纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 050传丝公主画版（6）

"I think, over the years, members of the Silken Ensemble¹ have been all over - from Egypt to Israel, to India, to Kyrgyzstan, to China, to Korea, but there is so much to learn. What we are trying to do is constantly learn. Old traditions, we don't want them to get lost, but we need to put them in a contemporary form. Being a musician, I was particularly interested in how music may have travelled. We have recordings² only from about a hundred years ago, and so to look at that you have to look at the oral traditions, and to look at other kinds of iconography, such as, you know, what's in museums, what people wrote about - stories - and to be able to get a picture of how things were traded back and forth³, both in the idea realm as well as material objects.

"The Silk Road is a metaphor⁴ for looking at anything that has moved through time and geography. A lot of people talk about the purity of things. But actually the more I look at anything, and you look at the origins of where things come from, I think most of the things that actually - if you go deep enough - you find elements of the world within the local. I think that's a big thing to think about, but it actually is reduced to common objects - stories, fables⁵, materials - and silk is also one of those stories."

It's a story that is still with us centuries on, and I think that I'm using the painted panel just as it was intended to be used, as a vehicle for story-telling, to give you my version of the tale of silk. Who used the panel originally we don't know, but we do know that Aurel Stein was surprised and moved by the shrine in which he found it:

1 ensemble   

n.合奏(唱)组；全套服装；整体，总效果

参考例句：

• We should consider the buildings as an ensemble.我们应把那些建筑物视作一个整体。
• It is ensemble music for up to about ten players,with one player to a part.它是最多十人演奏的合奏音乐，每人担任一部分。

2 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

3 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

4 metaphor   

n.隐喻，暗喻

参考例句：

• Using metaphor,we say that computers have senses and a memory.打个比方，我们可以说计算机有感觉和记忆力。
• In poetry the rose is often a metaphor for love.玫瑰在诗中通常作为爱的象征。

5 fables   

n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说

参考例句：

• Some of Aesop's Fables are satires. 《伊索寓言》中有一些是讽刺作品。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Little Mexican boys also breathe the American fables. 墨西哥族的小孩子对美国神话也都耳濡目染。 来自辞典例句