Helen Castor on Medieval Power and Personalities (Ep. 249)
Thanks to an anonymous listener for sponsoring this transcript.
感谢一位匿名听众赞助这份文字记录。
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler.
大家好，欢迎回到《与泰勒对话》。
Today, I’m very happy to be chatting with Helen Castor.
今天，我很高兴能与海伦·卡斯特聊天。
She is a British historian of the medieval and Tudor period and also a BBC broadcaster.
她是英国中世纪和都铎时期的历史学家，也是BBC广播员。
She’s taught history at the University of Cambridge.
她在剑桥大学教授历史。
She’s the author of numerous books, and most recently, one of the best books of last year, she published The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV.
她是众多书籍的作者，最近，她出版了去年最好的书籍之一《老鹰与雄鹿：理查二世和亨利四世的悲剧》。
Helen, welcome.
海伦，欢迎。
Thank you so much for having me.
非常感谢你邀请我。
Richard II and Henry IV — they’re born in the same year, namely 1367.
理查二世和亨利四世——他们出生于同一年，即 1367 年。
Just to frame it for our listeners, could you give us a sense — back then, what was it that the English government could do and what could it not do?
请您给我们的听众讲一下，“当时，英国政府可以做什么，不能做什么？”
What is the government like then?
那时的政府是什么样的？
I think people might be surprised at quite how much government could do in England at this point in history because England, at this point, was the most centralized state in Europe, and that has two reasons.
我认为人们可能会对英国在历史上的这一点上能做多少事情感到惊讶，因为英国在这一点上是欧洲最集权的国家，这有两个原因。
One is the Conquest of 1066 where the Normans have come in and taken the whole place over.
其中之一是 1066 年的征服，诺曼人入侵并占领了整个地方。
Then, the other key formative period is the late 12th century when Henry II is ruling an empire that stretches from the Scottish border all the way down to southwestern France.
然后，另一个关键的形成时期是12世纪末，当时亨利二世统治着一个从苏格兰边境一直延伸到法国西南部的帝国。
He has to have a system of government and of law that can function when he’s not there.
他必须有一个在他不在的时候也能发挥作用的政府和法律体系。
By the late 14th century, when Richard and Henry — my two kings in this book — appear on the scene, the king has two key functions which appear on the two sides of his seal.
到了 14 世纪末，当理查德和亨利——《本书中的两位国王》出现时，国王有两个关键职能，出现在他印章的两侧。
On one side, he sits in state wearing a crown, carrying an orb and scepter as a lawgiver and a judge.
在一侧，他头戴王冠，手持宝球和权杖，作为立法者和法官端坐。
That is a key function of what he does for his people.
这是他为人民所做的事情的一个关键职能。
He imposes law.
他制定法律。
He gives justice.
他伸张正义。
He maintains order.
他维持秩序。
On the other side of the seal, he’s wearing armor on a warhorse with a sword unsheathed in his hand.
封印的另一边，他身穿铠甲，骑着一匹战马，手中握着出鞘的剑。
That’s his function as a defender of the realm in an intensely practical way.
这就是他以非常实际的方式作为王国捍卫者的职责。
He has to be a soldier, a warrior to repel attacks or, indeed, to launch attacks if that’s the best form of defense.
他必须是一名士兵，一名战士才能击退攻击，或者事实上，如果这是最好的防御形式，就发动攻击。
To do that, he needs money.
为此，他需要钱。
For that, the institution of parliament has developed, which offers consent to taxation that he can demonstrate is in the national interest.
为此，议会机构已经发展起来，议会同意征税，他可以证明这符合国家利益。
It has also come to be a law-making forum.
它也已成为一个立法论坛。
Wherever he needs to make new laws, he can make statute law in Parliament that therefore, in its very nature, has the consent of the representatives of the realm.
无论何时他需要制定新法律，他都可以在议会制定成文法，因此，从本质上讲，该成文法得到了王国代表的同意。
On what medieval governments cannot do
关于中世纪政府不能做什么
What is it, back then, that government cannot do?
那么，有什么是政府不能做的呢？
What a government doesn’t have in the medieval period is, it doesn’t have a monopoly of force.
中世纪时期的政府所没有的是，它没有权力的垄断。
In other words, it doesn’t have a police force.
换句话说，它没有警察部队。
It doesn’t have a professional police force, and it doesn’t have a standing army, or at least by the late Middle Ages, England does have a permanent garrison in Calais, which is its outpost on the northern coast of France, but that’s not a garrison that can be recalled to England with any ease.
它没有专业的警察部队，也没有常备军，或者说至少到了中世纪后期，英国确实在加来有常驻的驻军，这是它在法国北部海岸的前哨基地，但这并不是一个可以轻易召回英国的驻军。
So, enforcement is the government’s key problem.
因此，执行是政府的关键问题。
To enforce the king’s edicts, it therefore relies on a hierarchy of private power on the landed, the great landowners of the kingdom, who are wealthy because of their possession of land, but crucially, also have control over people, the men who live and work on their land.
因此，为了执行国王的法令，它依赖于土地上的私人权力等级制度，即王国的大地主，他们因拥有土地而富有，但最重要的是，他们也对人民，即在其土地上生活和工作的人拥有控制权。
If you need to get an enforcement posse — this is medieval English language that we use when we talk of sheriffs and posses — the county posse, the power of the county.
如果你需要一个执法队 ——这是我们在谈论治安官和执法队时使用的中世纪英语—— 郡队，郡的权力。
If you need to get men out quickly, you need to tap into those local power structures.
如果你需要快速让人员撤离，你需要利用当地的权力结构。
You don’t have modern communications.
你没有现代通讯。
You don’t have modern transport.
你没有现代交通工具。
The whole hierarchy of the king’s theoretical authority has to tap into and work through the private hierarchy of landed power.
国王理论权威的整个等级制度必须利用并通过土地权力的私人等级制度发挥作用。
Why do those landed nobles obey the king?
那些地主贵族为什么要服从国王呢？
They’re afraid of the future raising of an army?
他们害怕未来的军队？
Or they’re handed out some other benefit?
或者他们还得到了其他好处？
What keeps the incentives all working together to the extent they stay working together?
是什么让所有激励措施发挥作用并保持协同作用？
They have a very important pragmatic interest in obeying the king because the king is the keystone of the hierarchy within which they are powerful and wealthy.
他们对服从国王有着非常重要的务实利益，因为国王是他们权力和财富所在的等级制度的基石。
Of course, they want more power and more wealth for themselves and for their dynasty, but importantly, they don’t want to risk everything to acquire more if it means serious danger that they might lose what they already have.
当然，他们希望为自己和他们的王朝提供更多的权力和更多的财富，但重要的是，他们不想冒着一切风险去获得更多，如果这意味着他们可能会失去已经拥有的东西的严重危险。
They have every interest in maintaining the hierarchy as it already is, within which they can then .
他们非常有兴趣维持现有的层次结构，然后他们就可以在其中进行操作。
.
。
.
。
It’s like having a referee.
就像有一个裁判一样。
You can compete safely within the rules of the game if you know the referee is there to step in if it gets really dangerous.
如果您知道裁判会在比赛变得非常危险时介入，您就可以在比赛规则范围内安全地进行比赛。
On top of that, we have to imagine that the referee is appointed and anointed by God.
最重要的是，我们必须想象裁判是由上帝任命和指定的。
We must take that seriously if we’re looking at the Middle Ages.
如果我们回顾中世纪，我们必须认真对待这一点。
This is a worldview in which God has set up the order of creation.
这是上帝设立创造秩序的世界观。
If you were to resist the king, you are not only risking your place in the mortal world, but you are risking your immortal soul.
如果你反抗国王，你不仅会失去你在凡间的地位，还会失去你不朽的灵魂。
What’s the incentive for parliaments to vote a king more funds at the margin?
议会投票给国王更多资金的动机是什么？
Say the funds will be spent fighting with France.
说这些资金将用于与法国作战。
Why doesn’t Parliament just say, “Get the money from someone else, there’s no benefit to us in doing this”?
为什么议会不直接说：“从别人那里拿钱，这样做对我们没有任何好处”？
Quite often, it does.
很多时候，确实如此。
That is one of the things that late medieval kings have to grapple with, once it has been set up.
一旦它建立起来，这就是中世纪晚期国王必须解决的问题之一。
And it’s a great strength to medieval kings that, if they can demonstrate that it is in the interest of the realm, that they need this money in order to defend the realm — and defense of the realm can be defined pretty broadly depending on circumstances — they can then take taxation.
对于中世纪的国王来说，这是一个巨大的优势，如果他们能够证明这符合王国的利益，他们需要这笔钱来保卫王国——而且王国的保卫可以根据情况进行相当广泛的定义——然后他们就可以征税。
That’s a great strength.
这是一个很大的力量。
But if the representatives of the realm say, “Hang on.
但如果王国的代表说：“等等。
We don’t agree.
我们不同意。
This doesn’t sound as though it’s in our interests.” A whole number of times in the period I’ve looked at in the book, parliaments — both the Commons and the Lords — do do that.
这听起来似乎不符合我们的利益。”在我在书中看到的时期，议会——“下议院和上议院”——都这样做了很多次。
The king is therefore caught within the system that benefits him at other times.
因此，国王在其他时候陷入了对他有利的体系之中。
That question of what is the defense of the realm, what is in the interest of the realm becomes a key point of discussion, argument, and sometimes dissent.
什么是保卫王国、什么是符合王国利益的问题成为讨论、争论、有时甚至是异议的关键点。
On the other hand, we might sometimes think, from our modern perspective, that they were already being pretty liberal in their interpretation of the defense of the realm, given that this is a period where England and France are fighting what we know as the Hundred Years’ War.
另一方面，我们有时可能会认为，从我们现代的角度来看，他们对保卫王国的解释已经相当自由了，因为这是英国和法国正在进行百年战争的时期。
Of course, they didn’t know it was going to go on for more than a hundred years.
当然，他们不知道这种情况会持续一百多年。
They weren’t saying, “Right, lads, it’s halftime.
他们并没有说：“好吧，伙计们，现在是中场休息了。
We’ll have a break now.”
我们现在就休息一下。”
This was a war that was almost entirely being fought in France.
这场战争几乎完全在法国进行。
We might not see that as a defensive war, but in terms of England’s interests, when it was going well, it was claiming territory that the king of England claimed was rightfully his.
我们可能不会将其视为一场防御战争，但就英格兰的利益而言，当战争进展顺利时，它正在索取英格兰国王声称理应属于他的领土。
It was producing lots of benefit in terms of booty and reward for the men who fought in it.
