“Never the Sun that giveth light to men
Looks down upon them with his golden eye,{v.ii-79}
Slope toward the earth he wheels adown the sky;
But sad night weighs upon them wearily.”
They reached the spot, says Ulysses, described to him at parting by Circe, where the dark rivers Acheron and Cocytus mix at the entrance into Hades. The incantations which she had carefully enjoined7 were duly made; a black ram8 and ewe were offered to the powers of darkness, and their blood poured into the trench9 which he had dug—“a cubit every way.”
Brides in their bloom cut off, and youths unwed,
Pierced by the sharp sword on the death-plain red.
But he had been charged by Circe not to allow the ghastly crew to slake21 their thirst, until he had evoked22 the shade of Tiresias, the blind prophet of Thebes, who retained his art and his honours even in these regions of the dead. So he kept them off with his sword,—not suffering even the phantom of his dead mother Anticleia, who came among the rest, to taste, until the great prophet appeared, leaning on his golden staff.
He stooped, and with his shadowy lips made shrink
The sacrificial pool that darkling lay
Beneath him.”
{v.ii-80}
From the lips of Tiresias Ulysses has learnt the future which awaits him. On the coast of Sicily he should find pasturing the herds25 and flocks of the Sun: if he and his comrades left them uninjured, they should soon see again their native Ithaca; if they laid sacrilegious hands on them, he alone should escape, and reach home after long suffering.
The shade of his mother has been sitting meanwhile in gloomy silence, eyeing the coveted26 blood. Not until she had drank of it might she open her lips to speak, or have power to recognise her son. To his eager inquiries27 as to her own fate and that of his father Laertes she made answer that she herself had died of grief, and that the old man was wearing out a joyless life in bitter anxiety.
“Therewith she ended, and a deep unrest
Urged me to clasp the spirit of the dead,
Thrice I essayed, with eager hands out-spread
Thrice like a shadow or a dream she fled,
And my hands closed on unsubstantial air.”
As they talked together, there swept forth out of the gloom a crowd of female shapes—the mothers of the mighty29 men of old. There came Tyro30, beloved by the sea-god Neptune31, from whom sprang Neleus, father of Nestor: next followed Antiope, who bore to Jupiter Amphion and Zethus, who built the seven-gated Thebes; Iphimedeia, mother of the giants Otus and Ephialtes, who strove to take heaven itself by storm; Alcmena, Leda, Ariadne, and a crowd of the heroines of Greek romance, who had found the loves of the gods{v.ii-81} more or less disastrous32 in their earthly lot, and who were reaping, in the gloomy immortality33 which the poet assigns them, such consolation34 as they might from knowing themselves the mothers of heroes.
Here Ulysses would have ended his tale, and for a while a charmed silence falls upon his Ph?acian audience. But the king would hear more. Did he see, in the realms of the dead, no one of those renowned champions who had fought with him at Troy?
Yes—if his host cares to listen, Ulysses can tell him a sad tale of some of his old comrades. He saw the great Agamemnon there, and heard from his lips the treachery of the adulterous Clytemnestra. Antilochus and Patroclus, too, he had recognised, and Ajax; but the latter, retaining in the world below the animosities of earthly life, had stood far aloof35, and sullenly36 refused to speak a word in answer to his successful rival. The only one who reveals anything of the secrets of his prison-house is Achilles. He asks of his adventurous37 visitor what has prompted him to risk this intrusion into the gloomy dwelling38, where the dead live indeed, but without thought or purpose, mere39 shadows of what they were. And when Ulysses attempts to comfort him with the thought of the deathless glory which surrounds his name, the hopelessness of his answer sets forth, in the darkest colours, that gloomy view of human destiny which breaks out from time to time in the creed of the poet, and which belongs to the character of his favourite hero. Whether the Odyssey40 did or did not come from the same hand as the Iliad, at least Achilles is the same in both. In the former poem we{v.ii-82} find him indulging in all the mournful irony41 of the Hebrew Preacher, in his perplexed42 thought before he was led to “the conclusion of the whole matter”—complaining, like him, that “one event happeneth to all,” and that “the wise man dieth as the fool;” that he, the bravest and most beautiful of living heroes, would have to meet the same lot as his victim Lycaon; so here, in the Odyssey, he adopts the text that “a living dog is better than a dead lion:”—
“Rather would I, in the sun’s warmth divine,
Than the whole lordship of the dead were mine.”
