原文
It is just after dawn on a warm morning about 4,000 years ago. We are at the port of Byblos, built across a promontory below the cool green slopes of Mount Lebanon. The fishing boats are already out, and the front is bustling: barges stream in from merchant ships that dropped anchor the night before, young men joke around as they load up a donkey train with sacks and baskets and, south of the town’s stone walls, rafts loaded with tree trunks glide down the river to the coast. High above the harbor stands a new temple with a tower guiding sailors to safe mooring and with anchors built into its staircase and walls for good fortune. The people of this compact, glittering little town honor their debt to the sea.
A couple of kilometers offshore a handsome sailing ship, larger than the rest, rides at anchor in the shallows. The north-westerly winds have dropped over the last few weeks, the temperature is cooling and now the boat just awaits its passengers and crew.
Trade has taken these men far and wide across a web of cities and empires, artisans and poets, a network rooted in the river valleys of Egypt and western Asia but connected to a bigger world beyond. They can speak several languages, and if we had run into them last night they could have told us some stories over a jar or two of the excellent local wine.
One of the merchants has sailed down the coast and up the Nile, past more than a hundred of the pyramid tombs built by Egyptian priest-kings, to do business in the sandy trading city of Kerma, capital of the gold-rich land to the south that the Egyptians called Kush. From there he travelled across the eastern Sahara to the Red Sea, where he joined a convoy of ships travelling south to the African horn, in search of ivory, ebony, incense and gold.
参考译文
那是大约4000年前一个和煦的清晨，天刚破晓，我们来到比布鲁斯港口。这港口建在黎巴嫩山凉爽的绿色斜坡下的一个海角上。此时此刻，渔船出海，海边熙攘。前一天晚上抛锚的商船处，驳船源源不断驶来，年轻人一边开着玩笑，一边给驴车装上麻袋和箩筐，在镇子的石墙以南，装满树干的木筏顺着河流滑向海岸。在海港的高处矗立着一座新建的神庙，神庙的塔楼指引着水手们安全停泊。神庙的楼梯和墙壁上都建有锚，为的是带来好运。这个小镇错落有致、熠熠生辉，镇上的人们对大海充满感激之情。
在离岸几公里的地方，一艘帆船停泊在浅滩上，比其他船都大还漂亮一些。过去几周西北风已经减弱，气温正在降低，现在轮船正在等待乘客和船员。
贸易把这些人，连同工匠和诗人一起，带到遥远的城市和帝国。这一座座城市，一个个帝国星罗棋布，相互交织，植根于埃及和西亚的河谷，但是与外面广阔的世界相连。无论是乘客还是船员都会说几种语言。如果我们昨晚碰到他们，他们可能会边喝着一两瓶当地的上好葡萄酒边给我们讲故事。
其中一个商人沿着海岸线，沿着尼罗河航行，经过了埃及祭司国王建造的一百多座金字塔陵墓，在沙质贸易城市科玛做生意，科玛是金矿圣地，南边的埃及人称其为库什。从那里，他穿过东撒哈拉，到达红海。在红海，他加入一个船队，往南向非洲之角航行，寻找象牙、乌木、熏香和黄金。