DEEP DIVES

It’s been a while since we last covered Minecraft’s beautiful flora in this column, and as we’re barrelling towards mid-winter at full pelt, we thought it’d be nice to pick an item that reminds us of spring and summer: the rose bush.
距离上一次在此专栏介绍MC的漂亮植物丛已经过去了一些日子，此刻凛冬飞速而至，我们觉得有必要亮出一门道具，它可以唤醒我们对春夏的回忆，那就是：玫瑰丛。

Roses were one of the first flowers in Minecraft, added all the way back in June 2009 at the same time as cloth, mushrooms, and dandelions . In The Update that Changed the World, in October 2013, they were renamed to “Poppy”, and a new item was added instead – the rose bush, which remains in the game to this day.
玫瑰是MC中最早的一批花，在2009年六月和布匹（后来的羊毛），蘑菇，蒲公英一起加入到游戏中。在2013年10月的改变世界更新中，它被重命名为“罂粟（后名虞美人）”，玫瑰丛被加入到游戏中代替玫瑰，并保留到今天。

Rose bushes aren’t too easy to get hold of. They spawn naturally in only a few different kinds of forest. While most flowers can be bought from wandering traders, they never have rose bushes in stock – which raises the question why. Perhaps the wandering traders love roses so much they keep them all? Perhaps their llamas are allergic to roses? Perhaps roses just don’t travel well? We’ll never know.
获得玫瑰丛不是太难，但它们也只会在森林及其变种中生成。尽管大多数花朵可以从流浪商人那里买到，但它们从不卖玫瑰丛——那为什么呢？可能是流浪商人太爱玫瑰所以都收了起来，也可能是他们的羊驼对玫瑰过敏，抑或是玫瑰水土不服？不得而知。

What we do know is that rose bushes can be crafted into red dye, which is very useful if you want to make things that are red. As a writer, that’s very important to me, so I keep a lot of rose bushes around my house at all times. They’re also a handy source of nectar for bees.
目前已知玫瑰丛可以合成红色染料，对制作红色物品很有帮助。这对我一个作者而言很重要，所以我总是会围绕房子种下丛丛玫瑰，它们同时也是蜜蜂采蜜的便捷来源。

Otherwise, rose bushes don’t do much else. You can’t put them in flower pots (they’re too big), and you can’t use them to make suspicious stew. Despite their thorns, they don’t deal damage when you’re walking through them (use sweet berry bushes for that instead).
除此以外，玫瑰丛并无他用，它们太大了，不能放在花盆里，也不能拿来做迷之炖菜。虽然它们有刺，但是从玫瑰丛中过是不伤一根汗毛的（如果你想被扎伤可以走走树莓丛）。

But sometimes it’s just nice to have things around that are beautiful instead of being functional. Pretty sure that’s why Mojang Studios still hires me to write these columns.
但有时，身边事物中看比中用强，正因为此mojang才留着我这么个花瓶来写这专栏。

Image credit: Jebulon // CC BY-SA 3.0
图片来源： Jebulon // CC BY-SA 3.0

In the so-called “real world”, roses are a whole family of different plants. There are more than 300 different species, and tens of thousands of “cultivars” – which are varieties of plant that have been bred for particular characteristics – colour, aroma, shape, or petal arrangement.
在所谓“现实世界”，玫瑰（注：实指蔷薇属，含玫瑰、月季、蔷薇等）是一大族不同植物的统称，有300个不同物种和几万个栽培品种——栽培品种指为特殊性状而培育的植物，比如颜色、香气、形态或花瓣排布。
Real-world roses are mostly ornamental – just like in Minecraft. They’re sometimes used in commercial perfume-making, for creating hedges, and to stabilise slopes. Rose hips (the seed-bearing fruit of the plant) are sometimes made into syrup, jam, or soup. But roses are mostly there to look pretty.
现实世界的玫瑰基本都是观赏植物，就像在MC里一样。它们有时用于商业香水制作，抑或制作树篱，保护斜坡。玫瑰果（准确来说是花托而非子房）有时会被做成糖浆，果酱或者汤，但大多数玫瑰还是用于观赏的。

That hasn’t stopped them from becoming symbolic in many cultures. In ancient Greece, the rose was associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love. In the Christianised Roman Empire, they were associated with the Virgin Mary, leading to the creation of the “Holy Rosary” prayer. And different-coloured roses symbolised the houses of York and Lancaster in the 15th-century Wars of the Roses. Today, the rose is the official national flower of the United States.
这并没有阻止它成为许多文化的符号，在古希腊，玫瑰与爱神阿佛洛狄忒（维纳斯）有关系，在基督教罗马帝国，它们与圣母玛利亚有关，导致了“圣玫瑰”祷告的出现。而且在15世纪的玫瑰战争中，红白两色玫瑰还象征着约克和兰开斯特两个家族，直到今天，玫瑰还是美国的国花。

Which Minecraft flower would you pick to be the official national flower of your in-game town?
你打算把哪种MC花朵作为你游戏内城镇的“城花”呢？




【森林蝙蝠 译自官网 2020 年 12 月 17 日发布的 Taking Inventory: Rose Bush；原作者 Duncan Geere】
【本文排版借助了：SPX】