它为参与其中的人们带来了战利品和奖励方面的大量好处。
And it did have a defensive element in the sense that if the war’s being fought over there, it’s not being fought over here.
从某种意义上说，它确实具有防御性元素，如果战争在那里发生，那么这里就不会发生战争。
We have to adjust our mindset slightly in terms of what war is for and what it looks like.
我们必须稍微调整一下我们的心态，了解战争的目的和形式。
This is where crucial discussions were happening between the king and various of his subjects quite regularly.
国王和他的臣民们经常在这里进行重要的讨论。
Does England feel it can win some of those battles because it has a more centralized state?
英格兰是否认为它可以赢得其中一些战斗，因为它有一个更加集权的国家？
Or is there some other reason?
还是有其他原因？
Because, of course, they’re across the channel.
当然，因为他们在海峡对岸。
You would think they would expect to lose.
你可能会认为他们会输。
French territories have more people, right?
法国领土上的人口更多，对吗？
France is not poorer than England back then.
当时的法国并不比英国穷。
Why do they think they can hold that ground?
为什么他们认为自己可以坚守这一立场？
To start with, we have to remember that England has had territory on the continent in what we now know as France since 1066.
首先，我们必须记住，自 1066 年以来，英国就在我们现在称为法国的大陆上拥有领土。
The dukes of Normandy became kings of England.
诺曼底公爵成为英格兰国王。
Normandy was then lost under King John in 1204, but by then, thanks to King John’s mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the English crown had acquired a vast territory in southwestern France, the Duchy of Aquitaine, sometimes known as Gascony.
1204 年，诺曼底在约翰国王的统治下失陷，但那时，多亏了约翰国王的母亲阿基坦的埃莉诺，英国王室已经获得了法国西南部的大片领土，即阿基坦公国，有时也称为加斯科尼。
That was still in English hands in the late Middle Ages.
在中世纪晚期，它仍然掌握在英国人手中。
It was being fought over, and its extent grew and shrank depending on how the course of the war was going.
它正在被争夺，其范围根据战争的进程而扩大或缩小。
The idea that England should hold territory in France, or indeed should claim the whole kingdom of France, was not itself a bizarre one, or to contemporaries, an implausible one.
英国应该在法国拥有领土，或者实际上应该拥有整个法兰西王国的想法本身并不奇怪，对于同时代的人来说，也不是难以置信的想法。
The way this war was being fought — there were set-piece battles, which in the mid-14th century, under Richard and Henry’s grandfather, Edward III, had gone England’s way.
这场战争的进行方式——有一些固定的战斗，在 14 世纪中叶，在理查德和亨利的祖父爱德华三世的统治下，这种战斗已经朝着英格兰的方向发展。
They’d won great victories at the Battle of Crécy in 1346, at Poitiers in 1356.
他们在 1346 年的克雷西战役和 1356 年的普瓦捷战役中取得了巨大的胜利。
Edward had captured Calais after a siege, and in between those victories, warfare was being conducted by great cavalry raids across France.
爱德华在围攻后占领了加来，在这些胜利之间，战争正在法国各地进行大规模骑兵袭击。
Vast swathes of territory were being burned, plundered, and ravaged.
大片领土被烧毁、掠夺和蹂躏。
So, England had every reason to think, after the 1340s and 1350s, that this was a war that they could win or certainly derive great benefit from.
因此，在 1340 年代和 1350 年代之后，英国有充分的理由认为这是一场他们能够获胜或者肯定能从中获得巨大利益的战争。
On Hundred Years’ War counterfactuals
论百年战争的反事实
When other historians debate this period that you’ve covered, what’s the main thing they disagree about?
当其他历史学家争论你所报道的这一时期时，他们主要不同意的是什么？
What’s at stake here?
这里有什么利害关系？
You know historians; they disagree about almost everything one way or another.
你了解历史学家；他们几乎在所有事情上都以某种方式存在分歧。
One thing they disagree about is precisely the question you’ve just asked.
他们不同意的一件事正是你刚才问的问题。
Was this realistic?
这现实吗？
Could we imagine a counterfactual in which England not only damages but takes another large swath of France, as Henry V did end up doing in the early 15th century, and then hold onto it?
我们能否想象一种反事实的情况：英国不仅损害法国，还夺取了法国的另一大片土地，就像亨利五世在 15 世纪初期所做的那样，然后继续坚守它？
They also disagree about the effect of war within England, whether the English state was shaped helpfully or unhelpfully, or shaped in a way it wouldn’t otherwise have been, by war?
他们对于战争对英格兰的影响也存在分歧，无论战争对英国国家的塑造是有益的还是无益的，或者是以一种本来不会的方式塑造的？
Did it become a war state?
变成战争国家了吗？
If it did, what implications did that have for the formation of English society?
如果确实如此，这对英国社会的形成有何影响？
Where do you stand on those disagreements?
对于这些分歧，你持什么立场？
I think they’re enormously interesting questions.
我认为它们是非常有趣的问题。
The first one, could England have held onto much more of France than, in the end, it did?
第一个，英国最终能保住比法国更多的领土吗？
Because by 1453, all England had left was Calais.
因为到了 1453 年，英格兰只剩下加莱了。
England lost first the reconquest that Henry V had achieved, and then it also lost Aquitaine that had been English for 300 years.
英国首先失去了亨利五世所取得的收复失地，然后又失去了属于英国300年的阿基坦大区。
Devastating loss in all sorts of ways, not least because England got its wine from Bordeaux.
从各方面来看，这都是毁灭性的损失，尤其是因为英格兰的葡萄酒来自波尔多。
What are you going to do for wine if you lose your link with southwestern France?
如果你失去了与法国西南部的联系，你会对葡萄酒做什么？
I think things could have looked very different.
我认为事情可能看起来非常不同。
If Henry V hadn’t died in 1422 very unexpectedly — he got dysentery on campaign; he died very young; he was only 35 — the course of the war thereafter could have been very different.
如果亨利五世没有在 1422 年出人意料地去世的话——他在征战中得了痢疾；他很年轻就去世了；他只有 35 岁——此后的战争进程可能会大不相同。
Essentially, the problem was that the people who took over from him — his brothers, particularly his brother, John, Duke of Bedford, who was an extraordinarily able man — did not have the authority to vary the terms that Henry V had agreed.
本质上，问题在于，接替他的人——他的兄弟们，特别是他的兄弟贝德福德公爵约翰，他是一位能力非凡的人——无权改变亨利五世已经同意的条件。
They didn’t have the authority to retreat from the maximalist position that Henry V had set up, that he was king of France as well as king of England.
他们无权放弃亨利五世所确立的最高主义立场，即他既是法国国王，又是英国国王。
When Henry V’s son grew up — he was only nine months old when he became king — when he grew up, he was a complete nonentity, so he, too, couldn’t vary those terms.
当亨利五世的儿子长大后——“他成为国王时只有九个月大”——当他长大后，他完全是一个无足轻重的人，所以他也不能改变这些条款。
But if there had been a competent king, competent in an ideal world, militarily and diplomatically, he could — like Edward III before him — perhaps have negotiated a treaty whereby England held on to a lot of what they had in return for giving up the claim to the crown of France.
但如果有一位能干的国王，在理想的世界里，在军事和外交上都有能力，他就可以——就像他之前的爱德华三世一样——也许可以通过谈判达成一项条约，让英国保留他们所拥有的很多东西，以换取放弃对法国王权的要求。
As it was, England was left with the claim to the crown of France that the monarchs of England didn’t give up till 1801 but with almost none of the territory.
事实上，英国国王直到 1801 年才放弃对法国王位的要求，但几乎没有任何领土。
Calais, of course, was then lost in the 16th century.
当然，加莱在 16 世纪就消失了。
I do think that could have been different.
我确实认为情况可能会有所不同。
In terms of the development of the English state, I don’t see a huge gulf between what is described as a war state and a law state.
就英国国家的发展而言，我认为所谓的战争国家和法治国家之间并没有巨大的鸿沟。
I think they went hand in hand.
我认为他们齐头并进。
I think kings who had to deal with their subjects in terms of the needs of defense, including aggressive defense, also understood that they needed to deal with their subjects in terms of effective government at home, the imposition of law, and the provision of justice.
我认为，那些必须根据防御的需要（包括侵略性防御）来对待臣民的国王也明白，他们需要在国内有效的政府、实施法律和提供正义方面来对待臣民。
Edward III and Henry IV both showed how that could be done and, in fact, that the two went hand in hand.
爱德华三世和亨利四世都展示了如何做到这一点，事实上，两者是齐头并进的。
On the constitutional precedents set by Henry IV
关于亨利四世制定的宪法先例
In the broader arc of English state building and its history, which, of course, stretches over centuries, do Richard II and Henry IV even matter?
当然，在英国国家建设及其历史的更广泛的弧线中，理查二世和亨利四世还重要吗？
Both reigns are truncated.
两个统治时期都被缩短了。
Are they just blips on the screen?
它们只是屏幕上的光点吗？
Or how should we think about how they might have mattered?
或者我们应该如何思考它们可能有多重要？
I think in one sense, yes, you could argue that they’re blips on the screen because it all depends on what point you’re taking as your point of reference.
我认为从某种意义上说，是的，你可以说它们是屏幕上的光点，因为这完全取决于你将哪个点作为参考点。
Almost anything is a blip on the screen when you’re looking at a thousand years of history.
当你回顾一千年的历史时，几乎所有的事情都只是屏幕上的一个亮点。
On the other hand, I think they are very significant because they make us confront, or they made the people over whom they each claim to rule confront, the question of what was kingship and where and when might it shade into tyranny.
另一方面，我认为它们非常重要，因为它们让我们面对，或者让他们各自声称统治的人民面对什么是王权以及它在何时何地可能演变成暴政的问题。
If a king became a tyrant, what could be done about it?
如果一个国王变成了暴君，那该怎么办呢？
The classic definition that contemporaries used as a working definition was that kingship was rule according to the law in the interests of the people.
同时代人用作工作定义的经典定义是王权是为了人民的利益而依法统治。
Authority might come from God, but those were the responsibilities of a king.
权威可能来自上帝，但那是国王的责任。
Therefore, a tyrant was someone who ruled not according to the law but by his own arbitrary will and not in the interests of the people.
因此，暴君就是不根据法律而是以自己的专断意志而不是为了人民利益而进行统治的人。
In a sense, that’s quite a clear definition.
从某种意义上说，这是一个非常明确的定义。
The real problem is, what do you do about it?
真正的问题是，你该怎么办？
And that is the key problem of 1399.
这就是1399的关键问题。
First of all, even if you have identified that your king is now engaged in tyranny, do you have to wait for God to remove him?
