你知道胭脂虫的故事吗？（二）
First-hand accounts indicate that Cortés wasn’t overly (smitten, attracted, crazy, fond) with cochineal, more concerned instead with plundering gold and silver.
第一手资料显示斯科特并没有过度热衷于胭脂虫，而是对掠夺金银更感兴趣。
Back in Spain, the king was pressed to make (extremities, edges, sides, ends) meet and hold together his enormous dominion in relative peace.
回到西班牙，国王需要保持收支平衡并维持其庞大的帝国团结与相对和平。
So, although he was at first unconvinced by the promise of America, he became fascinated by the exotic tales and saw in cochineal an opportunity to (support, post, pillar, prop) up the crown’s coffers.
所以，尽管一开始国王查理五世并没有信服美洲的前景，他还是被异域风情的传说吸引并在胭脂虫上看到了一个充盈国库的机会。
By 1523, cochineal pigment made its (route, track, trail, way) back to Spain and caught the attention of the king who wrote to Cortés about exporting the dyestuff back to Europe, writes Butler.
巴特勒写到，时间来到了1523年，胭脂虫染料回到西班牙，引起了国王的注意。国王遂写信给斯科特，使其出口染料回到欧洲。
“Through absurd laws and decrees the Spanish (occupied, strangleheld, monopolised, patented) the grana trade,” says Sanchez. “They made the indians produce as much as possible.”
“通过一系列荒诞的法律和敕令，西班牙垄断了染料贸易，”桑切斯说，“他们让印第安人尽可能多地去生产。”
The native Mesoamericans who specialised in the production of the pigment and weren’t killed by disease or slaughtered during the conquest were paid pennies on the pound – while the Spaniards “profited enormously as (arbitrators, mediators, intermediaries, proxies).”
专门从事染料生产的当地中美洲人，没有死于疾病和没在西班牙征服过程中被屠杀的按磅计酬--即一磅一便士，而西班牙人却靠担任中间商牟取暴利。
Dye from the cochineal bug was ten times as (forceful, potent, vigorous, weighty) as St John’s Blood and produced 30 times more dye per ounce than Armenian red, according to Butler.
根据巴特勒的说法，胭脂虫染料的强度是圣约翰血的10倍，每盎司产生的染料是亚美尼亚红的30倍。
So when European dyers began to experiment with the pigment, they were delighted by its (potential, opportunity, aptitude, competence).
所以当欧洲的染色工开始试验胭脂虫染料时，他们对其潜力感到高兴。
Most importantly, it was the (brightest, most scintillating, acutest, most glaring) and most saturated red they had ever seen.
最重要的是，胭脂虫染料是他们见过的最明亮色泽最饱和的红色。