One touching45 inquiry46 both Agamemnon and Achilles put to their visitor from the upper world. How fare their sons? Where is Orestes?—asks the great king. Did Neoptolemus, in the later days of the war, prove himself worthy47 of his father?—inquires Achilles. When he has been assured of this, the shade of the mighty hero, well satisfied,
“Passed striding through the fields of asphodel.”
There is no distinct principle of reward or punishment discernible in the regions of the dead, as seen by Ulysses. Indeed, anything like happiness in this shadowy future seems incompatible48 with the feelings put into the mouth of Achilles. Orion, the mighty hunter, appears to enjoy something like the Red Indian’s paradise—pursuing, in those shadowy fields, the{v.ii-83} phantoms49 of the wild creatures which he slew50 on earth; but, with this exception, there is no hint of pleasurable interest or occupation for the mighty dead. Punishments there are for notorious offenders51 against the majesty52 of the gods:—
“There also Tantalus in anguish stood,
And to his chin welled ever the cold flood.
But when he rushed, in fierce desire to break
For as the old man stooping seems to meet
Leaving the dark earth dry, the shuddering58 waves retreat.
“Also the thick-leaved arches overhead
And in his clasp rich clusters seemed to shed.
There citrons waved, with shining fruitage hung,
Pears and pomegranates, olive ever young,
The old man, fain to cool his burning tongue,
Clutched with his fingers at the branches fair,
Came a strong wind and whirled them skyward through the air.”
Shove with both hands a mighty sphere of stone:
But when he thought the huge mass to have thrown
Clean o’er the summit, the enormous weight
Both these are examples of punishment inflicted67 in the Shades below, not for an evil life, but for personal offences against the sovereign of the gods. Tantalus{v.ii-84} had been admitted as a guest to the banquet of the immortals68, and had stolen their nectar and ambrosia69 to give to his fellow-men. Sisyphus had been, it is true, a notorious robber on earth, but the penalty assigned him was for the higher crime of betraying an amour of Jupiter’s which had come to his knowledge. The stone of Sisyphus has been commonly taken as an illustration of labour spent in vain; but a modern English poet has found in it a beautiful illustration of the indestructibility of hope. In one of Lord Lytton’s ‘Tales of Miletus,’ when Orpheus visits the Shades in search of his lost wife—
“He heard, tho’ in the midst of Erebus,
Song sweet as his Muse-mother made his own;
It broke forth from a solitary ghost,
Who, up a vaporous hill,
“Heaved a huge stone that came rebounding70 back,
And still the ghost upheaved it and still sang.
In the brief pause from toil while towards the height
Reluctant rolled the stone,
“The Thracian asked in wonder, ‘Who art thou,
‘My name on earth was Sisyphus,’ replied
The phantom. ‘In the Shades
“I keep mine earthly wit; I have duped the Three.[38]
They gave me work for torture; work is joy.
Slaves work in chains, and to the clank they sing.’
Said Orpheus, ‘Slaves still hope!’
“‘And could I strain to heave up the huge stone
Did I not hope that it would reach the height?
‘But if it never reach?{v.ii-85}’
The stone came whirling back. ‘Fool,’ said the ghost,
‘Then mine, at worst, is everlasting74 hope.’
Again uprose the stone.”
Ulysses confesses that he did not see all he might have seen; for, when the pale ghosts in their ten thousands crowded round him with wild cries, the hero lost courage, fled back to his ship, and bade his comrades loose their cables, and put out at once to sea.