首先，即使你认定你的国王现在正在实行暴政，你是否还要等待上帝来除掉他？
Or is there something you can do about it yourself?
或者你自己可以做些什么吗？
If there is something you can do about it yourself, how far can you go?
如果你自己能做点什么，你能做到什么程度？
If you are trying to defend the law, to defend the Constitution as it stands, you may well have to go beyond the law and beyond the Constitution in the effort to defend them.
如果你试图捍卫法律，捍卫现行宪法，那么你很可能必须超越法律和宪法来捍卫它们。
If you do that, then you set a precedent for the future that that is possible, and that, too, is destabilizing.
如果你这样做，那么你就为未来树立了一个先例，这是可能的，但这也会破坏稳定。
Once the precedent of 1399 has been set, you get two different precedents: one, that a tyrannical king can be removed but also that what might need to be done to remove him may well push beyond current consensus about what the constitution actually is.
一旦 1399 年的先例确立，你就会得到两个不同的先例：一是可以推翻一位暴君，二是推翻他可能需要采取哪些措施，这很可能会超出目前关于宪法实际含义的共识。
When Charles I is executed in 1649, or there’s the Glorious Revolution a bit later, are people citing Henry IV as an example of how this can succeed as the right thing to do, so that stays a precedent?
当查理一世于 1649 年被处决时，或者稍后发生光荣革命时，人们是否会引用亨利四世作为例子来说明这样做如何能够成功，从而成为一个先例？
In the 1640s, it’s fascinating.
在 1640 年代，这是令人着迷的。
There are repeated references to what are called by historians the Deposition Articles of 1399.
其中多次提到历史学家所谓的 1399 年沉积文章。
Henry didn’t simply march in with a big sword and say, “Right, I’m in charge now.” In one sense, that is what he did, but in order then to be acknowledged as king and to be crowned in Richard’s place, he went to enormous lengths to make sure that this change was justified.
亨利并不是简单地拿着一把大剑走进来并说：“好吧，现在我负责了。”从某种意义上说，这就是他所做的，但为了随后被承认为国王并接替理查加冕，他竭尽全力确保这一改变是合理的。
He convened a committee, who went through every record they could find — historical precedents, all the things that Richard had done in his reign — to draw up 33 Articles of Deposition to show exactly what Richard had done and why he should be removed.
他召集了一个委员会，审查了他们能找到的所有记录——“历史先例，理查在其统治期间所做的所有事情”——起草了 33 份沉积条款，以准确地表明理查的所作所为以及他应该被罢免的原因。
These articles come back repeatedly to Richard’s perjury in breaking the oath he’d made at his coronation to uphold the law and do justice to his people.
这些文章反复提及理查德的伪证行为，违反了他在加冕典礼上所发的维护法律、为人民伸张正义的誓言。
They say, for example, that he claimed that the law was in his own mouth or sometimes in his own breast and that the lives and property of his subjects were his and at his own will.
例如，他们说，他声称法律是在他自己的嘴里，有时是在他自己的胸中，他的臣民的生命和财产是他的，是他自己的意愿。
They also made Richard abdicate.
他们还迫使理查德退位。
This was very much a both/and situation.
这在很大程度上是一种兼而有之的情况。
“Let’s try and cover all possible bases.” Then Henry stands up in Parliament, or is it even a parliament now Richard’s been deposed?
“让我们尝试涵盖所有可能的基础。”然后亨利在议会中站起来，或者现在理查德被废黜了，这还是议会吗？
Because it was a parliament called by Richard, but he stands up in the assembly of the representatives of the realm and claims the throne through a complicated and slightly fudged series of assertions because he isn’t straightforwardly the legitimate male heir — Richard doesn’t have a straightforward heir.
因为这是理查召集的议会，但他却站在王国代表的集会上，通过一系列复杂且略带捏造的断言来宣称王位，因为他不是直接的合法男性继承人——理查没有直接的继承人。
He’s trying to cover every possible base, but because he succeeds, he does take the throne.
他试图覆盖每一个可能的基地，但因为他成功了，他确实登上了王位。
He is crowned.
他被加冕了。
He does manage to hold onto it despite repeated rebellion and repeated challenge.
尽管屡次反抗、屡次挑战，他还是坚持了下来。
He passes the throne on to his eldest son, who becomes Henry V.
他将王位传给了他的长子，即亨利五世。
Those justifications in 1399 become a precedent in the sedimentary process of evolution of the English Constitution.
1399 年的这些理由成为英国宪法演变沉积过程中的先例。
So, by the 1640s, those Articles of Deposition are under active discussion by the men who are standing up against Charles I as a precedent on which they can draw.
因此，到了 1640 年代，那些反对查理一世的人们正在积极讨论这些沉积条款，并将其作为他们可以借鉴的先例。
This is, really, how the English Constitution works.
这确实是英国宪法的运作方式。
You try something, and if it takes, then it gets built in.
你尝试一些东西，如果成功的话，它就会被内置。
On the artistic works from (or inspired by) the period
关于那个时期（或受其启发）的艺术作品
When Shakespeare presents the play Richard II, in what, 1598?
莎士比亚于 1598 年上演戏剧《理查二世》时，是在哪一年？
That’s a pretty stable time, right, under Elizabeth I?
那是一个相当稳定的时期，对吧，在伊丽莎白一世的统治下？
How was that received?
是如何收到的？
Are people shocked or scandalized?
人们是否感到震惊或愤慨？
Yes.
是的。
Did they just ignore it?
他们只是忽略了它吗？
No, we can tell it’s very popular because it seems to have been written in 1595 and then published in 1597 and then 1598.
不，我们可以看出它很受欢迎，因为它似乎写于 1595 年，然后于 1597 年和 1598 年出版。
In other words, it goes into more than one published edition.
换句话说，它有不止一个出版版本。
People want to read it, but what is not included in the printed edition is what’s called the deposition scene, and that’s because it’s so controversial.
人们想读它，但印刷版中没有包含所谓的证词场景，因为它很有争议。
You’re right that Elizabeth is, in many senses, one of the greatest monarchs England ever had, a very shrewd political operator.
你说得对，从很多意义上说，伊丽莎白是英国有史以来最伟大的君主之一，是一位非常精明的政治操盘手。
But the 1590s were not a straightforward time, and the parallels with Richard II’s reign — almost exactly 200 years before — were becoming uncomfortably close.
但 1590 年代并不是一个简单的时期，与理查二世统治时期的相似之处——“几乎正好是 200 年前”——变得令人不安地接近。
Richard had been a childless ruler, in his case, by choice, in the sense that he never seemed to prioritize actually having any children, to the extent that in 1396, when he married for the second time, he chose to marry a 6-year-old when he was 29.
理查德一直是一个没有孩子的统治者，就他而言，这是他的选择，从某种意义上说，他似乎从来没有优先考虑实际是否有孩子，以至于在1396年，当他第二次结婚时，他选择在29岁时娶了一个6岁的孩子。
So, clearly, having children was not first on his list of priorities.
因此，显然，生孩子并不是他的首要任务。
Elizabeth, in the 1590s, was aging.
1590 年代的伊丽莎白日渐衰老。
She was heading into her 60s.
她已经 60 多岁了。
It was very clear she did not have a child.
很明显她没有孩子。
She had no named heir, and she was refusing to name an heir.
她没有指定继承人，而且她拒绝指定继承人。
The question of the succession — she was refusing for very different reasons from Richard.
关于继承权的问题——她拒绝的理由与理查德截然不同。
But all the same, the uncertainty over the succession, problems in Ireland in both cases, and rumblings of unhappiness that came to a head in 1601 with the rebellion of the Earl of Essex, her former favorite, who’d just been over failing to sort things out in Ireland.
但尽管如此，继承权的不确定性、爱尔兰的两起问题，以及 1601 年埃塞克斯伯爵叛乱导致的不满情绪达到了顶峰。
His supporters — the night before he launched his, in the end, abortive revolt — paid for a play about Richard II to be put on at the Globe.
他的支持者——“在他发起最终流产的叛乱的前一天晚上”——出钱在环球剧院上演一部关于理查二世的戏剧。
We’re not entirely sure whether it was Shakespeare’s Richard II or another play.
我们不能完全确定这是莎士比亚的《理查二世》还是其他戏剧。
In other words, Richard II felt like holding a mirror to current events in the 1590s.
换句话说，理查二世就像是一面镜子，映照着 1590 年代的时事。
In April 1601, after Essex’s rebellion had been put down, Elizabeth was looking through some archives with the keeper of the records in the tower, and he later made a note that she turned to him and said, “I am Richard II.
1601 年 4 月，埃塞克斯的叛乱被镇压后，伊丽莎白正在与塔里的记录保管员一起翻阅一些档案，后来他注意到她转向他说：“我是理查二世。
Know ye not that?”
你们不知道吗？
Now, in all sorts of ways, she wasn’t at all.
现在，从各方面来看，她根本就不是。
She was far shrewder, far more farsighted, far more self-aware than Richard ever was.
她比理查德更精明、更有远见、更有自知之明。
But she could see the parallels, and so could everyone else.
但她能看到其中的相似之处，其他人也能看到。
Now, Richard II was pretty successful as a patron of the arts.
现在，理查二世作为艺术赞助人相当成功。
The Wilton Diptych is commissioned.
威尔顿双联画被委托制作。
He supports Chaucer.
他支持乔叟。
Did he have good taste?
他的品味好吗？
Did he just get lucky?
难道他只是运气好？
Did he do this all for cynical reasons?
他做这一切都是出于愤世嫉俗的原因吗？
How do you understand the record?
怎么理解记录呢？
He had superb tastes artistically, I think, in terms of the visual arts.
我认为，就视觉艺术而言，他具有极高的艺术品味。
There, again, he makes an interesting comparison with Charles I, who’s our other great commissioner of art as king — two men who understood the power of image but didn’t really understand the structures and the realities behind that.
在那里，他再次与查理一世进行了有趣的比较，查理一世是我们作为国王的另一位伟大的艺术专员——两个人理解图像的力量，但并不真正理解其背后的结构和现实。
Richard really was a superb commissioner of art if we put it together.
如果我们把它们放在一起的话，理查德确实是一位出色的艺术专员。
There’s a life-size coronation portrait in Westminster Abbey, which is an extraordinary painting.
威斯敏斯特教堂里有一幅真人大小的加冕肖像，这是一幅非凡的画作。
It’s currently at the west door of Westminster Abbey, but it used to, we think, be in the choir near the high altar.
它目前位于威斯敏斯特教堂的西门，但我们认为它曾经位于高坛附近的唱诗班中。
The tomb he commissioned for himself and his first wife, Anne of Bohemia — the first-ever double tomb for a King of England — is a superb piece of metalwork, gilded bronze effigies lying on a gilded tabletop.
