《月光石》开篇：英文原著带中文翻译

I address these lines—written in India—to my relatives in England.

我写下这些文字，地点在印度，收信人是我在英国的亲属。

My object is to explain the motive which has induced me to refuse the right hand of friendship to my cousin, John Herncastle. The reserve which I have hitherto maintained in this matter has been misinterpreted by members of my family whose good opinion I cannot consent to forfeit. I request them to suspend their decision until they have read my narrative. And I declare, on my word of honour, that what I am now about to write is, strictly and literally, the truth.

我的目的是要说明，究竟是什么动机促使我拒绝与我的表弟约翰·亨卡斯尔握手言和。我在这件事上一直保持沉默，却被家族中某些人的误解，而我不能听任自己失去他们的好感。我请求他们暂缓判断，先读完我的叙述。我以名誉担保，我下面所写的一切，严格地、一字不差地都是事实。

The private difference between my cousin and me took its rise in a great public event in which we were both concerned—the storming of Seringapatam, under General Baird, on the 4th of May, 1799.

我表弟与我之间的私人恩怨，起因于一件我们两人都参与其中的重大公共事件，那就是一七九九年五月四日，贝尔德将军麾下对塞林加帕坦的猛攻。

In order that the circumstances may be clearly understood, I must revert for a moment to the period before the assault, and to the stories current in our camp of the treasure in jewels and gold stored up in the Palace of Seringapatam.

为了让当时的情形能够被清楚地理解，我必须暂时回溯到攻城之前的那段时间，以及我们军营中流传的种种故事，说的是塞林加帕坦王宫里贮藏的珠宝和黄金。

II

二

One of the wildest of these stories related to a Yellow Diamond—a famous gem in the native annals of India.

这些故事中最离奇的一个，与一颗黄钻石有关，那是印度本地史册中一颗著名的宝石。

The earliest known traditions describe the stone as having been set in the forehead of the four-handed Indian god who typifies the Moon. Partly from its peculiar colour, partly from a superstition which represented it as feeling the influence of the deity whom it adorned, and growing and lessening in lustre with the waxing and waning of the moon, it first gained the name by which it continues to be known in India to this day—the name of THE MOONSTONE. A similar superstition was once prevalent, as I have heard, in ancient Greece and Rome; not applying, however (as in India), to a diamond devoted to the service of a god, but to a semi-transparent stone of the inferior order of gems, supposed to be affected by the lunar influences—the moon, in this latter case also, giving the name by which the stone is still known to collectors in our own time.

已知最古老的传说称，这颗宝石曾被镶嵌在一位四臂印度神祇的额头上，这位神祇象征月亮。一部分是因为它奇特的颜色，一部分是因为一种迷信说法，说它能感受到所装饰神祇的影响，并随着月亮的盈亏而增减光辉，它最初便得到了这个在印度沿用至今的名字：月亮宝石。我听说，类似的迷信也曾在古希腊和罗马流行。不过，那里说的并不是一颗供奉神祇的钻石，而是一种次等宝石中的半透明石头，据信会受到月亮的影响。在后一种情形里，月亮同样赋予了这颗石头至今仍为收藏家所知的名字。

The adventures of the Yellow Diamond begin with the eleventh century of the Christian era.

黄钻石的历险始于基督教纪元十一世纪。

At that date, the Mohammedan conqueror, Mahmoud of Ghizni, crossed India; seized on the holy city of Somnauth; and stripped of its treasures the famous temple, which had stood for centuries—the shrine of Hindoo pilgrimage, and the wonder of the Eastern world.

那时，伊斯兰征服者加兹尼的马哈茂德越过印度，占领了圣城索姆纳特，并掠走了那座著名神庙的财宝。那座神庙已屹立数百年，是印度教徒朝圣的圣地，也是东方世界的奇观。

Of all the deities worshipped in the temple, the moon-god alone escaped the rapacity of the conquering Mohammedans. Preserved by three Brahmins, the inviolate deity, bearing the Yellow Diamond in its forehead, was removed by night, and was transported to the second of the sacred cities of India—the city of Benares.

神庙中供奉的诸神里，只有月神逃过了征服者伊斯兰教徒的贪婪。三位婆罗门保全了这位未受侵犯的神祇，它额上嵌着黄钻石，被他们在夜间移走，运往印度第二座圣城，贝拿勒斯。

Here, in a new shrine—in a hall inlaid with precious stones, under a roof supported by pillars of gold—the moon-god was set up and worshipped. Here, on the night when the shrine was completed, Vishnu the Preserver appeared to the three Brahmins in a dream.

在这里，月神被安放在一座新的神龛中，供奉起来。那是一座镶满宝石的殿堂，屋顶由金柱支撑。就在这里，神龛落成的那天夜里，守护神毗湿奴在梦中向三位婆罗门显现。

The deity breathed the breath of his divinity on the Diamond in the forehead of the god. And the Brahmins knelt and hid their faces in their robes. The deity commanded that the Moonstone should be watched, from that time forth, by three priests in turn, night and day, to the end of the generations of men. And the Brahmins heard, and bowed before his will. The deity predicted certain disaster to the presumptuous mortal who laid hands on the sacred gem, and to all of his house and name who received it after him. And the Brahmins caused the prophecy to be written over the gates of the shrine in letters of gold.

这位神祇向月神额上的钻石吹了一口神性的气息。婆罗门们跪倒在地，用长袍遮住面孔。这位神祇命令，从那时起，月亮宝石必须由三位祭司轮流看守，日夜不断，直到人类世代终结。婆罗门们听了，俯首遵从他的旨意。这位神祇预言，胆敢染指这颗圣石的狂妄凡人必遭灾祸，此后凡接受这颗宝石的他的家族和姓氏也必遭灾祸。婆罗门们便命人把这预言用金字写在神龛的大门上。