They passed the island where the twin sisters, the Sirens, lay couched in flowers, luring75 all passing mariners76 to their destruction by the fascination77 of their song. Forewarned by Circe, the chief had stopped the ears of all his crew with melted wax, and had made them bind78 him to the mast, giving them strict charge on no account to release him, however he might entreat79 or threaten—for he himself, true to his passion for adventure, would fain listen to these dangerous enchantresses. So, as they drifted close along the shore, the Sirens lifted their voices and sang as follows—every word of Mr Worsley’s translation is Homer’s, except the single phrase in brackets:—
“Hither, Odysseus, great Achaian name,
Turn thy swift keel, and listen to our lay;
Since never pilgrim to these regions came
But heard our sweet voice ere he sailed away,
And in his joy passed on, with ampler mind.
We know what labours were in ancient day
But the deaf crew rowed on, and not until the sound of{v.ii-86} the strain had died away in the distance did they unbind their captain, in spite of his angry protests. They pass the strait that divides Sicily from Italy, where on either hand lurked83 the monsters Scylla and Charybdis—impersonations, it may be, of rocks and whirlpools—but which they escaped, with the loss of six out of the crew, by help of Circe’s warnings and directions. But that our own Spenser’s ‘Faery Queen’ is perhaps even less known to the majority of English readers than the Odyssey of Homer (by grace of popular translations), it might be needless to remind them how the whole of Sir Guyon’s voyage on the “Idle Lake” is nothing more or less than a reproduction of this portion of Ulysses’ adventures.[39] The five mermaidens, who entrap84 unwary travellers with their melody, address the knight85 as he floats by in a strain which is the echo of the Sirens’—
“O thou fayre son of gentle F?ery,
That art in mightie arms most magnifyde
O turn thy rudder hitherwarde awhile:
Here may thy storme-bett vessell safely ryde:
This is the port of rest from troublous toyle,
The worldes sweet Inn from pain and wearisome turmoyle.”
The enchantress Acrasia, with her transformed lovers—the “seeming beasts who are men in deed”—is but a copy from Circe; while the “Gulf of Greediness” yawning on one side of the Lake—
“That deep engorgeth all this world?s prey”—
and on the other side the “Rock of Vile88 Reproach,{v.ii-87}” whose fatal magnetic power draws in all who try to shun89 the whirlpool opposite, are the Scylla and Charybdis of Homer.
At length the voyagers reached the shore where the oxen of the Sun were pastured. In vain did Ulysses, remembering the prophecy of Tiresias, bid them steer90 on and leave the land unvisited. Eurylochus, his lieutenant91, broke out at last into something like mutiny. He had some show of reason, when he complained of his chief, almost in the words of Sir Dinadan to Sir Tristram in the ‘Morte d’Arthur,’ that he was tired of such mad company, and would no longer follow a man to whose iron frame the toils and dangers which wore out ordinary mortals were a mere disport92. Seeing that the rest backed Eurylochus in his proposal to land and rest, Ulysses was fain to give way, after exacting93 a vow94 that at least none of them should lay sacrilegious hands upon the sacred herds, since they had store of corn and wine, the parting gifts of Circe, on board their vessel87. But stress of weather detained them in the anchorage a whole month, until corn and wine were exhausted95, and they had to snare96 birds and catch fish—a kind of food which a Greek seaman97 especially despised—to keep them from starving. Then at last, while their chief had withdrawn98 to a quiet spot, and fallen asleep wearied with long prayer, Eurylochus persuaded the rest to break their vow, and slay100 the choicest of the oxen. Terrible prodigies101 followed the unhallowed meal; the skins of the slain102 animals moved and crawled after their slayers, and the meat, while roasting on the spits, uttered fearful{v.ii-88} cries and groans103. One of the old allegorical interpreters has drawn99 from this incident a moral which, however fanciful, is not without a certain beauty and appositeness of illustration—the sins of the wicked, he says, dog their steps, and cry aloud against them. When next they put to sea, Jupiter raised winds and waves to punish them; for the Sun had threatened that, if such insult went unavenged, he would light the heavens no more, but go down and shine in Hades. Their ship was riven by a thunderbolt, and Ulysses alone, sole survivor104 of all his crew, after once more narrowly escaping the whirlpool of Charybdis, after floating nine days upon the broken mast, was cast ashore105 on the island of Calypso, and there detained until his release by the intercession of Minerva, as has been told, which had ended in this second shipwreck106 on the coast of his present entertainers.