他为自己和第一任妻子波西米亚的安妮建造的坟墓——“英国国王的第一座双层坟墓”——是一件精美的金属制品，镀金的桌面上躺着镀金的青铜雕像。
And then, the crowning achievement, the Wilton Diptych, which is one of the most exquisite pieces of art I’ve ever seen.
然后是最高成就，威尔顿双联画，这是我见过的最精美的艺术作品之一。
Interestingly, though, Chaucer served Richard II.
但有趣的是，乔叟为理查二世服务。
He held office in his government.
他在政府任职。
One of Chaucer’s trips to Italy was to attempt to arrange a marriage for the young Richard in the late 1370s.
1370 年代末，乔叟的意大利之行之一是试图为年轻的理查德安排一桩婚姻。
But I’m not sure Richard was a great reader.
但我不确定理查德是不是一个伟大的读者。
Another biographer of Richard says that his interest in written literature was polite, and I think that’s quite a polite way of putting it.
理查德的另一位传记作者说他对书面文学的兴趣是礼貌的，我认为这是一个相当礼貌的表达方式。
I’m not sure Richard really did take an interest, despite having Chaucer at his court.
我不确定理查德是否真的对此感兴趣，尽管乔叟在他的宫廷里。
I think Henry of Bolingbroke, later Henry IV, clearly was a reader, and he was much more interested in the written word and in music, much less interested in the visual arts.
我认为博林布鲁克的亨利，即后来的亨利四世，显然是一位读者，他对书面文字和音乐更感兴趣，对视觉艺术更不感兴趣。
I think Richard was all about his kingship, the image of his kingship, the iconography of his kingship.
我认为理查所关心的就是他的王权、他王权的形象、他王权的肖像。
It’s no accident that the three great pieces of visual art he commissioned all have stunning portraits of himself at the center.
他委托创作的三件伟大的视觉艺术作品的中心都有令人惊叹的他本人肖像，这绝非偶然。
With Henry IV, there were few visual remnants of his rule that we care about.
对于亨利四世来说，我们在意的他的统治的视觉遗迹几乎没有。
Are there any?
有吗？
He also has a remarkable tomb, but it’s not his own work.
他还有一座非凡的坟墓，但这不是他自己的作品。
When he died, we do have his will, which is a really unusual and remarkable document.
当他去世时，我们确实有他的遗嘱，这是一份非常不寻常且非凡的文件。
Royal wills were usually very formal.
皇家遗嘱通常非常正式。
They were usually in French or Latin.
它们通常是法语或拉丁语。
They were written using the royal “we.” They were very public.
它们是用皇家“我们”书写的。他们非常公开。
They usually left lots of bequests for one’s soul and perhaps instructions about a funeral.
他们通常会为一个人的灵魂留下很多遗赠，也许还有关于葬礼的指示。
Richard’s, of course, goes into enormous detail about what outfit he wants to be buried in, et cetera, et cetera.
当然，理查德详细介绍了他想穿什么衣服埋葬，等等。
Henry’s is in English, and it is written in the first-person singular.
亨利的书是英文的，并且是用第一人称单数写的。
It begins, “I, Henry, sinful wretch, King of England, France, Lord of Ireland,” et cetera, “who has never been worthy to be man, but by God’s grace, and my life I have misspent.” I think he was racked by guilt about what he had done.
它的开头是：“我，亨利，罪孽深重的恶棍，英国国王、法国国王、爱尔兰勋爵”等等，“我从来不配做人，但靠着上帝的恩典，我的生命已经浪费了。”我认为他对自己的所作所为感到内疚。
He didn’t leave instructions for an elaborate funeral or an elaborate monument.
他没有留下关于举办精心设计的葬礼或精心设计的纪念碑的指示。
His widow commissioned a beautiful alabaster tomb for the two of them in Canterbury Cathedral.
他的遗孀委托在坎特伯雷大教堂为他们两人建造了一座美丽的雪花石膏坟墓。
I find that tomb deeply moving because, in the figures — they’re very finely carved alabaster — you see the mark of what Henry had done.
我发现这座坟墓深深地感动了我，因为在人物中————它们是用雪花石膏雕刻得非常精美————你可以看到亨利所做过的事情的痕迹。
He’s wearing a crown, but his face, given that he died at not quite 46, and he had been one of the most celebrated chivalric knights in Europe — he really had been a golden boy — but the man depicted in that effigy is a man weighed down by what he’s done.
他戴着王冠，但他的脸却是这样的，考虑到他死时还不到 46 岁，而且他曾是欧洲最著名的骑士之一——“他确实是一个金童”——但那个肖像中描绘的人是一个因自己的所作所为而感到沉重的人。
Other than that, he didn’t really have time for commissioning much art.
除此之外，他并没有时间委托创作太多艺术作品。
It was firefighting, his reign, firefighting from beginning to truncated end.
这是救火，他的统治，从开始到结束的救火。
How is it that a Chaucer suddenly becomes possible?
乔叟怎么会突然变得可能呢？
Because it seems quite hard to imagine there having been a Chaucer a hundred years earlier.
因为似乎很难想象一百年前还有一个乔叟。
What is it that has changed that enables a Chaucer?
是什么改变了乔叟？
In Florence, of course, there’s Dante.
在佛罗伦萨，当然有但丁。
What’s the delta, as we economists would ask?
正如我们经济学家会问的那样，Delta 是多少？
I have to say I’m no literary scholar, but the development of English as a language spoken across all classes of society really flexibly — because before the 14th century, of course, we go back to the Conquest, and we have a Norman French-speaking elite coming into an English-speaking country, and French and Latin — the lingua franca of medieval Europe — remain the languages of government until, if you like, the elite has bedded in sufficiently, and one of the things that helps the elite to bed in sufficiently is the war with France.
我不得不说，我不是文学学者，但英语作为社会各阶层使用的语言的发展确实非常灵活 ——因为在14世纪之前，当然，我们回到了征服时代，我们有诺曼法语精英进入英语国家，而法语和拉丁语—— 中世纪欧洲的通用语言 ——仍然是政府语言，直到，如果你愿意的话，精英们已经充分适应了，而帮助精英们充分适应的事情之一就是与法国的战争。
It helps to draw, literally, battle lines between what’s happening over there, including culturally, and what’s happening over here.
从字面上看，它有助于划清那里正在发生的事情（包括文化上的事情）和这里正在发生的事情之间的界限。
You can see that both in the French that’s spoken in England that by the late 14th and early 15th century, it’s not always easy for people who speak French in England to understand Parisians, for example.
例如，您可以看到，到 14 世纪末和 15 世纪初，在英国讲法语的人中，在英国讲法语的人要理解巴黎人并不总是那么容易。
French has gone native, but at the same time, English has grown and developed into a language that is used throughout society from the bottom right to the top.
法语已经成为本土语言，但与此同时，英语已经成长和发展成为一种从右下到上层在整个社会中使用的语言。
That then gives the opportunity for that vernacular to feed into the growth of literature in the vernacular that is happening in various places across Europe.
这就为这种白话文学提供了融入欧洲各地白话文学发展的机会。
That’s my understanding of how, and of course, then a genius appears who wants to try his hand at writing poetry in his own language, and he’s not the only one.
这就是我的理解，当然，然后一个天才出现了，他想尝试用自己的语言写诗，而且他不是唯一的一个。
There’s John Gower and Langland and all sorts of anonymous poets, too.
还有约翰·高尔（John Gower）和朗兰（Langland）以及各种匿名诗人。
This is before Gutenberg, of course.
当然，这是在古腾堡之前。
Do you have a rough sense of what a copy of Canterbury Tales would have cost if you wanted to get one?
如果您想买一本《坎特伯雷故事集》，您是否大致了解要花多少钱？
I have no idea, I have to say.
我不知道，我必须说。
But it would’ve been quite expensive, right?
但它会非常昂贵，对吧？
Absolutely, it would be expensive.
毫无疑问，它会很昂贵。
Copies of any text have to be copied by hand.
任何文本的副本都必须手工复印。
Writing is a professional skill.
写作是一项专业技能。
Lots more people can read than can write because writing is a very difficult professional skill.
能读的人比能写的人多得多，因为写作是一项非常困难的专业技能。
Writing on parchment using quill pens and so on — it’s not something that everybody can do, and certainly copying out a long manuscript like that — it’s an elite form of production for an elite consumer.
用羽毛笔等在羊皮纸上写字 ——这不是每个人都能做的事情，当然还可以抄写出这样长的手稿 ——这是针对精英消费者的精英生产形式。
What do you think of the notion that there were these late medieval technologies of water power, wind power?
您如何看待中世纪晚期的水力发电、风力发电技术？
They slowly became more productive, and by this time, there’s just more social surplus, so for fighting the wars with France, for supporting Chaucer?
他们慢慢地变得更有生产力，到了这个时候，社会盈余就更多了，那么为了与法国打仗，为了支持乔叟呢？
Is that true, or were living standards just flat for centuries?
这是真的吗？还是生活水平几个世纪以来一直持平？
The 14th century is an interesting century to ask that question because we have the huge traumatic break of the Black Death, which arrived in England in 1348, which, as far as we can tell, killed between a third and a half of the population.
14 世纪是提出这个问题的一个有趣的世纪，因为黑死病给我们带来了巨大的创伤，它于 1348 年抵达英国，据我们所知，导致三分之一到一半的人口死亡。
One of the things that’s happening in the later 14th century is that elite incomes and standards of living are being squeezed because the cheap labor on which they’ve always depended is no longer there in abundance.
14 世纪后期发生的事情之一是，精英阶层的收入和生活水平正在受到挤压，因为他们一直依赖的廉价劳动力不再充足。
Meanwhile, the opportunity for social mobility is suddenly vastly expanded because labor is in suddenly short supply, and people in the lower orders of life suddenly have opportunities or should have opportunities they’ve never seen before.
与此同时，由于劳动力突然短缺，社会流动的机会突然大幅扩大，处于社会底层的人们突然拥有或应该拥有他们以前从未见过的机会。
One of the things you see that is enormously divisive in the late 14th century in England is that the political classes are desperately trying to keep a lid on this new capacity to flex their muscles that they’re seeing from their social inferiors.
你所看到的在 14 世纪末的英国引起巨大分歧的事情之一是，政治阶层拼命地试图限制他们从社会地位较低的人那里看到的这种展示肌肉的新能力。
One question is, whose incomes are we talking about?
一个问题是，我们谈论的是谁的收入？
Whose surplus are we talking about?
