正文翻譯

What historical 'fact' is often repeated but simply not true?

什么歷史“事實”經(jīng)常被人提起但根本不是真的？

評論翻譯

Jean-Marie Valheur
, political aficionado & former journalist
There is a belief held by many people that people in the Middle Ages died at extremely young ages, that they almost never made it to what we would now describe as old age. This is not true, at all. Infant mortality was high, yes. You had a good chance of dying early. But if you made it past a certain age, and you were wealthy? You could make it to your seventies, even your eighties.
A nice example of this would be Eleanor of Aquitaine, the mother of the English Kings John and Richard the Lionheart. Eleanor married twice and survived childbirth a staggering ten times(!) in an era where giving birth was often among the main causes of death for young women. She lived to see two of her sons become Kings. And died in 1204 at the age of 82, a great-great-grandmother several times over.
The great knight William Marshall made it to either 72 or 73, depending on his birth year. This in spite of numerous battle wounds and injuries in the field, and a very high-stress life, much of it spent on horseback charging enemy armies — even as a child he was a hostage, threatened by a rival lord to be shot out in a trebuchet at his father laying siege to the castle… not an easy life, and still made it to his seventies!
There are actually quite a few examples of historical figures who lived… quite long lives. I would argue that a nobleman in the Middle Ages often lived just as long as a nobleman in 19th century Victorian England. And even a farmer, if luck was on his side and famines and plagues stayed clear of him, could easily make it into his seventies even a thousands years ago.

很多人都認(rèn)為中世紀(jì)的人死得非常早，他們幾乎沒有活到我們現(xiàn)在所說的“老年”。這完全不是事實。嬰兒死亡率很高，確實。你有很大的機(jī)會會早夭。但是如果你過了一定的年齡，而且你很富有？你可以活到七十歲，甚至八十歲。
這方面的一個很好的例子是阿基坦的埃莉諾，她是英國國王約翰和獅心王理查德的母親。埃莉諾結(jié)過兩次婚，在那個生育往往是年輕婦女死亡的主要原因之一的時代，她在分娩中幸存了10次（?。?，令人吃驚。她活著看到她的兩個兒子成為國王。她于1204年去世，享年82歲，數(shù)次成為曾曾祖母。
偉大的騎士威廉-馬歇爾活到了72歲或73歲，這取決于他的出生年份。這是在戰(zhàn)場上受了無數(shù)次戰(zhàn)傷，生活壓力很大，大部分時間都在馬背上向敵軍沖鋒陷陣的人--甚至在他還是個孩子的時候，他就成了人質(zhì)，被對手的領(lǐng)主威脅要在他父親圍攻城堡的時候用投石機(jī)射出去......生活并不輕松，仍然活到了七十歲!
實際上，有不少歷史人物活得......相當(dāng)長的例子。我認(rèn)為，中世紀(jì)的貴族往往和19世紀(jì)維多利亞時代英國的貴族一樣長壽。甚至一個農(nóng)民，如果運氣好，只要饑荒和瘟疫不找上門來，甚至在幾千年前也能輕易活到七十歲。

Gábor Kiss
It is very interesting. Does this mean that, disregarding child mortality, famine and death in battle, the life expectancy did not increase that much? (Implying that modern diet and lifestyle are not healthier than older ones?) Or is it only to demonstrate that long life was achiveable in the middle ages as well?
This topic piqued my interest. Could you recommend reading material?

這非常有趣。這是否意味著，如果不考慮兒童死亡率、饑荒和戰(zhàn)死，預(yù)期壽命其實并沒有增加那么多？(暗示現(xiàn)代的飲食和生活方式不比以前的更健康？)還是說這只是為了證明長壽在中世紀(jì)也是可以實現(xiàn)的？
這個話題引起了我的興趣。你能推薦一下閱讀材料嗎？

Jean-Marie Valheur
I suppose that’s how you could say it, yes — disregarding child mortality, famine and death in battle, the life expectancy did not increase that much since then. No one calls the newspaper when someone turns eighty these days, and in the Middle Ages someone turning eighty, likewise, would not have been the biggest deal. It would be unusual-ish, but not out of the norm.
The fact that Ramesses II, pharaoh of Egypt, made it well into his nineties thousands of years prior, after surviving many wars and ruling for six decades, is telling in this regard. There are records of ancient Romans reaching the age of 100 and up. Terentia, the wife of Cicero, made it to 103.
We are nowhere near as healthy and unique as we think we are.

我想你可以這樣說，是的--不考慮兒童死亡率、饑荒和戰(zhàn)死，從那時起到現(xiàn)在，預(yù)期壽命并沒有增加那么多?，F(xiàn)在沒有人在某人年滿八十歲時當(dāng)作一件大事給報紙打電話，而在中世紀(jì)，某人年滿八十歲，同樣也不會是什么大事。這挺不尋常的，但并不超出認(rèn)知的常規(guī)。
埃及法老拉美西斯二世在經(jīng)歷了許多戰(zhàn)爭和六十年的統(tǒng)治后，在幾千年前就活到了九十歲，這一事實說明了這一點。有記錄顯示，古羅馬人的年齡達(dá)到了100歲以上。西塞羅的妻子特倫提亞活到了103歲。
我們現(xiàn)代人遠(yuǎn)沒有我們所認(rèn)為的那么健康和獨特。

