was borne down by the weight of evidence.有力的证据使被告认输了。
98 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
99 hereditary fQJzF     
adj.遗传的,遗传性的,可继承的,世袭的
参考例句:
  • The Queen of England is a hereditary ruler.英国女王是世袭的统治者。
  • In men,hair loss is hereditary.男性脱发属于遗传。
100 jack 53Hxp     
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克
参考例句:
  • I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
  • He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。
101 tenure Uqjy2     
n.终身职位;任期;(土地)保有权,保有期
参考例句:
  • He remained popular throughout his tenure of the office of mayor.他在担任市长的整个任期内都深得民心。
  • Land tenure is a leading political issue in many parts of the world.土地的保有权在世界很多地区是主要的政治问题。
102 proceeding Vktzvu     
n.行动,进行,(pl.)会议录,学报
参考例句:
  • This train is now proceeding from Paris to London.这次列车从巴黎开往伦敦。
  • The work is proceeding briskly.工作很有生气地进展着。
103 scone chbyg     
n.圆饼,甜饼,司康饼
参考例句:
  • She eats scone every morning.她每天早上都吃甜饼。
  • Scone is said to be origined from Scotland.司康饼据说来源于苏格兰。
104 clans 107c1b7606090bbd951aa9bdcf1d209e     
宗族( clan的名词复数 ); 氏族; 庞大的家族; 宗派
参考例句:
  • There are many clans in European countries. 欧洲国家有很多党派。
  • The women were the great power among the clans [gentes], as everywhere else. 妇女在克兰〈氏族〉里,乃至一般在任何地方,都有很大的势力。 来自英汉非文学 - 家庭、私有制和国家的起源
105 sepulchral 9zWw7     
adj.坟墓的,阴深的
参考例句:
  • He made his way along the sepulchral corridors.他沿着阴森森的走廊走着。
  • There was a rather sepulchral atmosphere in the room.房间里有一种颇为阴沉的气氛。
106 beleaguered 91206cc7aa6944d764745938d913fa79     
adj.受到围困[围攻]的;包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词);困扰;骚扰
参考例句:
  • The beleaguered party leader was forced to resign. 那位饱受指责的政党领导人被迫辞职。
  • We are beleaguered by problems. 我们被许多困难所困扰。 来自《简明英汉词典》
107 holocaust dd5zE     
n.大破坏;大屠杀
参考例句:
  • The Auschwitz concentration camp always remind the world of the holocaust.奥辛威茨集中营总是让世人想起大屠杀。
  • Ahmadinejad is denying the holocaust because he's as brutal as Hitler was.内贾德否认大屠杀,因为他像希特勒一样残忍。
108 cremated 6f0548dafbb2758e70c4b263a81aa7cf     
v.火葬,火化(尸体)( cremate的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He wants to is cremated, not buried. 他要火葬,不要土葬。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The bodies were cremated on the shore. 他们的尸体在海边火化了。 来自辞典例句
109 cremating 22451dc0a7564ea20bedd7251f61abc0     
v.火葬,火化(尸体)( cremate的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • On April 19 sorrowing Japanese were cremating Admiral Yamamoto. 4月19日,哀伤的日本人把山本海军大将送进火海中去。 来自辞典例句
110 effigy Vjezy     
n.肖像
参考例句:
  • There the effigy stands,and stares from age to age across the changing ocean.雕像依然耸立在那儿,千秋万载地凝视着那变幻无常的大海。
  • The deposed dictator was burned in effigy by the crowd.群众焚烧退位独裁者的模拟像。
111 mere rC1xE     
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过
参考例句:
  • That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
  • It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。
112 peril l3Dz6     
n.(严重的)危险;危险的事物
参考例句:
  • The refugees were in peril of death from hunger.难民有饿死的危险。
  • The embankment is in great peril.河堤岌岌可危。
113 auxiliary RuKzm     
adj.辅助的,备用的
参考例句:
  • I work in an auxiliary unit.我在一家附属单位工作。
  • The hospital has an auxiliary power system in case of blackout.这家医院装有备用发电系统以防灯火管制。