我们在谈论谁的盈余？
One of the remarkable things is, if you’re only looking at the war in the 1340s and 1350s, you might not even notice there’d been the Black Death because they carry on regardless.
值得注意的事情之一是，如果你只关注 1340 年代和 1350 年代的战争，你可能甚至没有注意到黑死病的存在，因为它们无论如何都在继续。
The war machine keeps going.
战争机器继续运转。
It takes some time for these hugely affecting social and economic changes to work their way through at a social, cultural, and political level, as opposed, of course, to the personal trauma that was immediate and intense.
这些对社会和经济产生巨大影响的变革需要一段时间才能在社会、文化和政治层面上发挥作用，当然，这与直接而强烈的个人创伤相反。
On whether Richard II pulled a Captain Kirk
关于理查二世是否拉过柯克船长
Now, as you well know, toward the end of his reign, Richard II goes off to Ireland.
现在，众所周知，理查二世在其统治即将结束时前往爱尔兰。
Not long after that, he’s deposed.
不久之后，他就被废黜了。
Two-part question.
两部分的问题。
First, was that just a stupid mistake?
首先，这只是一个愚蠢的错误吗？
Second, why does he have to go personally?
第二，为什么他一定要亲自去？
It reminds me of these old Star Trek episodes where Captain Kirk himself beams down to the planet.
这让我想起了那些古老的《星际迷航》剧集，柯克船长亲自向地球发射光束。
Clearly, that’s a mistake.
显然，这是一个错误。
Why is he in Ireland?
他为什么在爱尔兰？
That’s not a bad analogy, actually, and science fiction is something I think about quite a lot when trying to understand medieval England.
事实上，这是一个不错的类比，当我试图了解中世纪的英格兰时，我经常思考科幻小说。
It is a stupid mistake but not one that Richard, I think, could have recognized because his whole approach to governing England was a stupid mistake.
这是一个愚蠢的错误，但我认为理查德不可能认识到这一错误，因为他治理英格兰的整个方法是一个愚蠢的错误。
He thought he had just pulled off his greatest triumph by cutting his greatest rival, Henry of Bolingbroke, off at the knees.
他认为，通过砍倒他最大的对手博林布鲁克的亨利的膝盖，他刚刚取得了最大的胜利。
He’d destroyed his three most powerful opponents, the men he saw as his opponents in 1397: his uncle and two other nobles.
他消灭了三个最强大的对手，即他在 1397 年视为对手的人：他的叔叔和另外两名贵族。
That left two other men who had stood up to him previously: Thomas Mowbray, the Duke of Norfolk, and his cousin, Henry.
只剩下另外两个曾经反抗过他的人：诺福克公爵托马斯·莫布雷和他的表弟亨利。
He’d exiled them both.
他把他们俩都放逐了。
Then in 1399, when Henry’s father, John of Gaunt died, he seized Henry’s inheritance, and it was clear that Henry wasn’t ever going to be allowed back.
1399 年，亨利的父亲冈特的约翰去世，他夺取了亨利的遗产，很明显，亨利永远不会被允许回来。
Richard thinks, “Now I’m safe.
理查德想：“现在我安全了。
I’ve seen off my greatest opponent, so I can go and do what I want to do,” which is go to Ireland.
我已经击败了我最大的对手，所以我可以去做我想做的事情了，”那就是去爱尔兰。
Why does he go himself?
他为什么要自己去？
Very good question.
非常好的问题。
Because he’d had a good time there before in 1394 and ’95.
因为他在 1394 年和 95 年曾在那里度过了一段愉快的时光。
In Ireland?
在爱尔兰？
In Ireland.
在爱尔兰。
He’d gone there before to sort out a long-running conflict between the English settlers in Ireland known as the Anglo-Irish lords and the Wild Irish, as the English called them, the Gaelic Irish chiefs.
他之前曾去过那里，解决爱尔兰的英国定居者（被称为英爱领主）和野爱尔兰人（英国人称他们为盖尔爱尔兰酋长）之间长期存在的冲突。
Essentially what Richard had done was appear in majesty.
从本质上讲，理查德所做的就是表现出威严。
The Irish had seen him coming.
爱尔兰人已经看到他来了。
The Gaelic chiefs realized very quickly that if they prostrated themselves at his feet and swore homage to him, he would be delighted and would go away again in five minutes, leaving them actually emboldened and empowered in pursuing their own interests.
盖尔族酋长们很快意识到，如果他们拜倒在他的脚下，向他宣誓效忠，他会很高兴，五分钟后就会再次离开，让他们真正有勇气和力量去追求自己的利益。
So, his previous visit had not sorted anything out, surprise, surprise.
所以，他上次的来访并没有解决任何问题，惊喜，惊喜。
Now was his chance to go back again and have some more of these ceremonies of these Irish chiefs more or less lying at his feet, which he’d rather enjoyed first time round, not seeing that leaving his kingdom open and undefended gave Henry an opportunity to come back — not with an army because he didn’t have one, but to come back from exile to claim his rightful inheritance, and what he discovered when he got there was that the people of England flocked to him.
现在他有机会再次回去，并在或多或少地在他脚下举行更多这些爱尔兰酋长的仪式，他宁愿第一次享受这些，没有看到让他的王国开放且不设防会给亨利带来一个回来的机会——不是带着军队，因为他没有军队，而是从流亡中回来索取他合法的继承权，而当他到达那里时，他发现英格兰人民涌向他。
How else is it that you use science fiction to think about medieval England?
不然你怎么会用科幻小说来思考中世纪的英国呢？
I think it’s that sense of putting recognizably human people into another world, into a world where the landscape, the culture, the assumptions are different from ours, and that’s what it feels like to me, trying to think about being in medieval England.
我认为这是一种将人类带入另一个世界的感觉，一个风景、文化、假设都与我们不同的世界，这就是我试图想象身处中世纪英格兰的感觉。
For example, when I went to see the recent remakes of the Dune films, that sense of Paul Atreides as the Lisan Al-Gaib, the chosen one — that’s how Richard thought of himself — the unique being who should be able to simply speak with the voice, and then everyone should obey him.
例如，当我去看最近翻拍的《沙丘》电影时，保罗·阿特雷迪斯饰演的 Lisan Al-Gaib 是被选中的人——这就是理查德对自己的看法——他是一个独特的存在，他应该能够简单地用声音说话，然后每个人都应该服从他。
Trouble is, he’s not in Dune.
问题是，他不在沙丘。
He’s in England, and it doesn’t work, but that sense of destiny, of chosenness, those narratives because, of course, history is a process of finding a narrative within the records of the past, but it’s also a question of recognizing the narratives that people in the past told themselves or other people about themselves, and I think it can be helpful.
他在英国，这不起作用，但那种命运感、选择感、那些叙述，因为，当然，历史是一个在过去的记录中寻找叙述的过程，但这也是一个认识过去的人们告诉自己或其他人关于自己的叙述的问题，我认为这会有所帮助。
When I went to see the recent remakes of the Dune films, that sense of Paul Atreides as the Lisan Al-Gaib, the chosen one — that’s how Richard thought of himself — the unique being who should be able to simply speak with the voice, and then everyone should obey him.
当我去看最近翻拍的《沙丘》电影时，保罗·阿特雷迪斯饰演 Lisan Al-Gaib，被选中的人——这就是理查德对自己的看法——独特的存在，他应该能够简单地用声音说话，然后每个人都应该服从他。
Trouble is, he’s not in Dune.
问题是，他不在沙丘。
He’s in England, and it doesn’t work, but that sense of destiny, of chosenness, those narratives because, of course, history is a process of finding a narrative within the records of the past, but it’s also a question of recognizing the narratives that people in the past told themselves or other people about themselves, and I think it can be helpful.
他在英国，这不起作用，但那种命运感、选择感、那些叙述，因为，当然，历史是一个在过去的记录中寻找叙述的过程，但这也是一个认识过去的人们告诉自己或其他人关于自己的叙述的问题，我认为这会有所帮助。
You must like Connie Willis novels then.
那你一定喜欢康妮·威利斯的小说。
Whose novels?
谁的小说？
Connie Willis.
康妮·威利斯。
She writes about time travel back to earlier English history, often medieval England.
她所写的时间旅行可以追溯到英国早期历史，通常是中世纪的英格兰。
I don’t know her work, but thank you.
我不知道她的工作，但谢谢你。
I will go in search of it.
我会去寻找它。
We will email you some titles.
我们将通过电子邮件向您发送一些标题。
Please do.
请这样做。
On the original historical sources of the period
关于该时期的原始历史来源
This era — if I’m trying to think about the flow of evidence, is it that we learn new things each year because records get digitized or we discover new diaries?
这个时代 ——如果我试图思考证据的流动，我们每年都会因为记录数字化而学到新东西，还是因为我们发现了新的日记？
Or is it just what we have is what we have?
或者说我们所拥有的就是我们所拥有的吗？
The new evidence coming — is it archeological?
新证据来了 ——它是考古学的吗？
How do we learn things over time other than just historians arguing with each other?
除了历史学家互相争论之外，我们如何随着时间的推移学习事物？
Both/and, I would say.
我会说两者/并且。
I wish we had diaries for this period.
我希望我们有这段时期的日记。
I would dearly love to have the diary of Richard II at any point in his life, or of Henry for that matter, or anyone around them.
我非常希望拥有理查德二世一生中任何时刻的日记，或者亨利的日记，或者他们周围的任何人的日记。
We do have some letters, very few of them in any sense, what we would call private letters.
我们确实有一些信件，但从任何意义上来说都很少，我们称之为私人信件。
In one sense we have, compared to what modern historians are working with, very little.
从某种意义上说，与现代历史学家正在研究的东西相比，我们所知甚少。
I tend to think of it as joining scattered dots, trying to paint a picture when you’re having to join dots, that can be very far apart.
我倾向于将其视为连接分散的点，当你必须连接点时尝试绘制一幅画，这些点可能相距很远。
But because England was such a centralized state, we have vast quantities of documents that are produced by central government or by the law courts centrally, all in their delegated forms right down to manorial level.
但由于英格兰是一个中央集权的国家，我们有大量由中央政府或法院集中制作的文件，所有这些文件都以委托形式一直到庄园级别。
In that sense, new evidence is being discovered by the process of historians digging deeper and deeper.
从这个意义上说，历史学家在不断深入挖掘的过程中不断发现新的证据。
When I was doing my PhD many decades ago, I was working on the legal records of 15th-century England, and I was having to sample them because there were so many.
几十年前，当我攻读博士学位时，我正在研究 15 世纪英格兰的法律记录，我不得不对它们进行抽样，因为数量太多了。
There were four legal terms a year, two or three different courts that I was trying to work with.
