PLAGUE and FIRE

Tragedy in London. Plague and Fire. Written by Richard Platt. Illustrated by Barbara Gibson.

伦敦的悲剧：瘟疫与大火。作者：理查德·普拉特。绘者：芭芭拉·吉布森。

London, a dangerous place to live England's greatest city was a foul place to live in 1665. The streets were dirty and stank. Rats ran everywhere and fed on rubbish. Even the air and the water weren't clean. Coalfires turned the sky grey. Filth from drains polluted streams and London's great river, the Thames. For the city's poor people, life was very hard. They were often hungry. Their homes were dark, damp slums and two or even three families lived in homes built for one. It wasn't easy to get enough fuel to keep warm. Ships and boats filled the River Thames in 1665. London looked very different from today. There were few large buildings. The narrow streets were dusty in summer and muddy in winter. Along them were many small wooden houses which were very close together and often badly built and falling down. For a traveller, the easiest way through the city was on the river and ferry boats zipped along it and across it. Altogether there were about 400 ,000 people living in London in the spring of 1665. No British city was bigger. London's huge size though could not protect its people. Londoners were about to face two frightening and deadly dangers which threatened rich and poor alike.

伦敦是个危险的居住地，这座英格兰最大的城市环境十分恶劣 在1665年的时候。 街道肮脏不堪，臭气熏天。 老鼠四处乱窜，以垃圾为食。 就连空气和水都不干净。 烧煤的浓烟把天空染成了灰色。 下水道的污物污染了溪流，还有伦敦的母亲河泰晤士河。 对这座城市的穷人来说，生活十分艰难。 他们经常饿肚子。 他们的家是阴暗潮湿的贫民窟，本该住一户人家的房子里挤着两户甚至三户人家。 想要弄到足够的燃料取暖可不是件容易事。 1665年的泰晤士河上挤满了大大小小的船只。 那时候的伦敦和现在看起来大不一样。 大型建筑寥寥无几。 狭窄的街道夏天满是尘土，冬天泥泞不堪。 街道两旁密密麻麻建了很多小木屋，大多建造粗劣，摇摇欲坠。 对旅行者来说，穿行城市最方便的方式是走水路，渡船在河上来回穿梭。 1665年春天，伦敦的总人口大约有40万。 它是全英国最大的城市。 但伦敦的庞大体量并不能保护它的居民。 伦敦人即将面临两场可怕的致命灾难，不论贫富都逃不过。

London's poor did not live very long. Half of them died before their sixth birthday. The other half were lucky to live forty years. If they were unlucky, illness killed them sooner. About three hundred years earlier, a terrible disease had struck London. It was called the plague or the Black Death. The awful signs were easy to spot. Those who caught the plague suffered a high fever. Some were confused. They had headaches and backache. Soon smooth blisters called buboes swelled at the tops of their legs, on their necks or under their arms. Days later, most died a painful death. The Black Death killed about a third of all Britons. In London, two hundred thousand people may have died. Since then, the plague returned from time to time when the weather was hot. Londoners knew that each summer more people but nobody knew why. London's poor were particularly at risk in 1665. There had been a drought the year before, and the lack of rain meant food plants died in the dry fields. Many families went hungry. An icy winter weakened them further. People did not have money to buy fuel to keep themselves warm. When the plague returned to London in 1665, they did not have the strength to fight it. Many poor people died from the plague.

伦敦的穷人寿命很短，有一半人活不过六岁生日。 剩下的一半能活到四十岁就算幸运，运气不好的话，疾病会更早夺走他们的生命。 大约三百年前，一种可怕的疾病袭击了伦敦，它叫做 瘟疫，也叫黑死病。患病的征兆很容易辨认，染上瘟疫的人 会发高烧，有些人意识混乱，还会头疼背疼。很快，一种叫做 淋巴结肿块的光滑水泡会在他们的大腿根、脖子或者腋下 肿起来。几天后，大多数人会在痛苦中死去。黑死病夺走了大约三分之一 英国人的生命。伦敦可能有20万人死亡。从那之后，每当天气炎热时 瘟疫就会时不时卷土重来。伦敦人知道每年夏天都会有更多人死去 但没人知道原因。1665年，伦敦的穷人处境格外危险。前一年 发生了旱灾，降水不足导致田地里的粮食作物都旱死了。很多 家庭都吃不饱饭。紧接着的寒冬又让他们的身体更虚弱。人们没钱买 燃料取暖。1665年瘟疫再次降临伦敦时，他们根本没有 力气对抗疾病。很多穷人都死于这场瘟疫。

Danger in the docks The plague that hit London in the spring of 1665 came from Holland. The River Thames was London's link to the world. In riverside docks, hundreds of sailing ships unloaded. They brought valuable goods, such as timber, fine cloth and china crockery, from ports in Europe and beyond. But they also brought the disease with them. Londoners knew that the plague was killing thousands of people in Holland, and they thought Dutch crews might be ill with the disease. To stop the plague reaching England again, Dutch ships had to wait for 40 days at Canvey, an island downriver. If anyone on board died, the ship could not sail on to London. Ships that were allowed to enter London's docks tied up at the wharves that lined the river. As the sailors came ashore, unwelcome passengers scurried down the ship's ropes. Rats Londoners feared that the Dutch sailors would spread the plague, but they were wrong. The rats were the real danger. Fleas in the rats' fur carried the disease. Flea bites made the rats ill, and when the rats died, the fleas jumped onto humans and bit them.

