大新聞！不朽之城羅馬將要坍塌于鳥糞之下.

　　羅馬城有著悠久的歷史，美味可口的冰淇淋，精致養(yǎng)眼的披薩和美輪美奐的藝術(shù)作品。旅行第一站便是羅馬圓形大劇場和古羅馬廣場，這里曾是羅馬的經(jīng)濟(jì)、政治和宗教中心?？墒乾F(xiàn)在羅馬將要處于崩潰的邊緣，因?yàn)閿?shù)百萬候鳥的鳥糞污染了其街道。

　　ROME — There is nothing quite as overpowering as the acidic stench of the fresh, wet feces from more than four million birds that have apparently decided to winter in Rome this year.

　　(羅馬電)——沒有什么比四百多萬小鳥的潮濕的排泄物所散發(fā)出的酸臭味更加強(qiáng)烈了。

　　The sickly sweet smell, which is unavoidable in much of the center of Rome, is accompanied by a slick sheen covering everything from sidewalks and cobblestones to churches, park benches and café tables. And it is more than just an annoyance. It has become a death trap causing scores of car and moped accidents and nearly 100 fractures and sprains attributed to pedestrians falling on the slippery stuff.

　　羅馬市中心大部分地方都不可避免的充滿了令人惡心的臭味，還伴隨著光澤，遍及通往教堂的人行道和鵝卵石上，還有公園的長椅和咖啡桌上，無所不在。這并不僅僅只是令人惱怒，它們已經(jīng)成了造成汽車和助動(dòng)車事故的危險(xiǎn)地帶，并且因其會(huì)使行人們在這些光滑的東西上跌倒，已造成幾乎100例骨折和扭傷的病例。

　　The crisis, which has been brewing for more than a month, came to a head over the weekend, when the first serious winter rains fell on the Italian capital, making the gluey guano even more treacherous. The city of Rome even closed the busy thoroughfare that runs along the Tiber River for more than ten hours so crews could sand and scrape the slime after more than a dozen accidents were reported in less than an hour as scooters slid and pedestrians plummeted to the pavement.

　　這起危機(jī)已持續(xù)了一個(gè)多月，并在周末達(dá)到了頂峰。意大利首都遭遇第一場冬天的大雨，使粘濕的鳥糞更加令人生厭。羅馬市甚至封閉了臺(tái)伯河邊最繁忙的大道長達(dá)十小時(shí)，就是為了工作人員可以撒沙子并且清除這些淤泥般的東西。而之前已報(bào)道，在一小時(shí)內(nèi)已經(jīng)有十幾起事故發(fā)生，小輪摩托車滑到，行人摔倒在人行道上。

　　Roman residents know all too well to carry umbrellas and not park for long on tree-lined streets during the starling season. But this year, for a variety of reasons, the busy birds have not moved on and their flock has grown from the usual million or so to an estimated four million.

　　羅馬市民們太了解這些以至于早八哥來的時(shí)節(jié)出門不能帶傘，不能再樹下的街上停留過久。但今年，由于各種各樣的原因，這些繁忙的鳥兒沒有離開，而且他們?nèi)悍N的數(shù)量已經(jīng)由往常的一百萬升到四百萬。

　　The city is without a mayor at the moment, and the last time the city council met to discuss non-essential matters was October 30. “It’s an embarrassment,” says Fabrizio Ghera, a former city council member who had apparently warned the interim city government that they’d better act fast or the, uh, excrement would hit the fan. “We are a world class capital in the midst of a Holy Jubilee and the tourists are covered in crap,” he said.

　　此時(shí)，羅馬是沒有市長的，上一次市議會(huì)集會(huì)討論一些不重要的事情還是12月30日。市議會(huì)前市長Fabrizio Ghera似乎已經(jīng)向臨時(shí)市政府發(fā)出警告，命令他們盡快采取行動(dòng)否則鳥糞將會(huì)釀成很嚴(yán)重的后果，他說，“這是件很難堪的事情。我們是圣禧年之中一個(gè)世界級(jí)的首都，而游客們卻受鳥糞之害?！?/p>

　　But it may just be Mother Nature who solves the problems. On Saturday night, temperatures in Rome finally dropped to seasonal lows and the Fauna Urbus city environmental agency, which runs the speaker scare program, promised the birds would soon be on the move.

　　但這個(gè)問題也許只有大自然母親能解決。一個(gè)星期六的晚上，羅馬的氣溫驟降至季節(jié)性最低，掌管說話者恐懼問題的動(dòng)物王國的環(huán)境部將會(huì)宣布，保證鳥兒們不久就會(huì)離開。