The team behind “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” throws an awful lot at the screen during this clotted two-hour-plus diversion, the latest installment in the J.K. Rowling-verse. As is often the case in a Rowling production, evil is ascendant, seeping through both human and magic realms like poison gas.

電影「怪獸與葛林戴華德的罪行」是喬安．凱瑟琳．羅琳作品最新的一部，幕後團隊在這緊湊的兩個多小時消遣中，丟出一大堆東西給觀眾。邪惡占上風，像毒氣一樣滲透人類與魔法界域，在羅琳的作品裡經常如此。

Mostly, though, because Rowling builds worlds, what “Grindelwald” has is a great deal of story. The movie is chockablock with stuff: titular creatures , attractive people, scampering extras, eye-catching locations, tragic flashbacks, teary confessions and largely bloodless, spectacular violence.

不過，主要因為是羅琳創造了這些世界，所以「葛林戴華德」一片包含許多故事。這部片塞滿東西：有名號的生物、有魅力的人物、驚惶奔跑的群眾演員、吸睛的地方、悲劇的倒敘、哭泣的表白，以及多半不血腥卻壯觀的暴力場面。

This is the second movie in what promises (threatens!) to be an extended “Fantastic Beasts” franchise. It centers on Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a “magizoologist” who studies, rescues and nurses magical critters. Unlike Harry’s tale, though, Newt’s story opens with him already of age. The new movie picks up in New York in the mid-1920s, the end point of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”

這是承諾（揚言！）成為一長串系列電影的「怪獸」的第二部片。電影以艾迪．瑞德曼飾演的紐特．斯卡曼德為中心，他是「魔法動物學家」，研究、拯救並培育有魔法的動物。不過，紐特的故事不像哈利．波特的從幼時開始，而是開始時即已成年。這部新片的時空背景設定從1920年代中期的紐約開展，是前一部片「怪獸與牠們的產地」結束的點。

Not much has happened since the last movie; mostly, people and parts have been shifted in preparation for the next great narrative heave forward. Once again, Newt is scurrying about while nefarious doings unfold in separate storylines. One is dominated by Gellert Grindelwald, an evil wizard who looks like he’s been dipped in flour. Grindelwald is consolidating his power and has big plans. These have become more transparent as fascism has seeped into the story, totalitarianism’s threat increasingly giving dark meaning to all the violence and ugly phrases like “pure blood.”

新片與上一部片的背景差異不大；人物和角色改變，多半是為下一部偉大的故事起伏預留伏筆。紐特又一次在幾個不同的故事線出現邪惡行徑時四處奔走。其中一個故事線由蓋勒．葛林戴華德主導，葛林戴華德是邪惡的巫師，看來白得像剛從麵粉堆裡出來。葛林戴華德忙著鞏固權力，野心勃勃。當法西斯主義滲入故事情節，極權主義威脅逐漸賦予所有暴力和「純種」等醜陋詞語黑暗的意義時，這些情況變得更明顯。

Rowling is a literary magpie and first-rate synthesizer, and her stated inspirations for the Harry Potter books range from classical mythology to Jane Austen. Traces of the Bible, Shakespeare, Tolkien and other Western-lit staples are sprinkled throughout that series and therefore this one, too. However intentional, they form part of a cultural database, which is as smart as it is appealing. Given some of these influences, it’s no surprise that the series is touched by death; given the arc of history, it’s also no surprise that it has morphed into an apocalyptic war story.

羅琳是文學上的收集癖，也是一流的合成器，她表明過的哈利．波特書籍靈感來源從古典神話到英國小說家珍．奧斯汀都有。聖經、莎士比亞、英國作家托爾金和其他西方文學名作的痕跡，散見於哈利．波特系列全部作品，因而也見於這部電影。姑不論刻意到什麼程度，這些書籍和電影作品已成為文化資料庫的一部分，這個資料庫既聰明又富吸引力。由於有這樣的影響力，這系列作品被死亡觸碰並不讓人驚訝；由於歷史的軌跡，這系列作品逐漸變成末日戰爭故事也不令人意外。

A bleak, violent end — and the intimation of a worldwide cataclysm — looms from the very first scene of “The Crimes of Grindelwald.”Directed by David Yates and written by Rowling, the movie opens with a fierce, visually chaotic prison break that springs Grindelwald and sets the angry mood.

