环球英语 — 105：Delphi Oracle

　　Voice 1
Hello, I’m Mike Procter.
Voice 2
And I’m Rebekah Schipper. Welcome to Spotlight¹. This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 3
‘Soon you will go on a long trip. This week, do not wear the colour red. It will bring you bad luck...’ I wonder if this will come true?
Voice 1
People have invented many wonderful things. They have created technology for space travel. They have developed cures for terrible diseases². But there is one discovery that is still a mystery. All through history people have wanted to know the future. But there is no machine to inform us about what will happen.
Voice 2
Today, people use different methods to try to discover their future. Some people read horoscopes. You see horoscopes in newspapers and magazines. But some people pay for a personal horoscope. Astrologers write horoscopes. Astrologers claim that the positions of each planet³ and star group affect what happens to us. So astrologers study these positions, and they claim to tell the future.
Voice 1
In some cultures people believe that dreams can show the future. Every part of a dream has its own meaning. For example, colours. People may say that the colour blue represents truth - or that black can signal death or danger.
Voice 2
In some African and Asian cultures, people believe that animals give signs about the future. These people believe that animals have a sixth sense - the animals can feel when important natural events are going to happen. This would explain something that happened during the Asian tsunami⁴ in 2004. Before the wave came, many wild animals acted strangely. They ran up on to high ground. As a result, very few of them died.
Voice 1
However this ‘sixth sense’ is not a mystery to wildlife experts. For them, the explanation is simple. Animals have much better hearing than people. They can also feel changes in air pressure. They believe that the animals escaped because they could hear the wave coming.
Voice 2
In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, people would seek the future in an ‘oracle⁵’. An oracle was a message about the future. The same word could also mean the person, place, or voice that brought the message. The most famous oracle was Delphi, in Greece. Its story dates back over three thousand [3000] years.
Voice 1
One day, a young sheep farmer lost one of his sheep. He went up a mountain looking for it. After some time, he found it near a large chasm⁶ - a deep break in the rock. The sheep was acting⁷ very strangely. The boy decided⁸ to look into the chasm. He began to smell some gases. The boy also started to feel very strange. He felt like he was dreaming. He got up quickly and took his sheep home. The boy told everyone what had happened at the chasm.
Voice 2
The people in Delphi wondered where the gases came from. Some of them went up to the chasm. They breathed in the gases. Then, they started to speak about all kinds of subjects. These people appeared to have special knowledge. Everyone listening thought that such knowledge must come from their gods. They believed that a mountain god must have sent up the gases. These gases contained his messages. And so, people called this place ‘the oracle at Delphi.’
Voice 1
The ancient Greeks had invented many different gods. They believed that these gods spoke⁹ to them through priests¹¹. So at Delphi, there were also priests. One female¹² priest¹⁰ was very special. People called her the “Pythia”. The Pythia would sit on a special seat over the chasm. Then she would breathe in the gases from the chasm. The gases made her enter a dream-like state. She then spoke the words that came into her mind.
Voice 2
However, much of what the Pythia said did not make sense. So some male priests listened to her words. Then they turned the words into a message that people could understand. However, some people claimed that the priests invented these messages. They said that the priests had spies. These spies informed the priests about the current political situation. So the priests only told people what they thought the people wanted to hear. Or they gave general advice that people could use in any situation.
Voice 1
True or not, many visitors still came to the oracle at Delphi. Kings came to find out if they should go to war. Farmers asked when they should plant their seeds. Women wanted to know which man they would marry. One famous visitor was King Croesus. He was a king in the fifth century BC. He ruled ancient Lydia, now western Turkey. He went to the oracle at Delphi.
Voice 4
“Now, tell me: should I march against the King of Persia? He has a large army.”
Voice 5
“Yes, King Croesus, you should march. Cross the River Halys. After that you will destroy a large kingdom.”
Voice 1
King Croesus did march to war with the King of Persia. But King Croesus lost. A kingdom was destroyed. But it was King Croesus’s kingdom!
Voice 2
The oracle at Delphi lasted until the fourth century AD. By then, Greece was under Roman rule. By that time, Christianity was the official religion of the Romans. Christian¹³ teaching¹⁴ is that there was only one true God. The Delphi oracle did not honour God. So the Roman emperor closed it down.
Voice 1
However in recent years, scientists re-opened the oracle. They wanted to investigate how the oracle could have worked. They examined the geology¹⁵, or rock structure, of the chasm. And they discovered something very interesting. It had to do with the outer shell, or crust¹⁶, of the earth. The earth’s crust is divided into different pieces, or plates. These plates can move. When they do, they cause breaks in the rock. These breaks permit gases and ground water to pass through the rock.
Voice 2
At Delphi, there were two major breaks in the earth’s crust. These breaks formed a cross. Gases entered the chasm through this cross-shaped break. Scientists identified the gases as methane¹⁷, ethanol and carbon dioxide. One of the scientists, Doctor Papatheodorou, said:
Voice 4
“These gases all reduce the amount of oxygen in the air. This could change someone’s idea of what is real and what is not.”
Voice 1
So, the gases affected¹⁸ the minds of the Pythia, the female priests. They did not always know what they were saying. So it seems that the oracle was simply the result of drug-affected minds. But what about the male priests? Did they truly report the Pythia’s words? Or did they invent the messages themselves?
 

