When I traveled from Amsterdam to Shanghai by bicycle this year, I reached Asia at Istanbul, crossing the Bosphorus and making headway into Asia Minor.
当我从阿姆斯特丹骑自行车前往上海时，我到达了亚洲的伊斯坦布尔，在这里我跨越了博斯普鲁斯海峡，进入了小亚细亚。
But there might be a place even more important to consider as the junction, the rift, the divide even, between Asia and Europe, between East and West for that matter. It’s the island of Crete, where European civilization began. According to mythology, it was a violent beginning. As an act of aftercare, upon my return, I went there to witness the crime scene with my own eyes.
然而，有一个地方或许更值得我们关注，那就是克里特岛，作为亚洲与欧洲、东西方之间的交汇点、分界线，甚至是文明的分水岭。欧洲文明正是在这里起源的。据神话传说，这一切的开端伴随着暴力。为了在这段旅程后重新审视，我特意返回那里，亲眼见证了这个文明“罪案现场”的遗迹。
This is the East coast of Crete at Kato Zakros, very early morning. Daybreak. The moment the East brings its daily gift to humanity: light, energy, and orientation. The landscape is shared by an endless blue sea, a rocky skyline, and wherever they can grow, olive trees. All set in a timeless arrangement that easily brings the mind to the same situation thousands of years back. The most ‘recent’ trace of culture and human life here is the ruin of a Minoan palace nearby, at least 3,500 years old, with cobblestoned roads giving access to palatial rooms, baths, storerooms, and public facilities.
这是克里特岛东海岸的卡托扎克罗斯，清晨时分，太阳初升，东方为人类带来每日的礼物：光明、能量和方向。这里的景观由蔚蓝的大海、陡峭的山峦和散落生长的橄榄树组成，一切都显得静谧而永恒，仿佛将人带回几千年前的时光。这里最“近”的文化和人类生活的遗迹，是附近一座至少有3500年历史的米诺斯宫殿废墟。铺着鹅卵石的道路通往宫殿的房间、浴室、储藏室和公共设施，依然清晰可见。
Now, imagine this same seemingly untouched remote corner of Europe as the violent crime scene where European civilization began, and hence the dawn of a humanity seen and idealized as exactly that: a humanity. The story is breathtaking, its origin cruel though.
试着想象一下，这片看似宁静、未经打扰的欧洲角落，其实是欧洲文明诞生的血腥之地，也正是在这里，所谓的人类文明曙光初现，并被理想化为“人类”的象征。这段历史令人震撼，但其起源却充满了残酷。
Let me show you the crime itself, painted magnificently by the Renaissance painter Titian for the Habsburg global ruler Philip II, who reigned in the name of this Christian civilization, stretching from the Eastern Philippines (named after him) to the overthrown Inca empire in the Americas. Titian called this a Poesie, inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses. But it captured a rape. It’s The Rape of Europa, by the Greek supreme God Zeus, after first abducting this Phoenician and hence Asian princess from the beach of Tyre, in what is Lebanon today, and bringing her to the beaches of Crete, leaving the bewildered people behind on the Asian shore. As a token of her Asian majesty, Europa holds in despair her red silk shawl, a sign of Phoenician pride as the ultimate trading nation that for long connected the East with the West by a Road that today enjoys a renaissance. I traveled it for months this year.
让我带你看看这场罪行的画面，这是文艺复兴时期画家提香为哈布斯堡王朝的菲利普二世所绘。菲利普二世以基督教文明的名义统治着广袤的领土，从东方的菲律宾（以他命名）到美洲被征服的印加帝国，尽皆囊括其中。提香称这幅画为“诗意”，灵感源自奥维德的《变形记》。然而，它描绘的却是一场强暴——希腊至高神宙斯对欧罗巴的掠夺。在这之前，宙斯先是从今天黎巴嫩的提尔海滩掳走了这位腓尼基公主——也是一位亚洲公主——然后将她带到了克里特岛的海岸，而茫然无措的人们则被留在了亚洲的海岸。欧罗巴绝望地紧握着她的红丝巾，作为她亚洲皇室身份的象征，这条红丝巾也象征着腓尼基人曾经的辉煌——他们是将东西方连接起来的伟大贸易民族。而我今年沿着那条如今重获新生的古老道路，走过了几个月的旅程。
On a more truthful account than mythology, we know that Europa, making the best of it, later became the mother of Minos of Crete, lord of Knossos, and client of the most respected ancient architect Daedalos, who designed the notorious labyrinth for the monstrous Minotaur, only to be tamed by the Athenian prince Theseus, with the help of Europa’s granddaughter Ariadne. The episode marked the beginning of the era of European dominance, which for the last 500 years, basically since Philip II, has experienced a new bloom.
比起神话的传说，更接近真实的说法是，欧罗巴在命运面前选择了顺从，后来成为克里特岛国王米诺斯的母亲。米诺斯是克诺索斯的君主，雇佣了古代最著名的建筑师代达罗斯，为他设计了那个臭名昭著的迷宫，用来关押恐怖的牛头怪弥诺陶洛斯。最后，这个怪物被雅典王子忒修斯在欧罗巴的孙女阿里阿德涅的帮助下击败。这一事件标志着欧洲统治时代的起点，而在过去的500年里，特别是自菲利普二世以来，欧洲的影响力再次崛起，进入了新的辉煌时期。
Is this bloom now coming to an end? It was one of the speculations I made my journey for, and about which I will publish more soon.
这个辉煌的时代是否即将结束？这是我这次旅途中一直在思考的问题之一，不久我会就此发表更多的见解。
For now, finally, let me show you the tree that is almost as old as this story: the olive tree of Kavusi, estimated to be almost 3,500 years old as well. It’s located near the place where Zeus must have landed with his prey. It carries the species of Olea europaea, which shares its name with the continent Europe, named centuries later by the Swedish zoologist Linnaeus. The tree has served more than 200 generations of human life and became the symbol of good life itself, symbolizing peace and harmony. Its value became symbolic in the Bible, when a dove, dispatched from Noah’s Ark, returned with an olive branch as a sign that the Great Flood had ended.
最后，我想带你看看一棵几乎与这个故事同样古老的树——卡伏西的橄榄树，据说已有3500年的历史。它位于传说中宙斯带着“猎物”登陆的地方附近，属于欧洲油橄榄树种，这个名字后来由瑞典生物学家林奈赋予，与“欧洲”同名。这棵树为200多代人类生活提供了庇护，更成为了美好生活的象征，是和平与和谐的象征。圣经中，诺亚方舟派出的鸽子衔着橄榄枝归来，象征大洪水结束，也让橄榄树成为人类寻求和平的标志。
The olive tree delivers what humans have promised for millennia: peace. By its fruits, its oil, its quasi-permanence. The same controversial place that witnessed the usurpation of Europa, beginning a civilization with an original sin, is also the place that brought to light its symbolic and ever-growing counterpoint: peace.
橄榄树兑现了人类几千年来的承诺：和平。它通过果实、油脂和持久的生命力，成为了和平的象征。就在这片曾见证欧罗巴被掠夺、文明始于原罪的地方，橄榄树带来了她永恒的另一面：和平。
We live in times of profound need for the latter, but seem only able to re-enact the first.
我们正处在一个对和平充满渴望的时代，然而却似乎只能一再重演历史的悲剧。
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