每年有四个法律条款，我试图与两三个不同的法院合作。
Just physically, I would order up a term’s worth of documents, and it would be more than I could almost manhandle onto the stand I had to use.
就身体而言，我会订购一个学期的文件，而这些文件几乎超出了我可以手动搬运到我必须使用的展位上的范围。
It’s less a question of things being digitized and more a question of the historical process of sifting and finding, and what questions are being asked, and returning to the material and seeing what those documents can be made to give up.
这与其说是事物被数字化的问题，不如说是筛选和发现的历史过程的问题，以及提出了哪些问题，然后返回到材料并看看这些文件可以放弃什么。
Occasionally of course, there is either a document that hasn’t been looked at or hasn’t been looked at in the very particular way that a historian is now choosing to do it.
当然，有时候，有些文献还没有被研究过，或者没有以历史学家现在选择的非常特殊的方式进行研究。
Just your personal sense of what Richard II was like, what Henry IV was like — where does that mainly come from?
只是你个人对理查二世是什么样子，亨利四世是什么样子 —— 这主要来自哪里？
What document or evidence or thing gives you that feeling?
什么文件、证据或事物给你这种感觉？
It’s a cumulative process, I suppose, like what I was saying about the development of the English constitution over the years.
我想，这是一个累积的过程，就像我所说的多年来英国宪法的发展一样。
It’s a process of building up a sketch and then filling it out.
这是建立草图然后填写的过程。
That’s one of the reasons that in the work I do now, I always, always write chronologically because we live chronologically.
这就是我现在所做的工作中总是按时间顺序写作的原因之一，因为我们按时间顺序生活。
It may sound obvious, but a lot of academic history, for extremely good reasons, is written with the kind of eagle-eyed view of the past, where you are trying to see long-term development, structural change, and so on, and that’s all vastly important.
这听起来似乎是理所当然的，但很多学术史出于极其充分的理由，都是以对过去的敏锐视角来写的，你试图看到长期发展、结构变化等等，而这一切都非常重要。
But because I am trying to investigate the role of individuals and the psychology of individuals .
但因为我正在尝试调查个人的角色和个人的心理。
.
。
.
。
We all live from day to day, and we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next hour, in the next day, in the next week.
我们都日复一日地生活，我们不知道下一小时、第二天、下一周会发生什么。
I’m always trying to build up from the fragments of evidence I have.
我总是试图从我所拥有的证据碎片中建立证据。
Sometimes that’s difficult, and sometimes I have to go back, and sometimes, what I learn later then colors what I’ve already said.
有时这很困难，有时我必须回去，有时，我后来学到的东西会影响我已经说过的话。
For instance, we don’t really know that much about Richard and Henry’s education.
例如，我们对理查德和亨利的教育了解不多。
We know what a typical education for aristocratic and royal boys in their period was, but I’ve given myself the liberty of filling in some of that space by what I know about their families and what I know about the men they became.
我们知道那个时期贵族和皇室男孩的典型教育是什么，但我给了自己自由，通过我对他们家庭的了解以及对他们成为的男人的了解来填补一些空白。
I’m trying to see in that moment the steps that will allow me then to explain what they did when they were 13, what they did when they were 15, what they did when they were 20, and so on.
我试图在那一刻看到一些步骤，这些步骤将使我能够解释他们在 13 岁时做了什么，他们在 15 岁时做了什么，他们在 20 岁时做了什么，等等。
It’s a cumulative thing and every scrap of evidence I can possibly find, I will be adding into the pile.
这是一个累积的过程，我能找到的每一条证据，我都会添加到这堆证据中。
What evidence is it that Shakespeare had access to?
莎士比亚获得了什么证据？
Anything?
任何事物？
Or there’s some kind of oral tradition, or it’s completely made up?
或者有某种口头传统，或者完全是编造的？
Not completely made up at all.
根本没有完全化妆。
I know the historical details are not made up, but his sense of them as people.
我知道历史细节不是编造的，而是他作为人的感受。
Well, I think a lot of that does come from the historical sources he was using.
嗯，我认为其中很多确实来自他所使用的历史资料。
I’m ashamed to say I’ve only very recently gone and read Raphael Holinshed’s chronicle, which is one of the main narrative sources that Shakespeare was using.
我很惭愧地说，我最近才读了拉斐尔·霍林希德的编年史，这是莎士比亚使用的主要叙事来源之一。
I hadn’t read it before because it’s 16th century, and I’m trying to read the contemporary stuff.
我以前没读过它，因为那是 16 世纪的事，我正在尝试读当代的东西。
Actually, it’s fantastic.
事实上，这太棒了。
He’s such a good writer, and in reading his account of Richard’s reign and Henry’s reign, I could trace, I could see which chronicles, which medieval chronicles he’d been using, and where he’d used the records of Parliament, and so on.
他是一位出色的作家，在阅读他对理查德统治和亨利统治的描述时，我可以追踪，我可以看到他使用了哪些编年史，哪些中世纪编年史，以及他在哪里使用了议会记录，等等。
Shakespeare isn’t going back to medieval chronicles and the records of medieval parliaments, but he’s using Raphael Holinshed’s chronicle, and Holinshed’s chronicle does use those sources.
莎士比亚并没有回到中世纪编年史和中世纪议会的记录，但他使用了拉斐尔·霍林斯德的编年史，而霍林斯德的编年史确实使用了这些资料。
Then he’s using Edmund Hall’s chronicle, and Hall’s chronicle also draws on those sources.
然后他使用了埃德蒙·霍尔的编年史，而霍尔的编年史也借鉴了这些资料。
Those are narrative sources that do give a sense of the main protagonists at their center.
这些叙事来源确实给人一种以主角为中心的感觉。
So, I think the portrait of Richard in the play, Richard II, is astonishingly fine, although, perhaps for obvious reasons, Shakespeare makes him much more articulate and insightful than I can see the real Richard being in the historical record.
所以，我认为剧中理查二世的肖像是惊人的好，尽管也许出于显而易见的原因，莎士比亚使他比我在历史记录中看到的真实的理查更加清晰和富有洞察力。
I think the one who gets the short straw is Henry because in Richard II, he’s Richard’s nemesis.
我认为最短命的是亨利，因为在《理查二世》中，他是理查的宿敌。
He’s this implacable figure, Bolingbrook, who is there to bring Richard down, and Richard II is really a play about Richard.
博林布鲁克就是一个冷酷无情的人物，他的目的就是要打倒理查，而《理查二世》确实是一部关于理查的戏剧。
It’s a one-man band, really, in terms of the parts in the play.
就剧中的角色而言，这确实是一支单人乐队。
Then when we shift to Henry IV, Part 1, suddenly, the active, commanding figure of Bolingbrook has been left behind.
然后，当我们转向《亨利四世》第一部分时，突然，活跃的指挥人物博林布鲁克被抛在了后面。
For the purposes of Shakespeare’s drama, Henry has become a sort of gray, careworn, much aged man.
为了莎士比亚戏剧的目的，亨利已经变成了一个头发花白、忧心忡忡、年老的男人。
Now, the carewornness is real, the difficulty is real, but Shakespeare’s played with the generations.
现在，忧虑是真实的，困难是真实的，但莎士比亚与几代人一起玩耍。
He’s made Henry IV the same age as the Earl of Northumberland in order that he can have Prince Hal and Hotspur out front as the young hot-blooded rivals.
他让亨利四世与诺森伯兰伯爵同龄，以便让哈尔王子和急躁号成为年轻的热血竞争对手。
In actual fact, Hotspur was three years older than Henry IV.
事实上，急躁号比亨利四世大三岁。
I think it’s Henry IV, Bolingbrook, and Henry IV .
我认为是亨利四世、博林布鲁克和亨利四世。
.
。
.
。
In a sense Shakespeare’s not that interested in him because he goes from being interested in Richard II to being interested in Hal and how he can tell Hal’s story as he goes on to become Henry V.
从某种意义上说，莎士比亚对他没那么感兴趣，因为他从对理查二世感兴趣变成了对哈尔感兴趣，以及当他成为亨利五世时他如何讲述哈尔的故事。
One of the reasons I wanted to write this book, if it doesn’t sound too hubristic — following in Shakespeare’s footsteps is a frightening challenge.
我想写这本书的原因之一（如果这听起来不太狂妄的话）——追随莎士比亚的脚步是一项可怕的挑战。
I’m not the only person to try it, obviously, but I wanted to put Henry beside Richard because of that parallel that they were, as you say, born in the same year.
显然，我不是唯一一个尝试的人，但我想把亨利放在理查德旁边，因为正如你所说，他们是同一年出生的。
Henry’s only three months, in fact, younger than Richard.
事实上，亨利只比理查德小三个月。
Even though Richard is often talked about as a boy and Henry as a man, Henry’s the younger of the two — to see how their lives played out in parallel.
尽管人们经常谈论理查德是一个男孩，而亨利是一个男人，但亨利是两人中较年轻的一个——看看他们的生活是如何平行发展的。
Then, of course, when I was writing the book, I discovered exactly why Shakespeare had done what he’d done because it’s very difficult to keep the momentum and the arc of the story going once Richard has gone, once this melodramatic figure has gone, and Henry’s reign becomes this series of challenges and revolts and difficulties, and his health collapses.
当然，当我写这本书的时候，我确切地发现了莎士比亚为什么要做他所做的事情，因为一旦理查德走了，一旦这个戏剧性的人物走了，亨利的统治就变成了一系列的挑战、叛乱和困难，他的健康状况也崩溃了，就很难保持故事的动力和弧线。
It’s very hard to avoid the story becoming a dying fall.
故事很难避免走向崩溃。
That took a lot of work in the attempt to, I hope, let the narrative play itself out.
我希望，这需要做很多工作才能让故事自然展开。
On how Shakespeare influences our understanding of history
莎士比亚如何影响我们对历史的理解
Do you ever find you have to fight off the emotional influence of Shakespeare’s Henriad?
您是否曾经发现自己必须抵制莎士比亚笔下的亨利亚德的情感影响？
This is a problem for me when I read the history.
这是我读历史时遇到的一个问题。
The Shakespearean influence is too vivid for me, and it’s often stronger even though I know Falstaff and Hal, dissolute as a youth — that’s probably quite made up.
莎士比亚的影响对我来说太生动了，而且往往更强烈，尽管我认识福斯塔夫和哈尔，年轻时放荡不羁——这可能完全是编造的。
Do you have that issue?
你有这个问题吗？
I do, and I wanted to acknowledge it, to nod to it.
我确实这么做了，我想承认这一点，点头同意。
What I’ve done in the book is use phrases from the plays, Richard II and Henry IV, 1 and 2, as my chapter titles.