114 deities f904c4643685e6b83183b1154e6a97c2     
n.神,女神( deity的名词复数 );神祗;神灵;神明
参考例句:
  • Zeus and Aphrodite were ancient Greek deities. 宙斯和阿佛洛狄是古希腊的神。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Taoist Wang hesitated occasionally about these transactions for fearof offending the deities. 道士也有过犹豫,怕这样会得罪了神。 来自汉英文学 - 现代散文
115 ransom tTYx9     
n.赎金,赎身;v.赎回,解救
参考例句:
  • We'd better arrange the ransom right away.我们最好马上把索取赎金的事安排好。
  • The kidnappers exacted a ransom of 10000 from the family.绑架者向这家人家勒索10000英镑的赎金。
116 avenging 4c436498f794cbaf30fc9a4ef601cf7b     
adj.报仇的,复仇的v.为…复仇,报…之仇( avenge的现在分词 );为…报复
参考例句:
  • He has devoted the past five years to avenging his daughter's death. 他过去5年一心报丧女之仇。 来自辞典例句
  • His disfigured face was like some avenging nemesis of gargoyle design. 他那张破了相的脸,活象面目狰狞的复仇之神。 来自辞典例句
117 gloss gloss     
n.光泽,光滑;虚饰;注释;vt.加光泽于;掩饰
参考例句:
  • John tried in vain to gloss over his faults.约翰极力想掩饰自己的缺点,但是没有用。
  • She rubbed up the silver plates to a high gloss.她把银盘擦得很亮。
118 calamity nsizM     
n.灾害,祸患,不幸事件
参考例句:
  • Even a greater natural calamity cannot daunt us. 再大的自然灾害也压不垮我们。
  • The attack on Pearl Harbor was a crushing calamity.偷袭珍珠港(对美军来说)是一场毁灭性的灾难。
119 besieged 8e843b35d28f4ceaf67a4da1f3a21399     
包围,围困,围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • Paris was besieged for four months and forced to surrender. 巴黎被围困了四个月后被迫投降。
  • The community besieged the newspaper with letters about its recent editorial. 公众纷纷来信对报社新近发表的社论提出诘问,弄得报社应接不暇。
120 brazen Id1yY     
adj.厚脸皮的,无耻的,坚硬的
参考例句:
  • The brazen woman laughed loudly at the judge who sentenced her.那无耻的女子冲着给她判刑的法官高声大笑。
  • Some people prefer to brazen a thing out rather than admit defeat.有的人不愿承认失败,而是宁肯厚着脸皮干下去。
121 fiery ElEye     
adj.燃烧着的,火红的;暴躁的;激烈的
参考例句:
  • She has fiery red hair.她有一头火红的头发。
  • His fiery speech agitated the crowd.他热情洋溢的讲话激动了群众。
122 cultivation cnfzl     
n.耕作,培养,栽培(法),养成
参考例句:
  • The cultivation in good taste is our main objective.培养高雅情趣是我们的主要目标。
  • The land is not fertile enough to repay cultivation.这块土地不够肥沃,不值得耕种。
123 doctrine Pkszt     
n.教义;主义;学说
参考例句:
  • He was impelled to proclaim his doctrine.他不得不宣扬他的教义。
  • The council met to consider changes to doctrine.宗教议会开会考虑更改教义。
124 commemorated 5095d6b593f459f1eacbc41739a5f72f     
v.纪念,庆祝( commemorate的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • Lincoln commemorated the soldiers killed in the battle in his address. 林肯在演说中表扬阵亡将士。 来自辞典例句
  • You'll be commemorated for killing a spy, and be specially discharged. 你们每杀一个间谍将会被记录到特殊档案。 来自电影对白
125 expiation a80c49513e840be0ae3a8e585f1f2d7e     
n.赎罪,补偿
参考例句:
  • 'served him right,'said Drouet afterward, even in view of her keen expiation of her error. “那是他活该,"这一场结束时杜洛埃说,尽管那个妻子已竭力要赎前愆。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
  • Jesus made expiation for our sins on the cross. 耶稣在十字架上为我们赎了罪。 来自互联网
126 undoubtedly Mfjz6l     
adv.确实地,无疑地
参考例句:
  • It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
  • He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。
127 ethical diIz4     
adj.伦理的,道德的,合乎道德的
参考例句:
  • It is necessary to get the youth to have a high ethical concept.必须使青年具有高度的道德观念。