「葛林戴華德的罪行」第一幕就暗示著黯淡無望且暴力的結局和全球大災難。這部片由大衛．葉慈執導，羅琳編劇，開場就是激烈且視覺上混亂的越獄行動，葛林戴華德冷不防跳出，為影片設定了憤怒的基調。

Just after sunrise, Capt. Frank Sep turned to his ship’s radio for the defining news of his day: the water level in Kaub, the shallowest part of the middle section of the Rhine River, Germany’s most important shipping route.

就在日出後不久，船長法蘭克．塞普仰賴船上的無線電，獲取對這一天具有決定性影響的消息：考布地區的水位。這裡是萊茵河中段最淺之處，而萊茵河正是德國最重要的貨運路線。

The news was bad, as it so often is these days. One of the longest dry spells on record has left parts of the Rhine at record-low levels for months, forcing freighters to reduce their cargo or stop plying the river altogether.

是壞消息，一如這些日子以來常聽到的。紀錄上少見的長期乾旱，已使萊茵河部分區段水位持續數月處於紀錄上最低水平，迫使貨船減少運量，甚或完全停駛。

Some inland ports are idle, and it is estimated that millions of tons of goods are having to be transported by rail or road.

一些內陸港閒置著，據估計，數以百萬噸計的貨物必須改以鐵路或公路運送。

Virtually all freight shipped from seaports in the Netherlands and Belgium to the industrial southwest of Germany passes through here.

從荷蘭和比利時海港運往德國西南部工業地區的所有貨物，幾乎全須經過這裡。

On a day in late October, Sep learned that the river was just 10 inches deep. That meant the water in the shipping channel dredged near the center of the river was about 5 feet deep, down from an average of about 11 feet. Even with cargo at one-third its usual weight, his 282-foot freighter would have only inches of water under its hull.

10月下旬的某一天，塞普獲悉河水僅10吋深。這意味靠近萊茵河中央掘出的運輸航道水深僅約5呎，比約11呎的平均值少。儘管貨物重量只有平常的三分之一，他282呎長的貨船船底距離河底也只有幾吋。

An exceptionally dry summer has caused havoc across Europe. A trade group in Germany put farmers’ losses at several billion dollars. The German chemical giant BASF had to decrease production at one of its plants over the summer because the Rhine, whose water it uses to cool production, was too low.

這個異常乾旱的夏季已使歐洲各地大受破壞。德國一個貿易組織估計農民的損失達數十億美元。德國化學大廠巴斯夫在夏季時被迫減少一間工廠的產量，因為工廠用來冷卻製程的萊茵河河水，水位太低了。

Roughly 80 percent of the 223 million tons of cargo transported by ship in Germany each year travels the Rhine, which links the country’s industrial heartland to Belgium, the Netherlands and the North Sea. An exact tally of how much is being diverted to rail and road is not yet available, but “it is a significant number,” said Martyn Douglas of the German Federal Environment Agency.

德國每年透過船隻運送的2億2300萬噸貨物，約八成行經萊茵河，萊茵河銜接德國工業核心地帶和比利時、荷蘭、北海地區。改以鐵路和陸路運送的貨運數量有多少，還沒有確切的統計數字，但是德國聯邦環境署的馬丁．道格拉斯說：「這會是個可觀的數字。」

The shipping lane could be made deeper, but that would take years, if not decades, and would cost millions. And even if that were to succeed, it would remove only one bottleneck on a river that is just starting to show how many trouble spots it has.

運輸河道可以挖得更深些，但就算不需數十年，也得花上好幾年，且需投注鉅資。而且即使此舉成功，也只能去除萊茵河的一個瓶頸，而萊茵河的諸多問題才剛剛開始顯現呢。

※說文解字看新聞

萊茵河是歐洲最重要的河流之一，發源於阿爾卑斯山區，由南往北流經德國，於荷蘭流入北海。萊茵河也是重要的運輸通道，全長1232公里的河道多數位於德國境內，本文指出，今夏的乾旱造成萊茵河水位大降，嚴重影響德國河運。

第二段的spell意指「一段時間」，比起period，spell更強調時間的連續性，此處指的是連續不斷的乾旱狀態。

同段最後一句 plying the river 的ply一字，指「定期往返於兩點之間 」。

英語國家的公路上，偶爾會看到divert這個字，指的是前方道路因天災或施工封閉，提醒駕駛人改開替代路線，即為「改道」之意。本文倒數第二段的divert，指原本透過萊茵河運輸的貨物，必須改由鐵路和陸路運送。