我在书中所做的就是使用戏剧《理查二世》和《亨利四世》中的短语，第一部和第二部，作为我的章节标题。
Not necessarily phrases that are from the right bit of those plays, but I just wanted to acknowledge that, of course, the plays are there, and Shakespeare’s language is there.
不一定是来自这些戏剧的正确部分的短语，但我只是想承认，当然，戏剧在那里，莎士比亚的语言在那里。
We can’t pretend it isn’t.
我们不能假装不是。
All I could do was acknowledge it, bow to it, and then try to steep myself in the 14th- and 15th-century sources, write my version, and then have the great joy of going back to the plays and see what I’d done in the light of revisiting those texts.
我所能做的就是承认它，向它鞠躬，然后尝试让自己沉浸在 14 和 15 世纪的资料中，写出我的版本，然后带着巨大的快乐回到戏剧，看看我在重新审视这些文本的情况下做了什么。
It’s a constant dialogue.
这是一个持续的对话。
Whoever it was — I should know — who said you don’t finish a book, you stop.
不管是谁 —— 我应该知道 —— 谁说你没读完一本书，你就停下来。
That’s how I feel.
这就是我的感受。
It’s a conversation that I’m lucky to be a tiny part of.
我很幸运能参与这个对话。
Cinematically, do you like The Hollow Crown?
从电影角度来说，你喜欢《空王冠》吗？
Or are there other adaptations that make you happy and not too upset?
或者还有其他的调整可以让你开心而不至于太沮丧吗？
I love The Hollow Crown.
我喜欢《空王冠》。
One of the reasons I love it is the depth and range of the casting which must, I’m imagining, be a challenge on the stage when you’ve got to get people to commit to a certain number of months, and what if the part is only tiny?
我喜欢它的原因之一是选角的深度和范围，我想，当你必须让人们承诺一定的几个月时，这在舞台上一定是一个挑战，如果角色很小怎么办？
One of the things, of course, that television has the luxury of doing is importing all sorts of brilliant people even if it is only one scene.
当然，电视有幸做的一件事就是引进各种才华横溢的人，即使只是一个场景。
I love the richness of that production in terms of its range, and then in terms of letting the plays breathe outside that extraordinary scene when Richard comes back from Ireland, and you’re on a beach.
我喜欢这部作品的丰富性，因为它的范围很广，而且当理查德从爱尔兰回来时，你在海滩上，让戏剧在那个非凡的场景之外呼吸。
There are other productions I have loved.
还有其他我喜欢的作品。
I loved David Tennant’s portrayal of Richard II for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
我喜欢大卫·田纳特为皇家莎士比亚剧团饰演的理查二世。
I’ve just seen Jonathan Bailey at The Bridge — completely different, equally fascinating.
我刚刚在 The Bridge 看过乔纳森·贝利 (Jonathan Bailey)——完全不同，同样令人着迷。
But I think I’ve realized, in the process of writing this book and then talking about writing it, that perhaps I’m not a very good theater-goer because I love reading the plays on the page.
但我想我已经意识到，在写这本书和谈论写作的过程中，也许我不是一个很好的戏剧迷，因为我喜欢阅读页面上的戏剧。
I also prefer that.
我也更喜欢这样。
Interesting.
有趣的。
Why do you prefer it?
为什么你更喜欢它？
I feel I can create my own version in my mind, and I have difficulty keeping track of everything as it’s spoken so quickly.
我觉得我可以在脑海中创建自己的版本，而且我很难跟踪所有内容，因为它讲得太快了。
I feel exactly the same, and there’s something about the words in the space of the page that allows the imagination to play and allows the resonances to sound.
我也有同样的感觉，页面空间里的文字有些东西可以让想象力发挥，让共鸣响起。
I think that’s one of the reasons I love Richard II among all the plays, because the language is so beautiful and the resonances within and between the lines is something that I go backwards and forwards with.
我想这就是我在所有戏剧中喜欢《理查二世》的原因之一，因为它的语言是如此美丽，台词内和台词之间的共鸣是我反复思考的东西。
It’s my own private world.
这是我自己的私人世界。
And I realize that makes me a very bad theater-goer but it’s one of the reasons that play means quite so much to me.
我意识到这让我成为一个非常糟糕的戏剧迷，但这也是戏剧对我如此重要的原因之一。
Do you know the Orson Welles movie, Chimes at Midnight?
你知道奥森·威尔斯的电影《午夜钟声》吗？
Do you know that’s another shameful admission?
你知道这又是一次可耻的承认吗？
Of course, I know about it, but I have not seen it.
当然，我知道，但我没有见过。
That is fantastic.
那太棒了。
It’s completely unfaithful, both to history and Shakespeare, but it’s the movie that makes Shakespeare work visually far more than any other, I think.
这对历史和莎士比亚来说都是完全不忠实的，但我认为正是这部电影让莎士比亚在视觉上的表现远胜于其他任何电影。
It’s quite brilliant.
非常精彩。
I will add that to my list.
我会将其添加到我的列表中。
I think that’s a key point too, isn’t it?
我认为这也是一个关键点，不是吗？
That the medium is key.
媒介是关键。
If it’s television, do what works on television.
如果是电视，就做电视上有效的事情。
If it’s film, do what works on film, and do what can uniquely be done in that medium.
如果是电影，就做电影上可行的事情，并做在该媒体中可以独特完成的事情。
That’s where new insight comes.
这就是新见解的来源。
And don’t be afraid to grab a text by the scruff of the neck and make it something new.
并且不要害怕抓住文本并使其成为新的东西。
On what motivates Castor’s scholarship
卡斯特奖学金的动机是什么
When you think of your work, and also just your consumption of history and also of Shakespeare, what is it you think you’re maximizing?
当你想到你的工作，以及你对历史和莎士比亚的消费时，你认为你最大化的是什么？
How do you think about your own endeavor?
您如何看待自己的努力？
What an interesting question.
多么有趣的问题啊。
I think I’m preoccupied by the human dimension, and that’s why the focus of my interest goes in two directions.
我认为我专注于人的维度，这就是为什么我的兴趣集中在两个方向。
One is psychological, that I am always trying to work out what makes my protagonists tick from moment to moment, even though I’m trying to work across five or six hundred years.
一个是心理上的，我总是试图弄清楚是什么让我的主角时时刻刻都在打勾，尽管我试图跨越五六百年来工作。
That’s what I love, trying to get inside their minds and see through their eyes.
这就是我喜欢的，尝试进入他们的内心并通过他们的眼睛去看。
The other thing I’m preoccupied with is the functioning of power.
我关注的另一件事是权力的运作。
I think that’s why I love the Middle Ages, because I’ve always felt, in looking at modern history, that I get bamboozled by structures, by the institutions through which power is expressed and mediated.
我想这就是我喜欢中世纪的原因，因为在审视现代历史时，我一直觉得我被结构、被权力表达和调解的机构所迷惑。
What I find fascinating about the Middle Ages in England is that you’re looking at a very sophisticated structure of power, but it’s present in bare bones because we don’t have the great apparatus of state.
我发现英国中世纪的迷人之处在于，你看到的是一个非常复杂的权力结构，但它只是简单地存在，因为我们没有伟大的国家机器。
Therefore, individual choices and individual psychology become extremely exposed, so it’s that point where skeletal structures of power are being inhabited by particular individuals, and how that plays out.
因此，个人选择和个人心理变得极其暴露，所以这就是权力骨架结构被特定个人占据的点，以及它如何发挥作用。
I think that’s where my interest lies, and therefore that’s where I’m hoping to contribute.
我认为这就是我的兴趣所在，因此这就是我希望做出贡献的地方。
If in some counterfactual universe, you’re studying some other period of history with that same interest, what and where would it be?
如果在某个反事实的宇宙中，你正在以同样的兴趣研究其他历史时期，那会是什么以及在哪里？
Well, I’m already trying to cover 500 years.
嗯，我已经尝试过 500 年了。
That’s fascinating.
这很有趣。
I think I would have to go back, not forward.
我想我必须回去，而不是前进。
I would probably —
我可能会 ——
Rome, ancient Greece, African kingdoms?
罗马、古希腊、非洲王国？
Yes, I’m thinking Greece, ancient Greece, but of course it’s a chronological extension backwards.
是的，我想到的是希腊，古希腊，但当然这是按时间顺序向后延伸。
I’m not leaping to somewhere completely different because the classical world is at the root, in many ways, of medieval culture.
我不会跳到完全不同的地方，因为古典世界在很多方面都是中世纪文化的根源。
I think I would leap back there, and I would much more happily leap back there than I would leap forward, if you’ll allow me that.
我想我会跳回那里，如果你允许的话，我会更高兴地跳回那里而不是向前跳。
Sure.
当然。
Why did you leave academia?
你为什么离开学术界？
The immediate cause was geography, that I was having my son, and I was teaching in Cambridge, and his father, my ex-husband, was teaching in Liverpool, and we lived in London.
直接原因是地理，我生了儿子，我在剑桥教书，他的父亲，我的前夫，在利物浦教书，我们住在伦敦。
That was a geographical triangle that was going to be quite difficult to navigate with a baby.
这是一个地理三角形，带着婴儿很难驾驭。
But that’s too easy an answer for me to give you.
但这对我来说太简单了，无法给你答案。
You haven’t gone back, right?
你还没回去吧？
I haven’t gone back.
我没有回去。
It’s too easy an answer for me to give you because there were deeper reasons.
对我来说，这个答案太简单了，因为还有更深层次的原因。
I had never intended to be an academic.
我从来没有想过要成为一名学者。
I always wanted to be a historian, and I didn’t really know how that was going to be possible.
我一直想成为一名历史学家，但我真的不知道这怎么可能。
I loved studying history as an undergraduate.
我本科时喜欢学习历史。
I didn’t intend to do a PhD but at the last minute, I thought, “I’m not ready to stop.” So, I did a PhD and then applied for a research fellowship because I hadn’t quite finished the PhD, was extraordinarily lucky to get one.
我本来不想攻读博士学位，但在最后一刻，我想，“我还没准备好停下来。”所以，我攻读了博士学位，然后申请了研究奖学金，因为我还没有完全完成博士学位，能获得博士学位真是太幸运了。
Then a teaching job came up in my first year that I was convinced I had no chance of getting and so merrily applied for it for experience and got it.
然后，在我的第一年，出现了一份教学工作，我确信自己没有机会得到这份工作，所以高兴地申请了这份工作以积累经验，并得到了它。
Then spent an extremely happy eight years teaching and being a director of studies and a tutor and all sorts of things at Sidney Sussex, my college in Cambridge.