  • It was a debate which aroused fervent ethical arguments.那是一场引发强烈的伦理道德争论的辩论。
128 fortresses 0431acf60619033fe5f4e5a0520d82d7     
堡垒,要塞( fortress的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • They will establish impregnable fortresses. 他们将建造坚不可摧的城堡。
  • Indra smashed through Vritra ninety-nine fortresses, and then came upon the dragon. 因陀罗摧毁了维他的九十九座城堡,然后与维他交手。 来自神话部分
129 devoted xu9zka     
adj.忠诚的,忠实的,热心的,献身于...的
参考例句:
  • He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
  • We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。
130 warship OMtzl     
n.军舰,战舰
参考例句:
  • He is serving on a warship in the Pacific.他在太平洋海域的一艘军舰上服役。
  • The warship was making towards the pier.军舰正驶向码头。
131 lashed 4385e23a53a7428fb973b929eed1bce6     
adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 );煽动;紧系;怒斥
参考例句:
  • The rain lashed at the windows. 雨点猛烈地打在窗户上。
  • The cleverly designed speech lashed the audience into a frenzy. 这篇精心设计的演说煽动听众使他们发狂。 来自《简明英汉词典》
132 galley rhwxE     
n.(飞机或船上的)厨房单层甲板大帆船;军舰舰长用的大划艇;
参考例句:
  • The stewardess will get you some water from the galley.空姐会从厨房给你拿些水来。
  • Visitors can also go through the large galley where crew members got their meals.游客还可以穿过船员们用餐的厨房。
133 spurting a2d085105541371ecab02a95a075b1d7     
(液体,火焰等)喷出,(使)涌出( spurt的现在分词 ); (短暂地)加速前进,冲刺; 溅射
参考例句:
  • Blood was spurting from her nose. 血从她鼻子里汩汩流出来。
  • The volcano was spurting out rivers of molten lava. 火山喷涌着熔岩。
134 planks 534a8a63823ed0880db6e2c2bc03ee4a     
(厚)木板( plank的名词复数 ); 政纲条目,政策要点
参考例句:
  • The house was built solidly of rough wooden planks. 这房子是用粗木板牢固地建造的。
  • We sawed the log into planks. 我们把木头锯成了木板。
135 vessel 4L1zi     
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管
参考例句:
  • The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
  • You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。
136 prow T00zj     
n.(飞机)机头,船头
参考例句:
  • The prow of the motor-boat cut through the water like a knife.汽艇的船头像一把刀子劈开水面向前行驶。
  • He stands on the prow looking at the seadj.他站在船首看着大海。
137 virtue BpqyH     
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力
参考例句:
  • He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
  • You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。
138 idols 7c4d4984658a95fbb8bbc091e42b97b9     
偶像( idol的名词复数 ); 受崇拜的人或物; 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物; 神像
参考例句:
  • The genii will give evidence against those who have worshipped idols. 魔怪将提供证据来反对那些崇拜偶像的人。 来自英汉非文学 - 文明史
  • Teenagers are very sequacious and they often emulate the behavior of their idols. 青少年非常盲从,经常模仿他们的偶像的行为。
139 liberated YpRzMi     
a.无拘束的,放纵的
参考例句:
  • The city was liberated by the advancing army. 军队向前挺进,解放了那座城市。
  • The heat brings about a chemical reaction, and oxygen is liberated. 热量引起化学反应,释放出氧气。
140 essentially nntxw     
adv.本质上,实质上,基本上
参考例句:
  • Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
  • She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。
141 smeared c767e97773b70cc726f08526efd20e83     
弄脏; 玷污; 涂抹; 擦上
参考例句:
  • The children had smeared mud on the walls. 那几个孩子往墙上抹了泥巴。
  • A few words were smeared. 有写字被涂模糊了。
142 savage ECxzR     
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人
参考例句:
  • The poor man received a savage beating from the thugs.那可怜的人遭到暴徒的痛打。
