孤獨的身影：世上最后一頭雄性北白犀

by Jonathan Jones

烏蕪譯

孤獨的身影：世上最后一頭雄性北白犀

A Picture of Loneliness: the Last Male Northern White Rhino

by Jonathan Jones

烏蕪譯

W hat is it like to look at the very last of something? To contemplate the passing of a unique wonder that will soon vanish from the face of the earth? You are seeing it. Sudan is the last male northern white rhino on the planet. If he does not mate successfully soon with one of two female northern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta conservancy, there will be no more of their kind, male or female, born anywhere. And it seems a slim chance, as Sudan is getting old at 42 and breeding efforts have so far failed. Apart from these three animals there are only two other northern white rhinos in the world, both in zoos, both female.

It seems an image of human tenderness that Sudan is lovingly guarded by armed men who stand1)vigilantly and caringly with him. But of course it is an image of brutality. Even at this last desperate stage in the fate of the northern white rhino, Sudan is under threat from2)poachers who kill rhinos and3)hack off their horns to sell them on the Asian medicine market—despite the fact that he has had his horn cut off to deter them.

看著世上最后僅存的某樣東西是什么感覺？想到某樣獨一無二的珍寶很快就會從地球上消失是什么感覺？你正在目睹這樣的事情?！疤K丹”是世上最后一頭雄性北白犀。如果它不能與奧佩杰塔自然保護區的兩頭雌性北白犀中的任何一頭交配成功的話，那么世上將不會再有任何一頭北白犀降生，無論是雄性還是雌性。但是成功的機率似乎很小，因為蘇丹已經42歲高齡，而此前的交配繁殖都失敗了。除了這三頭北白犀，世界上僅剩下的另外兩頭都在動物園里，都是雌性。

這似乎是一個展現出人類柔情的畫面——手攜武器的男子正警惕而充滿關懷地站在蘇丹旁邊守衛著它。然而事實上，這個畫面展現出的是人類的殘忍無情。盡管北白犀的命運已經到了生死存亡的關頭，蘇丹依然受到來自偷盜者的威脅，他們會把犀牛殺死，然后把它們的角砍下來賣到亞洲的藥品市場——即便為了阻止他們，蘇丹的角已經被砍掉了。

Sudan doesn’t know how precious he is. His eye is a sad black dot in his massive wrinkled face as he wanders the reserve with his guards. His head is a marvellous thing. It is a majestic rectangle of strong bone and leathery fesh, a head that expresses pure strength. How terrible that such a mighty head can in reality be so vulnerable. It is lowered4)melancholically beneath the sinister sky, as if weighed down by fate. This is the noble head of an old warrior, his armour battered, his appetite for struggle fading.

Under his immense looming shoulder, his legs protrude like5)squat columns from the tough tank of his body. The way his foreleg emerges from his thick coat of skin reminds us how long human beings have been wondering at the natural spectacle that is the rhino. For Sudan does not look so different from the rhinoceros that Albrecht Dürer portrayed in 1515. They have the same little legs stuck out of a majestic body and they even lower their heads in the same contemplative way. Dürer was a Renaissance artist picturing an exotic beast from the exotic lands that Europe was starting to see more and more of. In 1515 a live Indian rhinoceros was sent by the ruler of6)Gujarat to the king of Portugal: he in turn sent it to the Pope, but it died along the way in a shipwreck.

蘇丹并不知道自己有多珍貴。它與其守衛在保護區里漫步，它的眼睛是它那滿布皺紋的臉上一個悲傷的小黑點。它的頭看上去奇妙而不可思議，一個神圣的矩形，由堅硬的骨頭以及皮革似的皮肉所組成，是一顆表現出絕對力量的頭。這樣強大的頭實際上卻如此容易受到傷害，這是多么可怕的一件事。在無情的天空下，它憂傷地低著頭，仿佛被命運壓倒了一般。……