1 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

2 diseases   

n.疾病( disease的名词复数 )；弊端；恶疾；痼疾

参考例句：

• Smoking is a causative factor in several major diseases. 抽烟是引起几种严重疾病的病因。
• The illness frequently coexists with other chronic diseases. 这种病往往与其他慢性病同时存在。

3 planet   

n.行星

参考例句：

• Neptune is the furthest planet from the sun. 海王星是离太阳最远的行星。
• Rubbish, however, is only part of the problem of polluting our planet. 然而, 垃圾只是我们这个星球的污染问题的一个方面。

4 tsunami   

n.海啸

参考例句：

• Powerful quake sparks tsunami warning in Japan.大地震触发了日本的海啸预警。
• Coastlines all around the Indian Ocean inundated by a huge tsunami.大海啸把印度洋沿岸地区都淹没了。

5 oracle   

n.神谕，神谕处，预言

参考例句：

• In times of difficulty,she pray for an oracle to guide her.在困难的时候，她祈祷神谕来指引她。
• It is a kind of oracle that often foretells things most important.它是一种内生性神谕，常常能预言最重要的事情。

6 chasm   

n.深坑，断层，裂口，大分岐，利害冲突

参考例句：

• There's a chasm between rich and poor in that society.那社会中存在着贫富差距。
• A huge chasm gaped before them.他们面前有个巨大的裂痕。

7 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

10 priest   

n.神父，牧师，司铎，司祭，领导者，神甫；vt.使成为神职人员

参考例句：

• He confessed to a priest that he had sinned.他向神父忏悔他犯了罪。
• The priest visited all the old people in the parish.牧师探望了教区里的所有老人。

11 priests   

n.（基督教和罗马天主教的）神父( priest的名词复数 )；牧师；（非基督教会的）教士；祭司

参考例句：

• the ordination of women priests 女司祭的授职礼
• The clergy remain divided on the issue of women priests. 在女性教士的问题上，牧师们意见不一。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 female   

adj.雌的，女(性)的；n.雌性的动物，女子

参考例句：

• We only employ female workers.我们只雇用女工。
• The animal in the picture was a female elephant.照片上的动物是头母象。

13 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

14 teaching   

n.教学，执教，任教，讲授；(复数)教诲

参考例句：

• We all agree in adopting the new teaching method. 我们一致同意采取新的教学方法。
• He created a new system of teaching foreign languages.他创造了一种新的外语教学体系。

15 geology   

n.地质学，（某地）地质

参考例句：

• The students went to study the geology of that region.学生们去研究那个地区的地质情况。
• In his lecture on geology,he touched on the subject of climate.他在关于地质学的报告中，也涉及气候问题。

16 crust   

n.(一片)面包皮，硬外皮，外壳；地壳

参考例句：

• This article focuses on radiation present in the earth crust.本文重点介绍源自地壳的辐射。
• Earth quakes can result from stresses in the earth's crust.地壳内的应力可能引起地震。

17 methane   

n.甲烷，沼气

参考例句：

• The blast was caused by pockets of methane gas that ignited.爆炸是由数袋甲烷气体着火引起的。
• Methane may have extraterrestrial significance.甲烷具有星际意义。

18 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。