DEEP DIVES

Psst, hey you. What if I told you you could breathe underwater? Or see in the dark? Or turn invisible? Or walk unharmed through fire? You wouldn’t believe me, right? Well, it just so happens that a little sip of our item of the week can allow you to do all those things and more. Not in real life, silly – in Minecraft . It’s the potion, and quite honestly it tastes disgusting. Or so I've heard.
嘿，就是你。如果我告诉你你能够在水下呼吸，在黑暗中能看清东西，又或者能够毫发无损地穿过火焰，你会怎么想呢？你肯定不会信我的，是吗？然而，只要喝上我们的本周物品那么一小口，这些事情就都能发生了，甚至还能让你做到更多的事情。蠢蛋，不是在现实中啊 —— 是在 Minecraft 里。这就是药水啦，而且据我所闻，喝起来还挺恶心的。

Potions were first added to Minecraft in the Adventure Update, better known as Minecraft 1.0.0. Initially, they were brewed in cauldrons, through a complicated system that involved tossing in ingredients one at a time. But it was pretty confusing, so the brewing stand was implemented instead.
药水在 冒险更新 ——  更为人所知的名字是“Minecraft 1.0.0”，中第一次加入到 Minecraft 中。最初，药水是在炼药锅中酿造而成的，要经过一套繁杂的流程，包括一次只能投入一种材料等。这些东西搞得人十分迷惑，所以酿造台便出现并取代了它。

There are several ways to obtain potions. Brewing is the most obvious – by combining various ingredients with a water bottle in the aforementioned brewing stand. But you can also find them in chests, trade them with wandering traders or piglins, or hunt down witches – which drop them on death.
获取药水的方式有好几种，而酿造是其中最显而易见的方式了 —— 在前面提到的酿造台中用一个水瓶搭配不同的原料即可。但你也可以去搜寻宝箱，或是与流浪商人、猪灵等进行交易，又或者以猎杀女巫 —— 她们在死亡时也会掉落，的方式获得药水。

There are lots of potions available – regeneration, healing, swiftness, fire resistance, strength, leaping, water breathing, invisibility, slow falling, turtle master and luck all have positive effects on the living. But there are also poison, weakness, slowness, harming, and decay potions that harm their drinker.
游戏里可用的药水也有不少 —— 像再生药水、治疗药水、迅捷药水、抗火药水、力量药水、水下呼吸药水、缓降药水、神龟药水和幸运药水都可以为玩家带来增益效果；但同样也有诸如虚弱药水、缓慢药水、瞬间伤害药水、衰变药水等，会损害饮用者的药水。

To use a potion, hold it in your hand and hit use. It’s that easy. But wait – don’t drink it yet. Instead, try surrounding a lingering potion with arrows in a crafting grid to get tipped arrows, which bestow the effect you choose on whatever you hit with that arrow. Finally, in Bedrock Edition you can also use a potion on a cauldron to fill it up. A cauldron will hold up to three identical potions, allowing you to save them for later.
想要使用一瓶药水，只要把它拿在手中并按下“使用”键就行 —— 就这么简单。但等等，先别急着喝。试试在合成方格中将滞留型药水用箭围上一圈来获得药箭 —— 它会把你用以合成的药水的效果给予任何你射中的目标。最后，在基岩版中，你还可以将至多三份相同的药水倒入炼药锅中，以留作之后取用。

In the real world, the word “potion” comes from the Latin word “potus”, which refers to a drink, or drinking, and people have been making and selling potions for millennia.
在现实世界中，英文单词“Potion(药水)”来自于拉丁词汇 “potus”，意即“饮料”或者“饮用”。而千百年来，人们都在不停地制作与售卖着药水。

Common potion types include love potions (which supposedly cause the drinker to fall in love), restorative potions (which cure various ailments), immortality potions (which grant eternal youth), sleeping potions (which send the drinker to sleep), hallucinogenic potions (which induce visions), and poisons (which harm the drinker).
常见的药水类型包括有，爱情药水(据说能让饮用者坠入爱河)、滋补药水(能治好多种小病)、不朽药水(能让你永葆青春)、安眠药水(能让饮用者进入睡眠状态)、致幻药水(能诱使你产生幻觉)以及毒药(会对饮用者造成伤害)。

Most of these potions don’t work, or rely on the placebo effect, but a small handful does and we generally call those “medicine”. If you’ve ever taken cough syrup for a chest infection, or sipped a cup of chamomile tea to help you calm down or sleep, then you’ve drunk a potion.
这些药水大多数都是没用的，或是靠着 安慰剂效应 来"生效"，但其中的一小部分确实有用，我们便把这部分称之为“药物”。如果你曾在胸腔感染时喝过止咳糖浆，又或是曾喝过甘菊茶来让自己冷静下来或辅助入睡的话，那你都算是喝过药水了。

Luckily, Minecraft’s potions are a lot more effective. No placebo effect here. So get brewing, and enjoy better living through chemistry.
幸运的是，Minecraft 里的药水可有用多了。在这才没有什么“安慰剂效应”呢。所以快去酿造，用化学之力改善生活吧！




【封徵 译自官网 2022 年 05 月 11 日发布的 Taking Inventory: Potion；原作者 Duncan Geere】
【本文排版借助了：SPXX v2.4.10】