码头的危险 1665年春天袭击伦敦的瘟疫来自荷兰。 泰晤士河是伦敦连接世界的通道。 在河边的码头，成百上千艘帆船正在卸货。 它们运来了珍贵的货物，比如木材、精美布料和瓷器， 都是从欧洲和更远的港口运来的。 但它们也把疾病带了过来。 伦敦人知道瘟疫正在荷兰夺走成千上万人的生命， 他们担心荷兰船员可能已经染上了这种病。 为了阻止瘟疫再次传入英格兰， 荷兰船只必须在下游的坎维岛停留40天。 如果船上有任何人死亡，这艘船就不能驶向伦敦。 获准进入伦敦码头的船只停泊在河岸边的码头上。 当水手们上岸时，不受欢迎的乘客正顺着船的绳索匆匆爬下来。 老鼠 伦敦人害怕荷兰水手会传播瘟疫，但他们搞错了。 老鼠才是真正的危险源头。 老鼠皮毛里的跳蚤携带着这种疾病。 被跳蚤咬过的老鼠会生病，老鼠死后，跳蚤就会跳到人身上咬人。

The First Deaths The first deaths In 1665, poor people who lived near the docks got the plague first. In their crowded homes, fleas hopped easily from one person to another, spreading the disease quickly through families. Poor victims did not matter much to London's officials, so they did not record the names of the first people who died of the plague. Houses were built close together, and lots of people lived in each one. Mary Porteous was the first victim whose name we know. She was buried on 12 April 1665. By the end of May, ten more people had died. As spring became summer, the disease spread even quicker. Each part of London had to keep death records, which showed how many died each week in the neighbourhood. In one week in September, the record showed that 8 ,297 Londoners had died, and 7 ,165 of those were plague victims.

第一批死者 最早的死亡案例 1665年，住在码头附近的穷人最先染上了瘟疫。 在他们拥挤的家里，跳蚤很容易在人与人之间跳跃， 让疾病在家庭里快速传播。 伦敦的官员们不怎么在意贫穷的患者， 所以他们没有记录第一批死于瘟疫的人的名字。 房子建得密密麻麻，每栋房子里都住了很多人。 玛丽·波蒂厄斯是我们已知姓名的第一名死者。 她在1665年4月12日被下葬。 到五月底，又有十个人死亡。 春去夏来，疾病传播得更快了。 伦敦的每个区域都要记录死亡数据， 统计每周附近区域的死亡人数。 九月的某一周，记录显示有8297名伦敦人死亡， 其中7165人是瘟疫患者。

Killing the cats and dogs Fear spread faster than the disease itself. On the doors of houses where people died, officials chalked a red cross. This sign warned everyone to stay away. Soon they did more. If one member of a family caught the plague, London's rulers ordered the house doors to be locked shut. Guards standing outside made sure no one with the disease got out of their houses. Plague sufferers and their families were prisoners in their homes. People believed this would stop the disease passing from the sick to the healthy. However, they didn't know that it was the fleas that spread the disease. Locked doors could not keep out fleas or even rats. The plague continued to spread. Men guarded houses where plague victims were living. Londoners thought the causes of the plague were bad smells, bad food, bad water and pets. Fearing that cats and dogs spread the disease, London's mayor ordered them to be killed. Thousands of cats and dogs were destroyed, but it didn't stop the plague. In fact, killing pets may have even made things worse. With no cats and dogs to kill the rats, there were more rats in London. The rats that spread the plague travelled widely throughout London.

捕杀猫狗 恐惧比疾病传播得更快。 官员们在有人病死的房屋门上用粉笔画一个红十字。 这个标识警告所有人不要靠近。 很快他们采取了更多措施。 如果有家庭成员染上瘟疫，伦敦的统治者会下令把这户人家的门锁死。 站在屋外的守卫会确保染病的人不能走出家门。 瘟疫患者和他们的家人就成了家里的囚犯。 人们认为这样就能阻止疾病从病人身上传到健康人身上。 但他们不知道是跳蚤在传播疾病。 锁上的门挡不住跳蚤，甚至挡不住老鼠。 瘟疫还在继续传播。 守卫们把守着有瘟疫患者居住的房屋。 伦敦人认为瘟疫的起因是异味、变质的食物、脏水和宠物。 由于担心猫狗传播疾病，伦敦市长下令捕杀它们。 成千上万只猫狗被杀死，但这并没有阻止瘟疫传播。 事实上，捕杀宠物可能反而让情况变得更糟。 没有猫狗捕杀老鼠，伦敦的老鼠变得更多了。 传播瘟疫的老鼠在伦敦各处流窜。