BLOCK OF THE WEEK: HAY BALE
本周方块:干草块
The horse chow treat that‘s safe to fall for
马儿的美味食物，摔在上面也安全
Spring is here! The sun is shining, birds are singing, and bees are ruining the picnics. Hey, at least we can have picnics again! It‘s stopped getting dark about twenty minutes after the sun comes up and each day is a fun new opportunity to skip and dance and have fun! Hoorah! Until the hay fever kicks in. Then it‘s back inside to sit in the dark for the rest of the year, sniffling and miserable. Spring is ruined, all thanks to hay. Hay, you traitorous snake.
春天来啦！阳光闪耀，鸟儿鸣唱，蜜蜂把我们的野餐毁掉。嘿，至少咱们又能野餐啦！太阳升起之后的天黑时间延后了二十分钟，每一天都是全新的蹦哒跳舞找乐子的欢乐时间！爽啊！直到干草热杀了进来。然后又是那种回到室内坐在黑暗之中度过剩下这一年的生活，抽着鼻子，真是惨啊。春天砸啦，真是谢谢干草了。干草，你真是个卑鄙角色。
That‘s why we prefer hay bales in Minecraft, where instead of ruining our lives, they sometimes save them. Landing on a hay bale in the game reduces any fall damage by 80%. That means you could potentially fall from a hundred blocks high and survive. Just. Our legal team cannot stress enough that you should only try that in Minecraft.
这就是我们在《我的世界》中更喜欢干草块的原因，在游戏里干草块不会搞乱我们的生活，反而有时还会救下我们的命。在游戏里掉在干草块上会减少80%的掉落伤害。这就是说你可以有机会从百格之高处掉落然后存活下来。只不过……我们的法律团队强调得不能再强调了：这件事你只能在《我的世界》里尝试。
The hay bale block is also an excellent source of food, restoring up to ten points to your hungry animals. Foals that eat hay bales will actually grow into horses faster. Because who needs a rich and fulfilling childhood when you can just eat your way to the responsibilities, disappointments and baldness of adult life early? Don‘t do it, foals! Embrace your youth!
干草块也是极佳的食物来源，可以给你饥饿的动物加上10点饥饿值。吃了干草块的小马驹也确实会更快地长成马。因为谁会在只要靠吃就能提早体会成年生活中的责任、失望还有秃顶的时候需要一个丰富而充实的童年呢？别这么干，小马！拥抱你的青春吧！
They‘re flammable in Minecraft and just as happy to burn in real life, as hay bales spontaneously combusting is a serious problem. Perhaps consider building your home from something else.
干草块在《我的世界》里是可燃的，而且因为在真实生活中很喜欢燃烧，它们的自燃是个严肃的大问题。也许你得考虑用别的东西建造你的家。
The expression ‘needle in a haystack‘ is from Sir Thomas More, who wrote "to seek out one line in his books would be to go looking for a needle in a meadow". Wait, meadow? Image by Tony Webster.
“干草堆里的针”这句俗语来自托马斯爵士，他写道：“要找出他书内的一行字，就如同寻找牧场里的一根针。”等会，牧场？图片来自Tony Webster。
You‘re just nine wheat away from a hay bale! And ninety-something hay bales away from building a straw house! We built a straw house once but then a wolf blew it down and ate us. True story.
你离一个干草块只差九把小麦！还差大概九十多个干草块来建个稻草屋！我们是建过一个稻草屋，只不过后面来了只狼把它吹倒了，还吃掉了我们。真实的故事。
You can make your own hay right this very second by going out to your garden and ripping up some grass. After several days of watching this grass not grow, you‘ll be the proud owner of some genuine home made hay! This process is fine for a small amount, but making enough hay bales for an entire farmyard is the kind of horrific ‘hard work‘ and ‘real job‘ us writer types have dedicated our cushy lives to cleverly avoiding. Hay-baling was indeed dreadful for hundreds of years until the middle of the 19th century, which saw the innovations of the mechanical hay press.