点击收听单词发音
1 grandeur | |
n.伟大,崇高,宏伟,庄严,豪华 | |
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2 narrative | |
n.叙述,故事;adj.叙事的,故事体的 | |
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3 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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4 creed | |
n.信条;信念,纲领 | |
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5 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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6 starry | |
adj.星光照耀的, 闪亮的 | |
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7 enjoined | |
v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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8 ram | |
(random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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9 trench | |
n./v.(挖)沟,(挖)战壕 | |
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10 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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11 phantom | |
n.幻影,虚位,幽灵;adj.错觉的,幻影的,幽灵的 | |
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12 loomed | |
v.隐约出现,阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 );隐约出现,阴森地逼近 | |
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13 anguish | |
n.(尤指心灵上的)极度痛苦,烦恼 | |
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14 virgins | |
处女,童男( virgin的名词复数 ); 童贞玛利亚(耶稣之母) | |
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15 eyelids | |
n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 );眼睛也不眨一下;不露声色;面不改色 | |
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16 gory | |
adj.流血的;残酷的 | |
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17 renowned | |
adj.著名的,有名望的,声誉鹊起的 | |
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18 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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19 lured | |
吸引,引诱(lure的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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20 scent | |
n.气味,香味,香水,线索,嗅觉;v.嗅,发觉 | |
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21 slake | |
v.解渴,使平息 | |
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22 evoked | |
[医]诱发的 | |
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23 bloody | |
adj.非常的的;流血的;残忍的;adv.很;vt.血染 | |
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24 brink | |
n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘,边沿 | |
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25 herds | |
兽群( herd的名词复数 ); 牧群; 人群; 群众 | |
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26 coveted | |
adj.令人垂涎的;垂涎的,梦寐以求的v.贪求,觊觎(covet的过去分词);垂涎;贪图 | |
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27 inquiries | |
n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 );疑问;探究;打听 | |
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28 yearning | |
a.渴望的;向往的;怀念的 | |
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29 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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30 tyro | |
n.初学者;生手 | |
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31 Neptune | |
n.海王星 | |
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32 disastrous | |
adj.灾难性的,造成灾害的;极坏的,很糟的 | |
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33 immortality | |
n.不死,不朽 | |
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34 consolation | |
n.安慰,慰问 | |
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35 aloof | |
adj.远离的;冷淡的,漠不关心的 | |
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36 sullenly | |
不高兴地,绷着脸,忧郁地 | |
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37 adventurous | |
adj.爱冒险的;惊心动魄的,惊险的,刺激的 | |
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38 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
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39 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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40 odyssey | |
n.长途冒险旅行;一连串的冒险 | |
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41 irony | |
n.反语,冷嘲;具有讽刺意味的事,嘲弄 | |
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42 perplexed | |
adj.不知所措的 | |
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43 churl | |
n.吝啬之人;粗鄙之人 | |
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44 condemned | |
adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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45 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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46 inquiry | |
n.打听,询问,调查,查问 | |
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47 worthy | |
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的 | |
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48 incompatible | |
adj.不相容的,不协调的,不相配的 | |
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49 phantoms | |
n.鬼怪,幽灵( phantom的名词复数 ) | |
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50 slew | |
v.(使)旋转;n.大量,许多 | |
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51 offenders | |
n.冒犯者( offender的名词复数 );犯规者;罪犯;妨害…的人(或事物) | |
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52 majesty | |
n.雄伟,壮丽,庄严,威严;最高权威,王权 | |
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53 plunged | |
