10 A WARM WELCOME

Chapter 10 A WARM WELCOME The day grew lighter and warmer as they floated along. After a while the river rounded a steep shoulder of land that came down upon their left. Under its rocky feet like an inland cliff the deepest stream had flowed lapping and bubbling. Suddenly the cliff fell away. The shores sank. The trees ended. Then Bilbo saw a sight: The lands opened wide about him, filled with the waters of the river which broke up and wandered in a hundred winding courses, or halted in marshes and pools dotted with isles on every side; but still a strong water flowed on steadily through the midst. And far away, its dark head in a torn cloud, there loomed the Mountain! Its nearest neighbours to the North-East and the tumbled land that joined it to them could not be seen. All alone it rose and looked

第十章 热烈欢迎 他们一路漂流，天色越来越亮，也越来越暖和了。 过了一会儿，河道拐过左边一块斜探入河的陡陆。 陡陆的岩脚像内陆悬崖，最深的河水在这儿拍打着岩壁，汩汩流淌。 突然，悬崖退向了两边。 河岸变低了。 树林到这儿就到头了。 接着比尔博看见一幅景象：四周的土地一下子开阔起来，河水漫开，分出上百条蜿蜒支流四处漫流，有的汇作沼泽和水潭，处处都点缀着小岛；但仍旧有一股强劲的主河稳稳从中间穿流而过。 远方，孤山深色的山头顶着破云，巍巍耸立！ 它东北边邻近的山峦，还有连接群山的起伏丘地都看不见了。 它孤零零拔地而起，俯瞰着

across the marshes to the forest. The Lonely Mountain! Bilbo had come far and through many adventures to see it, and now he did not like the look of it in the least. As he listened to the talk of the raftmen and pieced together the scraps of information they let fall, he soon realized that he was very fortunate ever to have seen it at all, even from this distance. Dreary as had been his imprisonment and unpleasant as was his position (to say nothing of the poor dwarves underneath him) still, he had been more lucky than he had guessed. The talk was all of the trade that came and went on the waterways and the growth of the traffic on the river, as the roads out of the East towards Mirkwood vanished or fell into disuse; and of the bickerings of the Lake-men and the Wood- elves about the upkeep of the Forest River and the care of the banks. Those lands had changed much since the days when dwarves dwelt in the Mountain, days which most people now remembered only as a very shadowy tradition. They had changed even in recent years, and since the last news that Gandalf had had of them. Great floods and rains had swollen the waters that flowed east; and there had been an earthquake or two (which some were inclined to

沼泽对面的森林。 孤山！ 比尔博走了远路，历经无数冒险才见到它，可现在他一点儿也不喜欢它的样子。 他听着木筏工聊天，拼凑出他们透出来的零碎信息，很快就反应过来：哪怕只从这么远看到它，自己都已经够幸运了。 虽说之前被囚禁十分苦闷，现在处境也糟得很（更别说压在他下面那些可怜的矮人了），他还是比自己预想的要幸运得多。 大家聊的都是水路上往来的贸易，还有河上交通越来越繁忙，因为东方通往黑森林的路已经消失荒废；大家还聊长湖居民和森林精灵为了维护森林河、修整河岸争执不休。 自从矮人住在山里的年代过去，这片土地已经变了太多，如今大多数人只把那段日子当成模糊的传说。 哪怕和甘道夫上次得到消息的时候比，近几年这里也变了很多。 大洪水和大雨让向东流的河水涨得更大，还发生过一两次地震（不少人都倾向把这

attribute to the dragon—alluding to him chiefly with a curse and an ominous nod in the direction of the Mountain). The marshes and bogs had spread wider and wider on either side. Paths had vanished, and many a rider and wanderer too, if they had tried to find the lost ways across. The elf-road through the wood which the dwarves had followed on the advice of Beorn now came to a doubtful and little used end at the eastern edge of the forest; only the river offered any longer a safe way from the skirts of Mirkwood in the North to the mountain-shadowed plains beyond, and the river was guarded by the Wood-elves' king. So you see Bilbo had come in the end by the only road that was any good. It might have been some comfort to Mr. Baggins shivering on the barrels, if he had known that news of this had reached Gandalf far away and given him great anxiety, and that he was in fact finishing his other business (which does not come into this tale) and getting ready to come in search of Thorin's company. But Bilbo did not know it. All he knew was that the river seemed to go on and on and on for ever, and he was hungry, and had a nasty cold in the nose, and did not like the way the

归罪于恶龙——提到它，人们大多只会咒骂一声，还对着孤山方向不祥地点点头。 沼泽和泥塘在两岸越扩越大。 小路都消失了，好多想要横穿旧路的骑手和旅人也没了踪影。 矮人听从贝奥恩建议走的那条林间精灵路，如今到森林东缘就差不多荒废少人走了；如今只有河道还能让人从黑森林北边边缘，安全走到孤山阴影下的平原，可河道还是由森林精灵王把守着。 所以你看，比尔博最后走的这条路，竟然是唯一能用的好路。 要是待在木桶上冻得发抖的巴金斯先生知道，这个消息早就传到远方甘道夫那里，让他十分担心，而且甘道夫其实已经办完了别的事（那件事不在这个故事里），正准备来找索林的队伍，他说不定能心里舒服点。 可比尔博完全不知道这事。 他只知道河好像永远没完没了地流呀流，他肚子饿，鼻子还得了重感冒，他一点也不喜欢孤山