然后在我位于剑桥的悉尼苏塞克斯学院度过了非常快乐的八年教学、研究主任和导师以及各种各样的事情。
I loved so many things about it but I wasn’t writing in the way that I wanted to write.
我喜欢它的很多东西，但我并没有按照我想要的方式写作。
I’m a very slow writer and an immersive writer, and I was finding it very difficult to spin all the other plates.
我是一个非常慢的作家和一个身临其境的作家，我发现旋转所有其他板块非常困难。
Many people do it brilliantly, but I was finding it difficult to spin all those plates.
很多人都做得很出色，但我发现很难旋转所有这些盘子。
Also, I wanted to write a different kind of history.
另外，我想写一段不同的历史。
Rather than writing the very analytical academic kind of history that I had been writing, I wanted to write narrative history that was focused on individuals.
我不想写我一直在写的分析性学术历史，而是想写以个人为中心的叙事历史。
It’s not that that’s impossible inside academia.
这在学术界并不是不可能的。
Many people do it brilliantly, but I was finding it difficult with the weight of my history in the institution I was teaching in.
很多人都做得很出色，但我发现由于我在所任教的机构中的历史分量，这很困难。
I was teaching in the same place that I’d been a student.
我在学生时代的同一个地方教书。
I was teaching with colleagues, many of whom had taught me, who I admire immensely, but I was feeling that sense of still being inside that structure, and it was my own inability to, either in practical terms or psychologically, break out of it unless I actually broke out of it.
我和同事们一起教学，他们中的许多人都教过我，我非常钦佩他们，但我感觉自己仍然处于那个结构之内，无论是在实践上还是在心理上，我自己都无法摆脱它，除非我真的摆脱了它。
I was very lucky to get a book deal for my first book, aimed at a more general audience, almost exactly the same time my son was born.
我非常幸运地获得了我的第一本书的图书交易，该书面向更广泛的读者，几乎与我儿子出生的时间完全相同。
So, I took a leap, and I’ve been lucky to be able to keep going since.
所以，我迈出了一步，并且很幸运能够继续前进。
What’s your most unusual, successful work habit?
你最不寻常、最成功的工作习惯是什么？
I am not sure I have any successful work habits.
我不确定我有什么成功的工作习惯。
You’ve written how many books?
你写了多少本书？
Eight books?
八本书？
But I despair of myself.
但我对自己感到绝望。
This book has great reviews.
这本书有很好的评论。
It’s fantastic.
太棒了。
It’s still selling.
它仍在销售。
I think I’ve had to learn to live with myself, if that counts as a work habit.
我想我必须学会接受自己，如果这算作一种工作习惯的话。
I have always thought that I should grow out of having essay crises, and I never have.
我一直认为我应该摆脱论文危机，但我从来没有这样做过。
Even if they’re now essay crises that spread over five years for any individual book, I’ve had to accept that that’s how I work, and try as I might, I can’t find a way around it.
即使现在任何一本书的论文危机都会持续五年，我也不得不接受这就是我的工作方式，并且尽我所能，我找不到解决方法。
I’m not sure that’s a successful work habit, but at least it’s a form of self-acceptance.
我不确定这是一个成功的工作习惯，但至少这是一种自我接受的形式。
What is it you find so interesting in Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot?
您对艾萨克·阿西莫夫的《我，机器人》中的哪些内容如此感兴趣？
Because that’s also a chronological history, right?
因为这也是按时间顺序排列的历史，对吗？
Told in sequence.
按顺序讲述。
He, I think, himself did not know what was going to happen.
我想，他自己也不知道会发生什么。
I think you probably put your finger on exactly why I love it.
我想你可能已经明白了我为什么喜欢它。
I read it when I was very young and then reread it a whole number of times as I was growing up.
我很小的时候就读过它，然后在成长过程中又重读了很多遍。
It’s on the shelf by my bed, almost as a talisman.
它在我床边的架子上，几乎就像一个护身符。
I keep meaning to go back to it.
我一直想回到过去。
I haven’t yet.
我还没有。
I feel very poorly read because I haven’t read any other Asimov.
我觉得自己读得很差，因为我没有读过任何其他阿西莫夫的作品。
You are an Asimov fan.
你是阿西莫夫的粉丝。
Is that right?
是这样吗？
I think it’s high variance.
我认为这是高方差。
I like much of Foundation trilogy.
我非常喜欢《基地》三部曲。
Caves of Steel is pretty good.
钢铁洞窟还不错。
There’re about a dozen truly brilliant short stories.
大约有十几个真正精彩的短篇小说。
A lot of it I find unreadable.
其中很多内容我觉得无法阅读。
I’m not a fan fan, but I appreciate the best of it, I would say.
我不是粉丝，但我想说，我很欣赏它最好的一面。
Would you say I, Robot is among the best of it?
你会说《我，机器人》是其中最好的吗？
Given that I haven’t read any of the rest.
鉴于我还没有读过其余的任何内容。
I think there were four or five stories in the sequence that are amazing.
我认为这个序列中有四五个故事令人惊叹。
A number of the others quite seem flat to me.
其他一些对我来说似乎很平淡。
In the aggregate, it’s one of the most important books and most influential books of its century, as we’re seeing now in 2025 with AI.
总的来说，它是本世纪最重要、最具影响力的书籍之一，正如我们在 2025 年人工智能领域所看到的那样。
Aren’t we?
我们不是吗？
I think what grabbed me when I was younger was a combination of that conceptual grasp.
我认为年轻时吸引我的是这种概念把握的结合。
The three laws of robotics are so astoundingly thought through and precise.
机器人三大定律经过深思熟虑且精确得令人震惊。
I think when I was very young, that conceptual framework grabbed me.
我想当我很小的时候，这个概念框架就抓住了我。
Then the fact that there’s a woman at the heart of it, which isn’t always the case in sci-fi.
事实上，故事的核心是一个女人，这在科幻小说中并不总是如此。
Watching that progression through the stories, with that sense that nothing was inevitable but one thing was leading to the next.
看着故事的进展，感觉没有什么是不可避免的，但一件事会导致下一件事。
I think you might have put your finger on exactly why I love that book and how it links to the work I do now.
我想你可能已经明白我为什么喜欢这本书以及它与我现在所做的工作有何联系。
The stories remain unfinished.
故事仍未完成。
There’re various attempts ex post to add onto the canon, but the story just keeps on going.
事后有各种尝试将其添加到正典中，但故事仍在继续。
Like English history, right?
就像英国历史一样，对吧？
Like all of history.
就像所有的历史一样。
I think these are such interesting times to be thinking about the past in.
我认为现在是思考过去的有趣时刻。
Not very comfortable times, but if ever we needed a reminder that people in the past had no idea what was coming next, we’re getting it now, and it produces interesting perspectives even on much more recent parts of the past.
这不是很舒服的时代，但如果我们需要提醒人们过去的人们不知道接下来会发生什么，我们现在就得到了，它甚至对过去最近的部分也产生了有趣的观点。
I recently sat down with my son, who’s 23 now, to watch Being John Malkovich, which I hadn’t seen since it came out.
最近，我和我 23 岁的儿子一起观看了《成为约翰·马尔科维奇》，自从它上映以来我就再也没有看过。
I realized, when I went to look exactly when it came out, that it came out in the same year as The Matrix.
当我去查看它的确切发布时间时，我意识到它与《黑客帝国》是在同一年发布的。
I hadn’t clocked that at the time.
我当时没有计时。
In retrospect, watching Being John Malkovich again, now it seems to me to be far more prescient about the world we live in now —
回想起来，再次观看《成为约翰·马尔科维奇》，在我看来，现在对我们现在生活的世界更有先见之明了 ——
That’s right.
没错。
— than The Matrix is.
— 比《黑客帝国》还要多。
That sense of, well, you can be somebody else for 15 minutes through a portal, and it’ll be addictive, and you are going to .
那种感觉，好吧，你可以通过门户网站在 15 分钟内成为另一个人，这会让你上瘾，而且你会上瘾的。
.
。
.
。
Then I was very struck that, actually, the thing that seemed most farfetched to my 23-year-old son was that there should be a whole company — the company that John Cusack gets a job in — that just does paper filing, because, “Paper filing?
然后我感到非常震惊，事实上，对我 23 岁的儿子来说最牵强的事情是应该有一个完整的公司 ——约翰库萨克工作的公司 ——只做纸质归档，因为，“纸质归档？
What’s that?”
那是什么？
I had to tell him that my first job, the first job I ever had, in 1984, my Saturday job, was in an office services office.
我不得不告诉他，我的第一份工作，我有过的第一份工作，1984 年，我的周六工作，是在办公室服务办公室。
We didn’t just do filing, but we did telephones, fax, telex, typing, photocopying for people who didn’t have an office themselves.
我们不仅做归档工作，还为那些自己没有办公室的人提供电话、传真、电传、打字、复印服务。
The perspective on the past, the present, and the future is a bit mind-boggling.
对过去、现在和未来的看法有点令人难以置信。
Very last question.
最后一个问题。
What is it you will do next?
接下来你会做什么？
I have already written a short book about Elizabeth I, but I’m going to attempt to write a full-length biography.
我已经写了一本关于伊丽莎白一世的短书，但我将尝试写一本完整的传记。
She’s been my historical lodestar since I first picked up a history book when I was about five.
自从我五岁左右第一次拿起历史书以来，她一直是我的历史指南针。
The first book I ever picked up was a children’s book about her.
我拿起的第一本书是一本关于她的儿童读物。
She’s such an enigma because she wore masks all the time.
她真是个谜，因为她一直戴着面具。
You could be in the room with her and not know what she was thinking.
你可能和她在一个房间里，却不知道她在想什么。
She’s endlessly fascinating, and she also said, “I am Richard II.
她魅力无穷，她还说：“我是理查二世。
Know ye not that?” It seems there’s a bridge there waiting to be crossed.
你们不知道吗？那里似乎有一座桥等待着人们跨越。
I’m very far from the first person, and I won’t be the last, to try to make sense of her, but I’m really looking forward to it.
我不是第一个尝试理解她的人，也不会是最后一个，但我真的很期待。
More than a bit intimidated, but that feels like a good place to start from.
有点害怕，但这感觉是一个很好的起点。
All of Helen’s books are great.
海伦的所有书都很棒。
The very latest: The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV.
最新的：老鹰与雄鹿：理查二世和亨利四世的悲剧。
I recommend it highly.
我强烈推荐它。
Helen Castor, thank you very much.
海伦·卡斯特，非常感谢你。
Thank you so much.
太感谢了。
Photo Credit: Stuart Simpson
照片来源：斯图尔特·辛普森