The Jewel in the Amazon Jungle

⊙ By Robert Beckford

翻译：丁 一

The Jewel in the Amazon Jungle

亚马孙雨林的璀璨明珠

⊙ By Robert Beckford

翻译：丁 一

遮天蔽日的树林、奇珍异兽、奇花异草、与世隔绝的土著人……这大概是别人提起亚马孙热带雨林时，你会想到的景象吧。但你很难把热带雨林与有百余年历史的欧式建筑联系起来——这正是本文要介绍的亚马孙奇观。

Here in the most unlikely of places, in the city of Manaus, at the heart of the Amazon rainforest, stands this grand building—the Teatro Amazonas, or the Amazon Theatre and Opera House.

The end of the 19th century was a boom time for the Amazonian region of Brazil. It was1)flush with money from exports from its large2)rubber3)plantations. Manaus quickly became one of Brazil’s richest cities. And this Opera House was to be the jewel in the jungle. Dr. Luciana Martins (University of London): The rubber4)barons were making a lot of money, you know, in that period. Really, really, really a lot of money. They didn’t know where to spend it. The Amazon was really not a place that people looked at in Brazil at all. It meant5)savagery, really. It had this very negative6)connotation in Brazil. And these people were making money and they wanted to show, “No, we are civilized as well.”

At the time, it was a major engineering project, as much of the building material had to be transported from Europe and then brought more than 1,000 miles through the newly cleared rainforest. Built in the 1890s by the7)immensely

1) flush [flʌʃ] adj. 充足的，大量的

2) rubber [΄rʌbə（r)] n. 橡胶

3) plantation [plɑːn΄teɪʃ（ə）n] n. 大农场，种植园

4) baron [΄bærən] n. 大财主

5) savagery [΄sævɪdʒrɪ] n. 野蛮行为，原始状态

6) connotation [ˌkɒnəʊ΄teɪʃ（ə）n] n. 内涵，涵义

7) immensely [ɪ΄menslɪ] adv. 极大地，无限地rich rubber barons, mostly European immigrants, it was an attempt to reproduce the8)grandeur of a9)bygone age, a little bit of European10)splendour in the middle of the Amazon.

The walls, statues and the11)columns are made with marble brought from Italy, as were the12)chandeliers. The13)ceiling tiles came from France. For a building in the middle of the rainforest, it’s pretty impressive.

8) grandeur [΄grændʒə（r）] n. 宏伟，壮观

9) bygone [΄baɪgɒn] adj. 过去的，以往的

10) splendour [΄splendə] n. 光彩壮丽，显赫，杰出

11) column [΄kɒləm] n. 柱子

12) chandelier [ʃændə΄lɪə（r）] n. 枝形吊灯

13) ceiling [΄siːlɪŋ] n. 顶篷

词组：look at

我们都知道，动词词组look at有“看，浏览，查看”等意思，而在用于否定形式时，它还可以表示动作实施者的一种态度，还有“（不）接受，（不）理睬”的意味，如：

· David looked at me in surprise.（大卫吃惊地看着我。）

· He looked at the books in his office and didn’t find what Emily needed.（他浏览了一下办公室里的书，

没有发现有埃米莉需要的东西。）

· I don’t have time to look at your proposal last week.（我上星期没有时间看你的建议。）· They won’t even look at such a proposal.（这样的提案，他们连看都不会看一眼。）

在这个人们最想不到的地方，在亚马孙雨林的中心城市马瑙斯市，竟然伫立着这座宏伟的建筑——亚马孙剧院。

19世纪末是巴西亚马孙地区的繁荣时期，当地橡胶园靠出口赚了大钱，富得流油。马瑙斯市迅速成为了巴西最富裕的城市之一，而这个歌剧院将成为雨林中的一颗明珠。

卢西恩娜·马丁斯博士（伦敦大学）：在那个时期，你知道吗，橡胶大亨财源滚滚来，他们非常、非常、非常有钱，钱多到都不知道怎么花才好。但当时的巴西人对亚马孙地区非常轻视，因为它象征着野蛮世界，在巴西有着非常负面的形象。这些人赚了很多钱，他们想让人知道：“不对，我们也是文明人。”

在那个年代，建造这座剧院是一项大工程，因为大部分建筑材料都从欧洲进口，再途经一千多英里刚刚砍伐开辟的雨林运进来。剧院由非常富有的橡胶大亨兴建于19世纪90年代，他们当中大都是欧洲移民，试图再现欧洲昔日的辉煌，在亚马孙丛林深处展示欧洲繁华景象的一面。

剧院的墙壁、雕塑与圆柱用从意大利运来的大理石制成，吊灯也来自意大利，天花板的瓷砖则来自法国。对一座建在雨林深处的建筑来说，这真是让人佩服的壮举。