Luke Hatherton
We are unique. People from the Middle Ages or earlier would be staggered by the sheer number of healthy 90-year-olds out there. It’s far beyond anything anyone saw back then. Centenarians were legendary.
More importantly, the list of chronic illnesses people suffered from was appalling. They usually didn’t make it to 80 like we think of it today. A lot of them dragged themselves into old age. Indeed, the very concept of ‘middle age’ didn’t really exist. You wore out so fast and were burdened with ill health for so long that you didn’t have a prolonged period of vigorous health between being young and being old such as we have today. People’s cause of death was often labelled as ‘exhaustion’. Ancient skeletons show a grotesque array of diseases, often brought on by lack of vaccination, antibiotics, overwork and maluntrition. In Shakespeare’s time, from various written sources, it has been estimated that ‘old age’ began at 55. Even in the early 19th Century, Thomas Paine’s death at 72 was notable enough that he was said to have “passed the legendary limit of life”, as in, the Biblical threescore and ten years. (“and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years…”)
In the book ‘The Longevity Dividend’ (2006), the writers, including biogerontologist S. Jay Olshansky, estimate that the decades of greatly increased well-being for so many people in middle age in the 20th Century have added up to perhaps 1/3 of all economic growth the world has experienced since 1900.

我們確實很獨特。來自中世紀(jì)或更早的人們會對外面健康的90歲老人的數(shù)量感到震驚。這遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出了當(dāng)時人們所看到的一切。百歲老人是個傳奇。
更重要的是，人們所患的慢性病清單是令人震驚的。他們通常不能像我們今天認(rèn)為的那樣活到80歲。他們中的很多人只是拖著病軀進(jìn)入老年。事實上，"中年"的概念并不存在。你損耗得如此之快，并長期被健康狀況不佳所困擾，以至于你在年輕和年老之間沒有一個像我們今天這樣的長時間的健康狀態(tài)。人們的死因往往被稱為"疲憊"。古代的骨架顯示了一系列怪異的疾病，通常是由于缺乏疫苗、抗生素、過度勞累和損耗而導(dǎo)致的。在莎士比亞的時代，根據(jù)各種書面資料，人們估計"老年"是從55歲開始的。即使在19世紀(jì)初，托馬斯-潘恩72歲時才死亡也足夠引人注目，以至于他被說成是"超過了傳說中的生命極限"，就像《圣經(jīng)》中的六十又十歲。("如果由于力量的原因，他們能達(dá)到八十歲...")
在《長壽紅利》（2006年）一書中，包括生物老年學(xué)家杰伊·奧爾尚斯基在內(nèi)的作者們估計，20世紀(jì)許多中年人的福利大大增加的幾十年，加起來可能占1900年以來世界所有經(jīng)濟(jì)增長的1/3。

Angela Birch
The fact that a few very rare people made it to old age doesn’t mean that the overall life expectancy was anywhere near as long as it is today. We are not unique but we on average sure live longer.
Ramesses II? Trust me he lived a much better life that did anyone else at the time and the average Egyptian didn’t live to be 90 or anything close.
In the middle ages it was rare for a person to live to be 80 even if one was wealthy and had for the time the best medical care and was male. In about 1200 if one made it to 25 ( thus excluding infants and childhood mortality) one could expect to live to 48. Yes a few people were lucky enough to live longer but when checking actual records Romans and Egyptians actually had a slight;y longer life expectancy, probably because of better Sanitation and overall a better diet than did your average human in the middle ages The average age for Egyptians who made it to adulthood was 53 and for Romans it was about 57. In 1850 in the UK, a quite advanced country at the time, less than half of those born in 1850 made it to their 50th birthday. Today 97% of those born can expect to make it to their 50th birthday and 80% can expect to make it to their 60th birthday
Yes overall our diets are better, and we have better sanitation and better and more effective health care. In countries today with good medical care the average life expectancy is over 80. not just the rare lucky person but Average.
It is less in the US but then our medical care isn’t that good.

古代少數(shù)非常罕見的人活到了老年，并不意味著整體預(yù)期壽命接近今天的長度。我們不是獨一無二的，但我們平均來說肯定活得更長。
拉美西斯二世？相信我，他的生活比當(dāng)時的其他人都要好得多，而埃及人的平均壽命并沒有達(dá)到90歲或接近90歲。
在中世紀(jì)，一個人活到80歲是很罕見的，即使他很富有，在當(dāng)時有最好的醫(yī)療服務(wù)，而且是男性。在1200年左右，如果一個人能夠活到25歲（因此不包括嬰兒和兒童的死亡率），他可以預(yù)期活到48歲。是的，少數(shù)人幸運地活得更長，但當(dāng)檢查實際記錄時，羅馬人和埃及人的預(yù)期壽命實際上略長，可能是因為更好的衛(wèi)生設(shè)施和總體上比中世紀(jì)的普通人有更好的飲食。1850年，在英國這個當(dāng)時相當(dāng)先進(jìn)的國家，1850年出生的人中只有不到一半能活到50歲生日。今天，97%的人可以活到50歲生日，80%的人可以活到60歲生日。
是的，總的來說，我們的飲食更好，我們有更好的衛(wèi)生設(shè)施和更好、更有效的醫(yī)療保健。在今天擁有良好醫(yī)療服務(wù)的國家，平均預(yù)期壽命超過80歲，不僅僅是少數(shù)幸運的人，而是平均。
在美國則較少，我們的醫(yī)療服務(wù)并不那么好。