《冰与火之歌》序言
Gared did not rise to the bait. He was an old man, past fifty, and he had seen the lordlings come and go.
盖瑞并未中激将之计，年过五十的他算得上是个老人，这辈子看过太多的贵族子弟来来去去。
- bait 鱼饵
- rise to the bait: react to a provocation or temptation exactly as intended. “上钩，中圈套”
Something was different tonight. There was an edge to this darkness that made his hackles rise.
此夜迥异於往昔，四面环暗中有种莫可名状，让他汗毛竖立的惊悚。
- edge 是“刃”的意思，这里比喻某种强烈、锐利的特性或气氛，比如：
Trump’s remarks has a hard political edge to it.
特朗普的讲话有很强的政治性。
文中an edge to this darkness 黑暗中暗藏“利刃”，表现出暗夜可怕，危机四伏。
紧接着跟了个定语从句that made his hackles rise使“暗夜可怕”更加具体地体现出来。 - hackles指脖子后面的毛，make hackles rise 自然可以得出就是“汗毛竖立、毛骨悚然”的意思。
Will wanted nothing so much as to ride hellbent for the safety of the Wall, but that was not a feeling to share with your commander.
此刻威尔心中只想掉转马头，没命似地逃回长城。
- hellbent adj. 拼命的、坚决的、不顾一切的，ride hellbent for the safety of the Wall就是指没命似的跑回长城的安全地带，一个hellbent就烘托出人物内心“不顾一切”的心理活动，让整个句子活了起来，仿佛身临其境。
注意，这里ride后面加的是形容词hellbent，我们一直有个误区，认为“动词后面只能加副词”，其实也可以加形容词的，这时形容词修饰的不是动词，而是前面的名词，表示他们的状态或结果，比如：
He married young.
他年纪轻轻就结婚了。
这里的young修饰的He，而不是married。
再如，2020年4月的《经济学人》中有篇文章讲到了欧洲人在疫情爆发前夕纷纷抢购生活用品，文中有这么一句话：
As customers strip shelves bare, most British supermarkets have implemented some form of rationing.
由于顾客们将货架上的商品一扫而空，大多数英国超市都实行了某种形式的配给制。
这里的bare体现的是shelves（货架）的状态，而不是strip。
所以，ride hellbent中的hellbent，修饰的不是ride，而是体现出Will的内心状态：极度恐惧、策马狂奔。
be hellbent on 指坚持某事而且态度特别强硬。欲望都市里就有这样一句话：
Carrie's hellbent on getting the four of us together Saturday night.
凯莉硬要我们四个在星期六聚会。
Moonlight shone down on the clearing, the ashes of the firepit, the snow-covered lean-to and the great rock, the little half-frozen stream.
月光洒落在空地上，照出营火余烬，白雪覆盖的披屋与岩石，半结冰的小溪。
- clearing n.指树林中的空地。
firepit火坑; firecracker鞭炮; firefly 萤火虫; fireplace 壁炉; firewall 防火墙。
snow-covered 白雪覆盖的，litter-strewn 垃圾满地的，car-clogged 汽车拥堵的。 - lean-to是一个名词，指披棚、披屋，snow-covered lean-to 就等于 lean-to (that is) covered by snow（白雪覆盖的披屋）。
Its armor seemed to change color as it moved; here it was white as new-fallen snow, there black as shadow, everywhere dappled with the deep grey-green of the trees.
他的盔甲似乎也随着移动而改变颜色，一会儿白如新雪，一会儿黑如晴影，缀满深林中的灰绿色。
- here…, there…前置，强调了空间的转换，光影变幻，形成视觉上的强烈刺激。句子可以还原为It was white here, and it was black there，但缺少了空间转换的感觉。
- be dappled with表示“有...斑点，被...点缀着” ，这里是指黑白身影不管走到哪都有灰绿色的斑驳树影点缀着。
The Other slid forward on silent feet.
异鬼安静地向前潜行。
简单一小句就能体现英文的立体画面感。
作者用slid，凸显异鬼不是在走，而是像个鬼魂在无声的滑行。
on silent feet 更能凸显恐怖之感
It was alive with moonlight, translucent,a shard of crystal so thin that it seemed almost to vanish when seen edge-on.
那是把半透明的剑，像是一片薄薄的水晶碎片，假如平放刃面看过去，几乎看不到。这把剑与月光相互辉映。
a shard of crystal 水晶碎片 shard 指玻璃、金属等的碎片。
这句话描述了异鬼的武器，尤其alive，把整个句子激活。
There was a faint blue shimmer to the thing, a ghost-light that played around its edges, and somehow Will knew it was sharper than any razor.
剑身周围有股诡异的蓝光。不知怎麽地，威尔明白这柄剑比任何剃刀都还要锋利。
faint blue， faint指微弱的不明显，模糊的，faint blue则指泛蓝色
以下边的蓝钻为例，分别为无色None, 泛蓝色faint, 淡蓝light, 和蓝色：
a ghost-light that played around its edges此处是一个同位语，补充 a faint blue shimmer。
play around 又是个人的动作，可以指玩弄、摆弄的意思。
a ghost-light that played around its edges 想象画面：剑缘附近包裹、覆盖着诡异的蓝光。
作者用了play around代替surround，让那诡异的蓝光也动了起来、活了起来，和前面的alive形成某种契合。
“For Robert!” he shouted, and he came up snarling, lifting the frost-covered longsword with both hands and swinging it around in a flat sidearm slash with all his weight behind it.
"劳勃国王万岁！"他高声怒吼，双手紧握他覆满白霜的长剑，使尽全身力气疯狂挥舞。
- snarl 咆哮、怒骂 ，跟shout相比，snarl更多指动物的咆哮，可见看出此时的罗伊斯爵士情绪已经完全失控，在做最后的努力。
- frost-covered 覆满冰霜的 中世纪欧洲骑士、步兵一般使用长剑，重剑。中国古代剑相比之下更轻盈。
- sidearm 原意指棒球中的侧投球姿势：
a flat sidearm slash 就是从腰间侧向劈砍的意思，可泛理解为“乱砍乱劈”。
The Other’s parry was almost lazy.
异鬼简直懒得理他。
- parry在这里是名词，指“抵挡”，这句话字面意思是：异鬼的抵挡都很懒，也就是说，异鬼连挡都懒得挡。
以lazy修饰parry，形象生动。
同时，lazy 和前面 with all his weight behind it 形成鲜明对比，人类和异鬼力量差距之悬殊就体现出来了。
A scream echoed through the forest night, and the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces, the shards scattering like a rain of needles.
尖叫声回荡在深夜树林里，罗伊斯的长剑裂成几百片碎片，碎片如同一阵针雨四散甩落。
- shiver 有颤抖、哆嗦的意思，举个例子，老人与海中的一句话
He was shivering with the morning cold.
他被清晨的寒气弄得直打哆嗦。
the longsword shivered into a hundred brittle pieces可以想象长剑像炸裂一样瞬间崩坏，碎片散落一地，正如 the shards scattering like a rain of needles.
Blood welled between his fingers.
鲜血从他指缝间汨汨流下。
- well这里是熟词僻义，作名词指“水井”，这里做动词，表示像泉水一样“涌出”。