  • He has a savage temper.他脾气粗暴。
143 precludes a6099ad5ef93a1df2eb33804a8db6373     
v.阻止( preclude的第三人称单数 );排除;妨碍;使…行不通
参考例句:
  • Lack of time precludes any further discussion. 由于时间不足,不可能进行深入的讨论。
  • The surface reactivity of many nonblack fillers generally precludes strong bonding with this type of matrix. 许多非碳黑填料的表面反应性一般阻碍与该种基质形成牢固的粘结。 来自辞典例句
144 dart oydxK     
v.猛冲,投掷;n.飞镖,猛冲
参考例句:
  • The child made a sudden dart across the road.那小孩突然冲过马路。
  • Markov died after being struck by a poison dart.马尔科夫身中毒镖而亡。
145 interfere b5lx0     
v.(in)干涉,干预;(with)妨碍,打扰
参考例句:
  • If we interfere, it may do more harm than good.如果我们干预的话,可能弊多利少。
  • When others interfere in the affair,it always makes troubles. 别人一卷入这一事件,棘手的事情就来了。
146 eluding 157b23fced3268b9668f3a73dc5fde30     
v.(尤指机敏地)避开( elude的现在分词 );逃避;躲避;使达不到
参考例句:
  • He saw no way of eluding Featherstone's stupid demand. 费瑟斯通的愚蠢要求使他走投无路。 来自辞典例句
  • The fox succeeded in eluding the hunters. 这狐狸成功地避过了猎手。 来自辞典例句
147 doom gsexJ     
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定
参考例句:
  • The report on our economic situation is full of doom and gloom.这份关于我们经济状况的报告充满了令人绝望和沮丧的调子。
  • The dictator met his doom after ten years of rule.独裁者统治了十年终于完蛋了。
148 peg p3Fzi     
n.木栓,木钉;vt.用木钉钉,用短桩固定
参考例句:
  • Hang your overcoat on the peg in the hall.把你的大衣挂在门厅的挂衣钩上。
  • He hit the peg mightily on the top with a mallet.他用木槌猛敲木栓顶。
149 grove v5wyy     
n.林子,小树林,园林
参考例句:
  • On top of the hill was a grove of tall trees.山顶上一片高大的树林。
  • The scent of lemons filled the grove.柠檬香味充满了小树林。
150 quenched dae604e1ea7cf81e688b2bffd9b9f2c4     
解(渴)( quench的过去式和过去分词 ); 终止(某事物); (用水)扑灭(火焰等); 将(热物体)放入水中急速冷却
参考例句:
  • He quenched his thirst with a long drink of cold water. 他喝了好多冷水解渴。
  • I quenched my thirst with a glass of cold beer. 我喝了一杯冰啤酒解渴。
151 corruption TzCxn     
n.腐败,堕落,贪污
参考例句:
  • The people asked the government to hit out against corruption and theft.人民要求政府严惩贪污盗窃。
  • The old man reviled against corruption.那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。
152 analogue SLryQ     
n.类似物;同源语
参考例句:
  • The gill of a fish is the analogue of the lung of a cat.鱼的鳃和猫的肺是类似物。
  • But aside from that analogue standby,the phone, videoconferencing is their favorite means of communication.除了备用的相似物电话,可视对话是他们最喜欢的沟通手段。
153 hind Cyoya     
adj.后面的,后部的
参考例句:
  • The animal is able to stand up on its hind limbs.这种动物能够用后肢站立。
  • Don't hind her in her studies.不要在学业上扯她后腿。
154 mythology I6zzV     
n.神话,神话学,神话集
参考例句:
  • In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中,宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
  • He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。
155 intensify S5Pxe     
vt.加强;变强;加剧
参考例句:
  • We must intensify our educational work among our own troops.我们必须加强自己部队的教育工作。
  • They were ordered to intensify their patrols to protect our air space.他们奉命加强巡逻,保卫我国的领空。
156 Neptune LNezw     
n.海王星
参考例句:
  • Neptune is the furthest planet from the sun.海王星是离太阳最远的行星。
  • Neptune turned out to be a dynamic,stormy world.海王星原来是个有生气、多风暴的世界。
157 abode hIby0     
n.住处,住所
参考例句:
  • It was ten months before my father discovered his abode.父亲花了十个月的功夫,才好不容易打听到他的住处。
  • Welcome to our humble abode!欢迎光临寒舍!