Mountain seemed to frown at him and threaten him as it drew ever nearer. After a while, however, the river took a more southerly course and the Mountain receded again, and at last, late in the day the shores grew rocky, the river gathered all its wandering waters together into a deep and rapid flood, and they swept along at great speed. The sun had set when turning with another sweep towards the East the forest-river rushed into the Long Lake. There it had a wide mouth with stony clifflike gates at either side whose feet were piled with shingles. The Long Lake! Bilbo had never imagined that any water that was not the sea could look so big. It was so wide that the opposite shores looked small and far, but it was so long that its northerly end, which pointed towards the Mountain, could not be seen at all. Only from the map did Bilbo know that away up there, where the stars of the Wain were already twinkling, the Running River came down into the lake from Dale and with the Forest River filled with deep waters what must once have been a great deep rocky valley. At the southern end the doubled waters poured out again over high waterfalls and ran away hurriedly to unknown lands. In the still evening air the noise of

越走越近，看起来皱着眉威胁他的样子。 不过过了一会儿，河道拐向更偏南的方向，孤山又变远了，终于，天色渐晚的时候，河岸变得多石，河道把所有散开的水流收拢，汇成了又深又急的洪流，带着他们飞快往前冲。 当森林河再次拐向东，奔进长湖的时候，太阳已经落山了。 河口十分宽阔，两边都是悬崖似的石岸，岸脚堆满了砾石。 长湖！ 比尔博从来没想过，除了大海之外，还会有这么大一片水域。 它宽得对岸看起来又小又远，又长得根本看不到伸向孤山的北端尽头。 只有看着地图，比尔博才知道，在更北边那边，北斗星已经开始闪烁，奔流河从戴尔城流下来，在这里和森林河交汇，填满了曾经那个深邃的大石谷。 湖的南端，汇合后的河水再次流出湖面，翻过高高的瀑布，急匆匆流向未知的土地。 宁静的晚空气中，

the falls could be heard like a distant roar. Not far from the mouth of the Forest River was the strange town he heard the elves speak of in the king's cellars. It was not built on the shore, though there were a few huts and buildings there, but right out on the surface of the lake, protected from the swirl of the entering river by a promontory of rock which formed a calm bay. A great bridge made of wood ran out to where on huge piles made of forest trees was built a busy wooden town, not a town of elves but of Men, who still dared to dwell here under the shadow of the distant dragon-mountain. They still throve on the trade that came up the great river from the South and was carted past the falls to their town; but in the great days of old, when Dale in the North was rich and prosperous, they had been wealthy and powerful, and there had been fleets of boats on the waters, and some were filled with gold and some with warriors in armour, and there had been wars and deeds which were now only a legend. The rotting piles of a greater town could still be seen along the shores when the waters sank in a drought. But men remembered little of all that, though some still sang old songs of the dwarf-kings of the Mountain, Thror and Thrain of the race of Durin,

老远就能听见瀑布的轰鸣，如同远方的怒吼。 离森林河河口不远处，有一座奇特的小镇，正是他在国王地窖里听精灵提起过的那座。 小镇并没有建在岸边上——虽说岸上也零星有几间小屋和建筑——而是直接建在湖面之上；一处岩石海角挡住了汇入河水的漩涡，形成一片平静港湾，小镇就安在这里。 一座长长的木桥通向湖面，人们用森林大树打造成巨大木桩，在木桩上建起了这座热闹的木头小镇，住在这里的不是精灵，而是人类，他们依然敢在远方龙山的阴影下居住于此。 他们靠着南方沿大河运来、经瀑布运到小镇的贸易生存；可在古时候，北方的河谷城富裕兴旺的时候，这里也曾富裕强大，那时水面上满是船队，有的船装满黄金，有的载着披甲战士，发生过许多战争和英雄事迹，如今这些都只成了传说。 旱季水位下降时，沿着湖岸还能看到旧时更大城镇留下的腐烂木桩。 但人们对这一切记得不多了，可还是有人会唱古老的歌谣，讲山地矮人国王、都林一族的索尔和索恩的故事，

and of the coming of the Dragon, and the fall of the lords of Dale. Some sang too that Thror and Thrain would come back one day and gold would flow in rivers, through the mountain-gates, and all that land would be filled with new song and new laughter. But this pleasant legend did not much affect their daily business.

还有恶龙到来、河谷领主覆灭的故事。 也有人歌唱说，索尔和索恩终有一天会归来，黄金会顺着山门汇成河流，整片大地都将布满新的歌声与欢笑。 可这个美好的传说，并没有怎么影响人们的日常生活。