History of Phoenicia 【update 0001】
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第0001次更新：2009-5-16 , python ( Python[AT]Live.It )
CHAPTER I—THE LAND
Phoenicé, or Phoenicia, was the name originally given by the Greeks—and afterwards adopted from them by the Romans—to the coast region of the Mediterranean, where it faces the west between the thirty-second and the thirty-sixth parallels. Here, it would seem, in their early voyagings, the Pre-Homeric Greeks first came upon a land where the palm-tree was not only indigenous, but formed a leading and striking characteristic, everywhere along the low sandy shore lifting its tuft of feathery leaves into the bright blue sky, high above the undergrowth of fig, and pomegranate, and alive. Hence they called the tract Phoenicia, or “the Land of Palms;” and the people who inhabited it the Phoenicians, or “the Palm-tree people.”
腓尼基(Phoenicé或Phoenicia)，他最早的名字来源于希腊语 —— 后来被罗马人采用 —— 他面向地中海，位于北纬32度和36度之间。似乎他们早期的航行是早于希腊人荷马（Pre-Homeric Greeks）来到这座岛上，在这里棕榈树（palm-tree[1]）并不是唯一的植物但却是代表这座岛屿的一个特点，除了棕榈树，沿着沙滩到处是柔软如羽毛一般的树叶和花瓣，地面生长的无花果、石榴等，生机盎然。因此，他们称这片土地为腓尼基（Phoenicia，译注：腓尼基的名字来自于希腊语中的phoînix，该词意有紫色、深红色的含义），或棕榈岛。这里的人就叫做腓尼基人，或棕榈树人。
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[1]译注：此处palm-tree的翻译有待进一步考证。因腓尼基之地便是圣经中所说的迦南地，在圣经《申命记》34:3中提到迦南地的重镇耶利歌，并称为棕榈城（现代中文译本），而原文为the city of palm trees（king james version），阅读过冯先生的资料后知道，此处翻译并不准确，根据《牛津大词条》中关于palm的条目，其意有：棕榈、椰子、槟榔、油棕、海枣等，而圣经的king james version中所提palm都是意指date palm，即，海枣。此书英文原本中关于palm的描述无法考证其来源，而结合圣经来说，海枣树的可能性较大。但为阅读、理解方便，还是暂译为棕榈树。