譯/陳韋廷
The riverfront beach was supposed to be a summertime gift from the beleaguered mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, to her citizens. Called "Tiberis," an ancient name for Rome's main waterway, the municipal beach had been promoted as Rome's answer to Seine-side installations in Paris.
這個河濱海灘被認為是飽受抨擊的羅馬市長維吉尼亞．拉吉送給市民的一份夏季大禮，這座市立海灘以羅馬主要水道台伯河的拉丁古名「Tiberis」命名，而且宣傳期間一直被標榜為羅馬版的巴黎塞納河畔設施。
But when it finally opened this month, after doubts about whether it would open at all given that the season was nearly over, the area — a cluster of beach chairs and sun umbrellas, two beach volleyball courts and vending machines — was dismissed by some Romans (who perhaps hadn't even visited the beach) as too little, too late.
儘管人們曾因夏季已近尾聲而懷疑它到底會不會開放，它總算在八月開張了，然而部分羅馬居民（這些人可能還沒去過這海灘呢）卻認為，設有成排海灘椅和太陽傘，兩個海灘排球場及一些販賣機的這塊地方既不夠好，也來得太晚了。
Rather than a symbol of the progressive governance of Raggi's party, the Five Star Movement, Tiberis has become yet another lightning rod for Romans to vent their dissatisfaction with the mayor, who is entering the third tempestuous year of a five-year term.
台伯河海灘並未成為拉吉所屬政黨「五星運動黨」進步治理的象徵，反倒成了承受羅馬人對市長種種不滿的另一根避雷針。拉吉正進入五年任期中第三個風雨飄搖的年頭。
Taking to social media, some cracked jokes that the basic beach, in a populous Rome suburb, was best suited for the Tiber's most assiduous habitués: its rats. Others complained that unlike in other European capitals like Berlin and Copenhagen, whose urban lidos include pools or other areas suitable for swimming, sweaty sunbathers at Tiberis could opt only for showers in plastic cubicles.
在社群媒體上，有些人開玩笑說，位在人口稠密羅馬郊區的這座陽春海灘最適合台伯河中最刻苦耐勞的常客：老鼠。另有些人則抱怨說，不同於柏林與哥本哈根等其他歐洲都城有游泳池或其他適合游泳的地方，汗流浹背地做日光浴的人在台伯河海灘只能選擇在塑膠隔間內沖涼。
"A lot of untreated sewage is still dumped into the Tiber, so it is very polluted," said Giorgio Zampetti, the director general of the Italian environmental association Legambiente. "It's a shame, and an issue we've raised often." But cleaning up the river would be an immense and expensive undertaking for the city.
義大利環保協會「環保聯盟」的執行長喬吉歐．詹佩提說：「大量未經處理的汙水仍被排入台伯河，因此汙染嚴重。這是個恥辱，也是我們經常提出的一個問題。」然而對這座城市來說，清理這條河將是項巨大而昂貴的工作。
"A beach with no water is kind of ridiculous," said Tom Rankin, the former director of Tevereterno, a nonprofit that promotes artistic projects for the Tiber, including a 2016 mural along an embankment by South African artist William Kentridge. Although Rankin praised the effort of getting citizens to the Tiber's edge, he said City Hall could have given "more thought to the initiative to come up with something better."
非營利組織「永遠的台伯河」著力推動台伯河的各種藝術計畫，包含2016年南非藝術家肯特里奇的堤岸壁畫藝術，該組織前負責人湯姆．倫金說：「沒有水的海灘有點荒謬。」。雖然倫金對於把市民帶到台伯河邊的努力表示讚揚，但他同時表示市政府本可「對這個倡議考慮得更周詳，提出更好的做法。」
Other Romans said that the city had missed an important opportunity to re-establish a substantial connection to the Tiber, once central to the Italian capital's identity but today mostly neglected and overlooked.
另有些羅馬人表示，這個城市錯過了一個重新建立與台伯河實質聯繫的重要機會，這條河曾經是義大利首都羅馬身分認同的核心，今天卻大致已為人們所忽略與漠視。
"The operation was badly done," said Giuseppe Maria Amendola, the president of the Consorzio Tiberina, an association that aims to promote the Tiber. As designed, the spartan beach could have been plunked down anywhere, even in a parking lot, because "it gives nothing to the Tiber," he said.
旨在推廣台伯河的台伯河區協會理事長朱塞佩．瑪莉亞．阿門多拉說：「運作得很糟糕。」按設計，這座簡樸的海灘設在任何地方都沒差別，甚至可以設在停車場，因為「它沒給台伯河帶來任何東西」。
"This is not the way the city should be thinking about revamping the river," he added.
「這不是這個城市對於改造這條河流該有的思維方式。」他補充說道。
※說文解字看新聞
台伯河位於義大利中部是羅馬最主要的一條河流，是羅馬的母親河且跟羅馬帝國的興起息息相關，但這條河近年來卻是市民的「心頭之患」，屢遭民眾詬病骯髒不潔，甚至被視為恥辱，而這也讓市長拉吉的海灘計畫蒙上一層陰影，更凸顯市政治理混亂。
文中首段單字beleaguer指的是「圍攻、包圍」之意，同義詞有besiege、beset及bedevil等字，還有不斷遭到騷擾、困擾的意思，例如The president has been beleaguered by fake news.（總統一直受到假新聞困擾。），而首段另一單字municipal則代表「市的、市政的」意思，為英文新聞中常出現單字，跟 civic、city、urban等字同義。
至於habitué此字則源自法語，指的是常客，而有時我們也會使用此單字來形容吸毒成癮者（drug addict）。
