英语听力：探索发现 2012-08-01 爱尔兰的故事 Story Of Ireland—8

 A geographer¹ living under Caesar’s rule described the Irish as a cannibal race who deemed it commendable² to devour³ their deceased fathers and who lived a miserable⁴ existence because of the cold. 

 

But Mediterranean⁵ traders had long been immune to such dire⁶ warnings, and with the knowledge they brought back, a scholar created a geographical⁷ masterpiece. In this medieval copy of his book Geographia, we can see how Ptolemy mapped the world as it was known to the Romans around 150AD. And there on the westernmost point is Hibernia. This is the first map of Ireland and its peoples. 

 

We can recognize some of the names, for example, Eblana is usually interpreted as Dublin, the river name, if the Shannon is there, for example, the river Lee, I suppose, which all Cork⁸ people would like to see mentioned. There are some names interesting enough here, we have Brigantes for example, and the Brigantes over here in West Wales, and they are clearly related.

 

What does that tell us?

 

Well, it works two ways. Either it means that there were Brigantes here in the west of Britain first of all, who then migrated to Ireland. But it is possible that they might actually represent population groups that originated in Ireland and then came to the western province of Britain, because you do have quite substantial Irish settlement in western Britain, in Wales, as we know it nowadays. 

 

This notion of the Irish colonising parts of Britain, it rather turns our historical sense of things on its head, doesn’t it? We always like to see ourselves as the eternally put-upon, (It could be problematic.)conquered by the other lot. We were doing the same.

 

In this day and age, we’re insisting that everybody apologise to us, including our nearest neighbors, but I suppose if you go back far enough, we invaded them before they invaded us, so if there are apologies to be bandied about, we might take the first step, you know?

1 geographer   

n.地理学者

参考例句：

• His grandfather is a geographer.他的祖父是一位地理学家。
• Li Siguang is a famous geographer.李四光是一位著名的地理学家。

2 commendable   

adj.值得称赞的

参考例句：

• The government's action here is highly commendable.政府这样的行动值得高度赞扬。
• Such carping is not commendable.这样吹毛求疵真不大好。

3 devour   

v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷

参考例句：

• Larger fish devour the smaller ones.大鱼吃小鱼。
• Beauty is but a flower which wrinkle will devour.美只不过是一朵，终会被皱纹所吞噬。

4 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

5 Mediterranean   

adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的

参考例句：

• The houses are Mediterranean in character.这些房子都属地中海风格。
• Gibraltar is the key to the Mediterranean.直布罗陀是地中海的要冲。

6 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

7 geographical   

adj.地理的；地区(性)的

参考例句：

• The current survey will have a wider geographical spread.当前的调查将在更广泛的地域范围內进行。
• These birds have a wide geographical distribution.这些鸟的地理分布很广。

8 cork   

n.软木，软木塞

参考例句：

• We heard the pop of a cork.我们听见瓶塞砰的一声打开。
• Cork is a very buoyant material.软木是极易浮起的材料。