158 remains 1kMzTy     
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹
参考例句:
  • He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
  • The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。
159 mosaic CEExS     
n./adj.镶嵌细工的,镶嵌工艺品的,嵌花式的
参考例句:
  • The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
  • The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。
160 drawn MuXzIi     
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的
参考例句:
  • All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
  • Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。
161 infested f7396944f0992504a7691e558eca6411     
adj.为患的,大批滋生的(常与with搭配)v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 );遍布于
参考例句:
  • The kitchen was infested with ants. 厨房里到处是蚂蚁。
  • The apartments were infested with rats and roaches. 公寓里面到处都是老鼠和蟑螂。
162 reindeer WBfzw     
n.驯鹿
参考例句:
  • The herd of reindeer was being trailed by a pack of wolves.那群驯鹿被一只狼群寻踪追赶上来。
  • The life of the Reindeer men was a frontier life.驯鹿时代人的生活是一种边区生活。
163 scanty ZDPzx     
adj.缺乏的,仅有的,节省的,狭小的,不够的
参考例句:
  • There is scanty evidence to support their accusations.他们的指控证据不足。
  • The rainfall was rather scanty this month.这个月的雨量不足。
164 prey g1czH     
n.被掠食者,牺牲者,掠食;v.捕食,掠夺,折磨
参考例句:
  • Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
  • The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。
165 hatred T5Gyg     
n.憎恶,憎恨,仇恨
参考例句:
  • He looked at me with hatred in his eyes.他以憎恨的眼光望着我。
  • The old man was seized with burning hatred for the fascists.老人对法西斯主义者充满了仇恨。
166 envisaged 40d5ad82152f6e596b8f8c766f0778db     
想像,设想( envisage的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He envisaged an old age of loneliness and poverty. 他面对着一个孤独而贫困的晚年。
  • Henry Ford envisaged an important future for the motor car. 亨利·福特为汽车设想了一个远大前程。
167 warriors 3116036b00d464eee673b3a18dfe1155     
武士,勇士,战士( warrior的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • I like reading the stories ofancient warriors. 我喜欢读有关古代武士的故事。
  • The warriors speared the man to death. 武士们把那个男子戳死了。
168 hostilities 4c7c8120f84e477b36887af736e0eb31     
n.战争;敌意(hostility的复数);敌对状态;战事
参考例句:
  • Mexico called for an immediate cessation of hostilities. 墨西哥要求立即停止敌对行动。
  • All the old hostilities resurfaced when they met again. 他们再次碰面时,过去的种种敌意又都冒了出来。
169 guilt 9e6xr     
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责
参考例句:
  • She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
  • Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。
170 severed 832a75b146a8d9eacac9030fd16c0222     
v.切断,断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 );断,裂
参考例句:
  • The doctor said I'd severed a vessel in my leg. 医生说我割断了腿上的一根血管。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • We have severed diplomatic relations with that country. 我们与那个国家断绝了外交关系。 来自《简明英汉词典》
171 graphic Aedz7     
adj.生动的,形象的,绘画的,文字的,图表的
参考例句:
  • The book gave a graphic description of the war.这本书生动地描述了战争的情况。
  • Distinguish important text items in lists with graphic icons.用图标来区分重要的文本项。
172 gulf 1e0xp     
n.海湾;深渊,鸿沟;分歧,隔阂
参考例句:
  • The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
  • There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。
173 inflexible xbZz7     
adj.不可改变的,不受影响的,不屈服的
参考例句:
  • Charles was a man of settled habits and inflexible routine.查尔斯是一个恪守习惯、生活规律不容打乱的人。
  • The new plastic is completely inflexible.这种新塑料是完全不可弯曲的。
174 reiteration 0ee42f99b9dea0668dcb54375b6551c4     
n. 重覆, 反覆, 重说
参考例句:
  • The reiteration of this figure, more than anything else, wrecked the conservative chance of coming back. 重申这数字,比其它任何事情更能打消保守党重新上台的机会。
  • The final statement is just a reiteration of U.S. policy on Taiwan. 艾瑞里?最后一个声明只是重复宣读美国对台政策。
175 immolated c66eab4fb039b12ada827ae8a5788d98     