就是现在，你可以弄到你自己的干草：出到你的花园去，拔一些草。看着这些草不生不长几天以后，你就将能得到一些真的自制干草，成为它们骄傲的拥有者！如果做的数量少的话还好，但是要制做足够塞满整个农场庭院的干草块的话，那就是一份可怕的“难活”和“大活”了，这种活计可是我们这类码字的人致力于为我们惬意的生活而去机智地躲开的。数百年来，捆干草这件事着实讨人厌，直到19世纪中叶开始了用机器压干草的革命。
Early mechanical hay presses were cumbersome, occupying multiple floors of your barn and requiring a pack of horses. Said horses would then lift something called a ‘press weight‘ (or turn a jackscrew or geared press) which compressed the hay into that lovely bale shape. These presses may have occupied a lot of space, but the resulting bales were huge too, some weighing as much as 300 pounds.
早期的压干草机器挺笨重的，会占据你谷仓的一大块地盘，还需要一群的马。据说这些马接下来就会拉起一个叫“压草重物”的东西（或者是启动螺旋起重器或连接在一起的压草机），这个东西会把干草压成可爱的捆型。这些压草机可能会占据很大的空间，但得到的干草捆也同样巨大，有些能达到300磅之重。
Over time, industrial progress made making hay bales easier and easier. Now the biggest problem isn‘t turning lousy floor-hay into a glorious bale, but making sure it doesn‘t randomly burst into flames. It‘s true! If you don‘t watch the moisture of content of a hay bale, they have been known to spontaneously combust. So a hay bale is capable of both blocking our sinuses and burning us alive? Well then keep that dumb straw cube away from us. Hahahaha! Take that, hay bales!
随着时代的前进，产业的进程使得制作干草捆越来越容易。现在最大的问题不是把松散一地的干草做成漂亮的干草捆，而是要保证它们不会随机地起火。真的！如果你不检查捆内干草的潮湿度的话——它们可是出了名的会自燃。所以干草块非常适合塞住我们的鼻窦、焚蚀我们的生命吗？好，那就让那些愚蠢的秸秆块离我们远点。哈哈哈哈！着道了吧，干草块！
See you next time, Block of the Week fans!
下次见咯，周块的粉丝们！
Tom leans back in his chair, smugly chuckling at another BOTW well done. He really stuck it to that dumb hay bale block! Tom sniffs. His eyes suddenly feel puffy. Strange... His allergies never usually play up in the office. Tom glances out of the window. His jaw drops. He sees it sat on the roof of his car.
Tom（每周方块的作者——译者注）靠回他的椅子，得意地对着又一篇写好的周块轻笑。他真的搞定了那愚蠢的干草方块！Tom抽了抽鼻子。他的眼睛突然肿了起来。奇怪……他的过敏症状一般不会在办公室里出现的。Tom瞥向窗户外。他惊掉了下巴。他看到那个东西坐在他的车顶。
It‘s a hay bale, somehow holding an axe, waiting.
那是一个干草块，不知道为什么拿着把斧头，等待着。
Waiting for him.
等待着他。
Swallowing a scream, Tom hastily writes a new ending.
把尖叫声咽了回去，Tom匆忙地写下了新的结束语。
H-how about a r-round of applause for hay bales, right guys?! They‘re the b-b-best block ever!
不…不如给干草块鼓…鼓一次掌吧，是吧老哥？！它们是最…最最好的方块啦！
But it‘s too late. The window smashes! A blood-curdling wail rings out into the night. Tom is never seen again. But probably only because he‘s trying to get out of writing the next Block of the Week.
但是太晚了。窗户碎裂开来！令人毛骨悚人的尖叫声响彻夜晚。再也没人见到Tom了。但可能只是因为他想不写下一篇《本周方块》罢了。
【作者Tom Stone，发布于2017年3月31日。译者Kakagou。点击查看原文。】