by Alison Driver 艾莉森?德里弗

When I was a young girl living in Ireland, I was always pleased when it rained, because that meant I could go treasure hunting.
我小時候生活在愛爾蘭，下雨的時候我總是很高興，因為那意味著我可以去尋寶。

What’s the connection between a wet day and a search for buried treasure? Well, it’s quite simple. Ireland, as some of you may already know, is the home of Leprechauns – little men who possess magic powers and, perhaps more interestingly, pots of gold. Now, although Leprechauns are intriguing characters, I have to admit that I was more intrigued by the stories of their treasure hoard. This, as all of Ireland knows, they hide at the end of the rainbow. Leprechauns can be fearsome folk but if you can discover the end of the rainbow, they have to (begrudgingly) surrender their gold to you. So whenever it rained, I would look up in the sky and follow the curve of the rainbow to see where it ended. I never did unearth any treasure, but I did spend many happy, showery days dreaming of what I could do with the fortune if I found it.
雨天和尋寶有什么聯(lián)系呢？這很簡單，也許有些人知道，愛爾蘭是矮妖精的家-那些小人擁有魔法，更有趣的是他們有一盆盆的黃金。盡管矮妖精們很奇妙，我必須承認我更多是被他們的寶藏吸引了。所有愛爾蘭人所知道的，他們就藏在彩虹的盡頭，他們必須（不情愿地）把黃金交給你。 所以下雨時，我都會抬頭看彩虹，沿著曲線尋找彩虹的盡頭。我從來沒有找到過任何寶藏，但是我的確度過了很多開心的下雨天，想著如果找到了寶藏要怎么處置它們。

As I got older, and started working, rainy days came to be just another nuisance and my childhood dreams of finding treasure faded. But for some people the dream of striking it lucky never fades, and for a fortunate few, the dream even comes true! Such is the case of Mel Fisher. His dream of finding treasure also began in childhood, while reading the great literature classics “Treasure Island” and “Moby Dick”. However, unlike myself, he chased his dream and in the end managed to become one of the most famous professional treasure hunters of all time, and for good reason. In 1985, he fished up the priceless cargo of the sunken Spanish galleon Atocha, which netted him an incredible $400 million dollars!
后來我長大開始工作了，下雨天變成了累贅，童年尋找寶藏的夢想也漸漸淡忘了。但對于某些人來說，碰上好運氣的夢想永不褪色，少數(shù)幸運的人甚至美夢成真了。Mel Fisher的尋寶夢也始于他童年讀的 《金銀島》和《白鯨》。不像我，他沒有放棄，最終成為了史上最著名的專業(yè)尋寶者。1985年，他撈到了價值連城的西班牙大帆船阿托查的貨物，大賺了一筆4億美元。

After the ship sank in 1622 off the coast of Florida, its murky waters became a treasure trove of precious stones, gold bars and silver coins known as “pieces of eight”. The aptly-named Fisher, who ran a commercial salvaging operation, had been trying to locate the underwater treasure for over 16 years when he finally hit the jackpot! His dreams had come true but finding and keeping the treasure wasn’t all plain sailing. After battling with hostile conditions at sea, Fisher then had to battle in the courts. In fact, the State of Florida took Fisher to court over ownership of the find and the Federal government soon followed suit. After more than 200 hearings, Fisher agreed to donate 20% of his yearly findings for public display, and so now there is a museum in Florida which displays hundreds of the artefacts which were salvaged from the Atocha.
1622年，這艘輪船在佛羅里達海岸沉沒，這片水域成為寶石，金條和銀幣的“八片”寶庫。從事商業(yè)打撈的Fisher，16年來嘗試定位水下寶藏，最終找到了寶藏 。他的夢想成真了，但是尋找和保存寶藏并不是一帆風順的。 和海上惡劣的條件作斗爭后，費希爾還要在法庭上作斗爭。佛羅里達州因所有權(quán)將費希爾告上了法庭，聯(lián)邦政府緊隨其后。200次聽證會之后，F(xiàn)isher同意捐出每年所得文物的20%作為公眾展示，現(xiàn)在佛羅里達有個博物館陳列著幾百件從阿托查打撈的文物。

This true story seems like a modern-day fairytale: a man pursues his dream through adversity and in the end, he triumphs over the difficulties - they all live happily ever after, right? Well, not exactly. Archaeologists object to the fact that with commercial salvaging operations like Fisher’s, the artefacts are sold and dispersed and UNESCO are worried about protecting our underwater heritage from what it describes as “pillaging”.
這故事就像是現(xiàn)代童話：一個人追求自己的夢想，經(jīng)歷了逆境，然后最終戰(zhàn)勝了困難-他們所有人從此生活得很快樂，對吧？不完全是，考古學家反對像Fisher這樣的商業(yè)打撈，銷售和分散文物，教科文組織對水下遺產(chǎn)被掠奪憂心忡忡。

The counter-argument is that in professional, well-run operations such as Fisher’s, each piece is accurately and minutely recorded and that it is this information which is more important than the actual artefact, and that such operations help increase our wealth of archaeological knowledge. Indeed, as in Fisher’s case, they make history more accessible to people through museum donations and information on web sites.
相反的觀點是能像Fisher這樣有著專業(yè)和良好的操作，精確記錄每一件文物和每一分鐘，信息比文物實體更重要，這些操作幫我們增加了考古知識。Fisher 這類人使得人們通過博物館捐贈和網(wǎng)站信息獲取歷史知識更為便利。

The distinction of whether these treasure hunters are salvaging or pillaging our underwater heritage may not be clear, but what is clear is that treasure hunting is not just innocent child’s play anymore but profitable big business. I have learnt that the end of the rainbow is beyond my reach, but in consolation, with just a click of the mouse, I too can have a share in the riches that the Atocha has revealed. As Friedrich Nietzsche so wisely said:
“Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge”
我們還不清楚這些尋寶者打撈或是掠奪我們水下遺產(chǎn)的區(qū)別，但可以確定的是尋寶不再只是孩子的游戲，而是有利可圖的商業(yè)行為。我知道我無法觸及彩虹的盡頭，但是讓人感到慰藉的是只需要按一下鼠標，我也能看到到阿托查文物。就像尼采所說：“我們的財富藏于我們知識的蜂箱?！?/p>