说到迷宫，你听说过凶恶的人身牛首怪物的传说吗？他一半是人一半是公牛，

who lived in a labyrinth and made the Greeks send him seven youths and seven maidens each year as human sacrifices?

他住在一个迷宫里，他要求希腊每年送给他少男少女各七名作为人祭。

Do you know where that was?

你知道，这发生在什么地方吗？

It was in Crete, so there may be some truth in the story.

正是在克里特岛。那就是说，这个传说里说某些东西是真实的。

Cretan kings may once have ruled over Greek cities, and those Greeks may have had to send them tribute.

也许克里特的国王们确实曾一度统治过这些希腊城市，而希腊人则不得不向他们缴纳贡品。

In any event, these Cretans were clearly a remarkable people, even if we still don't know much about them.

无论如何，这些克里特人一定是一个非常了不起的民族，虽然我们对这个民族知之甚少。

You only have to look at the paintings on the walls of their palaces to see that they are unlike any made at the same time in Egypt or in Babylon.

他们画在大宫殿里的画像看上去跟这一时期在埃及或巴比伦的画像也完全不一样。

If you remember, the Egyptian pictures were very beautiful, but rather severe and stiff, a bit like their priests.

如果你还记得的话，埃及的画像是极美的，但面部表情严厉而僵硬，像他们的祭司。

This was not the case in Crete.

克里特岛上的则完全不一样，

What mattered most to them was to catch animals or people in rapid motion,

他们最喜欢描绘快速运动中的动物或人。

hounds chasing wild boar, and people leaping over bulls, nothing was too hard for them to paint.

他们毫不费力地就能画出：追捕野猪的猎狗，跃过公牛的人。