v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 );暴跌;骤降;突降 | |
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54 translucent | |
adj.半透明的;透明的 | |
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55 torment | |
n.折磨;令人痛苦的东西(人);vt.折磨;纠缠 | |
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56 fiery | |
adj.燃烧着的,火红的;暴躁的;激烈的 | |
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57 frenzy | |
n.疯狂,狂热,极度的激动 | |
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58 shuddering | |
v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 );发抖;(机器、车辆等)突然震动;颤动 | |
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59 profusion | |
n.挥霍;丰富 | |
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60 fig | |
n.无花果(树) | |
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61 travail | |
n.阵痛;努力 | |
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62 sinewy | |
adj.多腱的,强壮有力的 | |
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63 groan | |
vi./n.呻吟,抱怨;(发出)呻吟般的声音 | |
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64 nether | |
adj.下部的,下面的;n.阴间;下层社会 | |
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65 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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66 laborious | |
adj.吃力的,努力的,不流畅 | |
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67 inflicted | |
把…强加给,使承受,遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68 immortals | |
不朽的人物( immortal的名词复数 ); 永生不朽者 | |
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69 ambrosia | |
n.神的食物;蜂食 | |
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70 rebounding | |
蹦跳运动 | |
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71 lark | |
n.云雀,百灵鸟;n.嬉戏,玩笑;vi.嬉戏 | |
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72 penance | |
n.(赎罪的)惩罪 | |
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73 looming | |
n.上现蜃景(光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼)v.隐约出现,阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 );隐约出现,阴森地逼近 | |
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74 everlasting | |
adj.永恒的,持久的,无止境的 | |
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75 luring | |
吸引,引诱(lure的现在分词形式) | |
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76 mariners | |
海员,水手(mariner的复数形式) | |
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77 fascination | |
n.令人着迷的事物,魅力,迷恋 | |
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78 bind | |
vt.捆,包扎;装订;约束;使凝固;vi.变硬 | |
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79 entreat | |
v.恳求,恳请 | |
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80 azure | |
adj.天蓝色的,蔚蓝色的 | |
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81 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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82 toils | |
网 | |
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83 lurked | |
vi.潜伏,埋伏(lurk的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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84 entrap | |
v.以网或陷阱捕捉,使陷入圈套 | |
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85 knight | |
n.骑士,武士;爵士 | |
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86 knights | |
骑士; (中古时代的)武士( knight的名词复数 ); 骑士; 爵士; (国际象棋中)马 | |
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87 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
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88 vile | |
adj.卑鄙的,可耻的,邪恶的;坏透的 | |
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89 shun | |
vt.避开,回避,避免 | |
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90 steer | |
vt.驾驶,为…操舵;引导;vi.驾驶 | |
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91 lieutenant | |
n.陆军中尉,海军上尉;代理官员,副职官员 | |
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92 disport | |
v.嬉戏,玩 | |
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93 exacting | |
adj.苛求的,要求严格的 | |
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94 vow | |
n.誓(言),誓约;v.起誓,立誓 | |
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95 exhausted | |
adj.极其疲惫的,精疲力尽的 | |
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96 snare | |
n.陷阱,诱惑,圈套;(去除息肉或者肿瘤的)勒除器;响弦,小军鼓;vt.以陷阱捕获,诱惑 | |
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97 seaman | |
n.海员,水手,水兵 | |
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98 withdrawn | |
vt.收回;使退出;vi.撤退,退出 | |
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99 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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100 slay | |
v.杀死,宰杀,杀戮 | |
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101 prodigies | |
n.奇才,天才(尤指神童)( prodigy的名词复数 ) | |
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102 slain | |
杀死,宰杀,杀戮( slay的过去分词 ); (slay的过去分词) | |
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103 groans | |
n.呻吟,叹息( groan的名词复数 );呻吟般的声音v.呻吟( groan的第三人称单数 );发牢骚;抱怨;受苦 | |
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104 survivor | |
n.生存者,残存者,幸存者 | |
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105 ashore | |
adv.在(向)岸上,上岸 | |
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106 shipwreck | |
n.船舶失事,海难 | |
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