v.宰杀…作祭品( immolate的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • The Aztecs immolated human victims. 阿兹特克人牺牲真人来祭祀。 来自互联网
  • Several members immolated themselves in Tiananmen Square, an incident that Falun Gong claims was fabricated. 几个学员在天安门广场自焚,法轮功认为这个事件是编造的。 来自互联网
176 Saturns f31f9ada8c4f0858650fec304486d99e     
n.土星( Saturn的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • This one concerned the possibility of life on Saturns largest moon, Titan. 这次有关生命存在的发现地是土星最大的卫星—土卫六。 来自互联网
  • That, he says, gives Saturns now-frigid moon all of the elements it needs for life. 而这,将会赋予这颗目前冰冷的土星月亮以生命所必需的一切元素。 来自互联网
177 applied Tz2zXA     
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用
参考例句:
  • She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
  • This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。
178 apparently tMmyQ     
adv.显然地;表面上,似乎
参考例句:
  • An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽,豁然开朗。
  • He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。
179 hurled 16e3a6ba35b6465e1376a4335ae25cd2     
v.猛投,用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 );大声叫骂
参考例句:
  • He hurled a brick through the window. 他往窗户里扔了块砖。
  • The strong wind hurled down bits of the roof. 大风把屋顶的瓦片刮了下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
180 broached 6e5998583239ddcf6fbeee2824e41081     
v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 );打开并开始用;用凿子扩大(或修光);(在桶上)钻孔取液体
参考例句:
  • She broached the subject of a picnic to her mother. 她向母亲提起野餐的问题。 来自辞典例句
  • He broached the subject to the stranger. 他对陌生人提起那话题。 来自辞典例句
181 slaughtering 303e79b6fadb94c384e21f6b9f287a62     
v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • The Revolutionary Tribunal went to work, and a steady slaughtering began. 革命法庭投入工作,持续不断的大屠杀开始了。 来自英汉非文学 - 历史
  • \"Isn't it terrific slaughtering pigs? “宰猪的! 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说
182 erecting 57913eb4cb611f2f6ed8e369fcac137d     
v.使直立,竖起( erect的现在分词 );建立
参考例句:
  • Nations can restrict their foreign trade by erecting barriers to exports as well as imports. 象设置进口壁垒那样,各国可以通过设置出口壁垒来限制对外贸易。 来自辞典例句
  • Could you tell me the specific lift-slab procedure for erecting buildings? 能否告之用升板法安装楼房的具体程序? 来自互联网
183 scourged 491857c1b2cb3d503af3674ddd7c53bc     
鞭打( scourge的过去式和过去分词 ); 惩罚,压迫
参考例句:
  • He was scourged by the memory of his misdeeds. 他对以往的胡作非为的回忆使得他精神上受惩罚。
  • Captain White scourged his crew without mercy. 船长怀特无情地鞭挞船员。
184 glibly glibly     
adv.流利地,流畅地;满口
参考例句:
  • He glibly professed his ignorance of the affair. 他口口声声表白不知道这件事。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • He put ashes on his head, apologized profusely, but then went glibly about his business. 他表示忏悔,满口道歉,但接着又故态复萌了。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
185 sufficiently 0htzMB     
adv.足够地,充分地
参考例句:
  • It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
  • The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。
186 underlying 5fyz8c     
adj.在下面的,含蓄的,潜在的
参考例句:
  • The underlying theme of the novel is very serious.小说隐含的主题是十分严肃的。
  • This word has its underlying meaning.这个单词有它潜在的含义。
187 martyrs d8bbee63cb93081c5677dc671dc968fc     
n.martyr的复数形式;烈士( martyr的名词复数 );殉道者;殉教者;乞怜者(向人诉苦以博取同情)
参考例句:
  • the early Christian martyrs 早期基督教殉道者
  • They paid their respects to the revolutionary martyrs. 他们向革命烈士致哀。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
188 minor e7fzR     
adj.较小(少)的,较次要的;n.辅修学科;vi.辅修
参考例句:
  • The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
  • I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。
189 graphically fa7a601fa23ba87c5471b396302c84f4     
adv.通过图表;生动地,轮廓分明地
参考例句:
  • This data is shown graphically on the opposite page. 对页以图表显示这些数据。
  • The data can be represented graphically in a line diagram. 这些数据可以用单线图表现出来。 来自《简明英汉词典》


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