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根据吉普赛人的一个传说，人类以前长生不老，无忧 无虑。大地结出可口的果子，肉长在树上，牛奶和酒在河里流淌。一天，一个老人来借宿一夜，一对夫妇让他住在自己屋里。第二天，他走的时候说九天后再回来。 他给了主人一条小鱼，说如果他没有把鱼吃掉，而是物归原主，他就会回报他。妻子心想这条鱼一定特别好吃,但是丈夫说自己已经答应老人留着这条鱼，所以他让女人发誓不吃它。 然而，想了两天之后，妻子经不住诱惑，把鱼扔到了燃烧的煤上。顷刻间，她被闪电击死了，天开始下雨，河流开始泛滥。第九天，老人回来了，告诉男主人，所有生物都将被淹死。由于他信守了诺言，他会活下来。老人告诉他娶个妻子，把亲属叫到一起，造一艘船，可以拯救他们和树种和草种。男人都照办了 再下了一年，洪水淹没了一切。一年之后，洪水消退，人和动物来到了陆地上。他们只好靠劳动谋生，也开始生老病死。他们繁殖得很慢，几千年过去了，人口才又恢复到了洪水之前的水平。 How a Broken Promise Caused a Flood According to a legend of the Gypsies, men once lived forever and knew no troubles. The earth brought forth fine fruits, flesh grew on trees, and milk and wine flowed in rivers. One day, and old man came and asked for a night’s lodging, which a couple gave him in their cottage. When he departed the next day, he said he would return in nine days. He gave his host a small fish and said he would reward the host if he did not eat the fish but returned it then. The wife thought the fish must be exceptionally good to eat, but the husband said he had promised the old man to keep it and made the woman swear not to eat it. After two days of thinking about it, though, the wife yielded to temptation and threw the fish on the burning coals. Immediately, she was struck dead by lightning, and it began to rain. The rivers started overflowing. On the ninth day, the old man returned and told his host that all living things would be drowned, but since he had kept his oath, he would be saved. The old man told the host to take a wife, gather his kinfolk, and build a boat on which to save them, animals, and seeds of trees and herbs. The man did all this. It rained a year, and the waters covered everything. After a year, the waters sank, and the people and animals disembarked. They now had to labor to gain a living, and sickness and death came also. They multiplied slowly so that many thousands of years passed before people were again as numerous as they were before the flood. |
