RUMPELSTILTSKIN 侏儒妖
正文
Long ago in a kingdom far away, there lived a miller who was very economically disadvantaged. This miller shared his humble dwelling with his only daughter, an independent young woman named Esmeralda. Now, the miller was very ashamed of his poverty, rather than angry at the economic system that had marginalized him, and was always searching for a way to get rich quick.
很久以前，在一个遥远的王国里，住着一个经济条件极为艰难的磨坊主。这位磨坊主和他唯一的女儿——名为 Esmeralda 的独立女性共同生活在一个简陋的居所。最近，他为自己的贫穷极为羞耻，总是找法子快速致富，而非愤懑于将其边缘化的经济体系。
‘If only I could get my daughter to marry a rich man,’ he mused, in a sexist and archaic way, ‘she’ll be fulfilled and I’ll never have to work another day in my life.’ To this shabby end, he had an inspiration. He would start a rumour that his daughter was able to spin common barnyard straw into pure gold. With this untruth, he would be able to attract the attention of many rich men and marry off Esmeralda.
他以一种性别歧视和陈旧的思维方式暗想：“要是能把女儿嫁到有钱人家里，她这辈子就算圆满了，我以后也省得操劳。”为落实这种卑劾目的，他心生一计，散布谣言说自己的女儿能把普通稻草纺成纯金。这样一来，就能吸引大堆富豪娶走女儿。
The rumour spread throughout the kingdom in a manner that just happened to be like wildfire and soon reached the prince. As greedy and gullible as most men of his station, he believed the rumour and invited Esmeralda to his castle for a May Day festival. But when she arrived, he had her thrown into a dungeon filled with straw and ordered her to spin it into gold.
这谣言一如野火般迅速席卷整个王国。同这个国家大多数的男性一样，王子贪婪又盲目，轻信了这个谣言。他很快便邀请 Esmeralda 来城堡参加五月节。但 Esmeralda 刚到，王子便把她关进满是稻草的地牢，命令她把稻草全都变成金子。
Locked in the dungeon, fearing for her life, Esmeralda sat on the floor and wept. Never had the exploitativeness of the patriarchy been made so apparent to her. As she cried, a diminutive man in a funny hat appeared in the dungeon.
Esmeralda 被关在牢里，为自己的安危惶惶不安，只能瘫坐在地上无助落泪。她从未如此清晰地意识到男权社会的剥削本质。就在她啜泣时，一个头戴滑稽帽子的小人在牢房里冒了出来。
‘Why are you crying, my dear?’ he asked.
“小姑娘，你怎么哭了呢？”他问道。
Esmeralda was startled but answered him: ‘The prince has ordered me to spin all this straw into gold.’
Esmeralda 吓了一跳，但仍答道：“王子命令我把这些所有稻草变成金子。”
‘But why are you crying?’ he asked again.
“那你又为什么哭呢？”小人又问。
‘Because it can’t be done. What are you, specially abled or something?’
“因为那根本不可能。你呢，你有什么特殊能力吗？”
The differently statured man laughed and said, ‘Dearie, you are thinking too much with the left side of your brain, you are. But you are in luck. I will show you how to perform this task, yes, but first you must promise to give me what I want in return.’
这位身材与众不同的人放声一笑，说道：“亲爱的，你啊，你想得太过理性了。但你运气不错，我会给你看看怎么搞定这个任务。对了，但你先得承诺，事成之后满足我一个要求。”
With no alternative, Esmeralda gave her assent. To turn the straw into gold, they took it to a nearby farmers’ cooperative, where it was used to thatch an old roof. With a drier home, the farmers became healthier and more productive, and they brought forth a record harvest of wheat for local consumption. The children of the kingdom grew strong and tall, went to a cooperative school, and gradually turned the kingdom into a model democracy with no economic or sexual injustice and low infant mortality rates. For his part, the prince was captured by an angry mob and stabbed to death with pitchforks outside the palace. As new investment money poured in from all over the world, the farmers remembered Esmeralda’s generous gift of straw and rewarded her with numerous chests of gold.
Esmeralda 没有选择的余地，只好表示同意。为了将稻草变成金子，他们稻草带到附近的农民合作社，修补一个旧屋顶。改善了住房环境后，当地农民身体更加健康，劳动生产率也大大提升，创下当年小麦收成新纪录，足以满足当地人的消费需求。王国的孩子们长的高又壮，接受合作社学校的教育，逐渐把王国建设为没有经济不公、性别歧视和婴儿死亡率低的模范民主国家。至于国王，则被愤怒的民众捕获,并在宫外被农叉叉死。当地不断涌入来自世界各地的大量资金，农民也愈发感激 Esmeralda 当时的慷慨赠礼，回报她数箱金子。
When all this was done, the diminutive man in the funny hat laughed and said, ‘That is how you turn straw into gold.’ Then his expression became menacing. ‘Now that I have done my work, you must fulfil your part of the bargain. You must give me your first-born child!’
所有事都告一段落后，这个头戴滑稽帽子的小人又放声大笑，说道：“这就是把稻草变成金子的方式。”旋即话锋一转，威吓起来：“我的活已经办完了，现在得轮到你了。你必须把你的长子给我！”
Esmeralda shot back at him, ‘I don’t have to negotiate with anyone who would interfere with my reproductive rights!’
Esmeralda 回呛道：“我不必与任何企图干涉我生育权利的人交涉！”
The vertically challenged man was taken aback by the conviction in her voice. Deciding on a change in tactics, he said slyly, ‘Fair enough, dearie. I’ll let you out of the bargain if you can guess what my name is.’
那位身高不便的男人被她的言语一震，思衬调整策略，诡谲地说：“行吧，亲爱的。要是你能猜得出我的名字，我就放你一马。”
‘All right,’ said Esmeralda. She paused a second, tapped her chin with her finger, and said, ‘Would your name be … oh, I don’t know, maybe … Rumpelstiltskin?’
“好吧。”她稍作沉吟，指尖对下巴一点一点，说道：“你的名字会不会是……嗯，我也不确定，大概是……Rumpelstiltskin？”
‘AAAAAKKKK!!’ shrieked the man of nonstandard height. ‘But … but … how did you know?’
“噶！”那非常规身高的男性尖叫起来，“但……但是，你怎么知道的？”
She replied, ‘You are still wearing your name badge from the Little People’s Empowerment Seminar.’
她答道：“你身上还别着参加‘小个子赋权研讨会’时的名牌呢。”
Rumpelstiltskin screamed in anger and stamped his foot, at which point the earth cracked open and swallowed him up in a rush of smoke and sulphur. With her gold, Esmeralda moved to California to open a birth-control clinic, where she showed other womyn how not to be enslaved by their reproductive systems and lived to the end of her days as a fulfilled, dedicated single person.
Rumpelstiltskin 狂怒尖叫，狠狠跺脚。落脚处随即开裂出大洞，喷涌出的滚滚烟雾硫磺将他吞没。Esmeralda 则带着她金子移居 California，开了家节育诊所，教导其他女性如何避免被生育系统压迫。就此，她以充实而专注的独居生活，度过余生。