A face peers over the edge several hundred feet above me. It is a grown man gripped by a morbid elation as he looks down on a sheer drop to the rocks, the beach — where I am standing — and the sea.
一個(gè)成年男子站在幾百英尺高的懸崖邊緣往下看，峭壁之下是巨石，是沙灘，還有大海，我站在下面，看著他沉浸在病態(tài)的喜悅之中。

What he can’t see from his perch is that he is resting on an overhang, a lump of chalk protruding over thin air and a very long drop. At any minute, the ground might simply give way, as this famous English beauty spot has had a habit of doing since time immemorial.
但他看不見自己正站于一大塊向外突出的白堊巖上，巍巍高聳的峭壁之上空氣稀薄，那塊巖石隨時(shí)都有可能垮塌，自古以來在這個(gè)著名的英國景點(diǎn)可沒少發(fā)生這種事。

What happens next, though, is a more recent phenomenon.
接下來這個(gè)男人要進(jìn)行一項(xiàng)如今風(fēng)靡全球的活動(dòng)。

Slowly a hand comes in to view and it is holding — what else? — a selfie-stick. Click. Moments later, the man has retreated back from the brink and moved on.
他慢慢地伸出了一只手，拿著一個(gè)什么東西？哦，自拍桿，咔噠！過一會兒他從懸崖邊退了回去，繼續(xù)上路了。

How much longer can it be before a new category is added to the list of verdicts available to a coroner? In addition to ‘a(chǎn)ccident’, ‘misadventure’ and ‘open’, there will soon be a new pronouncement: ‘death by selfie’.
估計(jì)過不了多久，在驗(yàn)尸官開具的死亡鑒定類型上除了“事故”、“意外”、“存疑”以外，又會多上一條新判決了，那就是“自拍死”。

Last year, it was reported that the number of people killed by sharks around the world had, for the first time, been overtaken by the number of those killed while snapping themselves on a phone (and in a record year for shark attacks, too).
去年，有報(bào)告稱全世界“自拍死”的人數(shù)有史以來第一次超過了被鯊魚襲擊而死的人數(shù)（并且這年的鯊魚襲擊事件也創(chuàng)了新高。）

Pretty soon, no doubt, someone will kill two birds — and themselves — by taking a selfie with a shark moments before they are chomped to death.
很快，我們就會看到這樣的新聞，有人為了與鯊魚一同自拍而葬身鯊腹，這可就是兩種死因都占全了。

But the number of narcissistic fatalities just keeps on rising. Last month alone, there were at least 15 selfie-related deaths.
這種自戀導(dǎo)致的死亡人數(shù)還在不斷攀升，僅上個(gè)月就有15起與自拍相關(guān)的死亡案例。

Leading the world in this idiocy is India, where selfie-cide is almost a daily occurrence.
而印度可以算是這種蠢事的多發(fā)之地，幾乎每天都有“自拍死”的事故。

In Britain, we have got off fairly lightly thus far. But if it is going to happen anywhere, it could easily be here, on the Sussex coast.
英國到目前為止還未有太多自拍致死的案例，但現(xiàn)如今這類事件已遍布世界各地，誰能說薩塞克斯海岸不會是下一個(gè)案發(fā)地呢？

For this six-mile cliff-top between Newhaven and Beachy Head — a stretch of corrugated peaks and troughs known as the Seven Sisters — has become so popular with selfie-seekers that the locals are about to take pre-emptive action.
在紐黑文和比奇角之間，有一片波瀾起伏的山脈，綿延長達(dá)六英里，這里的七姐妹懸崖已經(jīng)成為自拍愛好者們十分青睞的景點(diǎn)，當(dāng)?shù)厝寺犅勔捕技娂姄屜纫徊角叭ビ斡[。

Lately, we have seen images of jaw-dropping stupidity as daredevil walkers — mainly young men, it seems — creep to the edge of these chalk faces in considerable numbers for that must-have selfie.
近來在新聞上我們常能看見一些讓人跌破眼鏡的圖片，這些冒失鬼——多是年輕人——成群結(jié)隊(duì)來到懸崖的邊緣只為了一張“這輩子一定要拍”的自拍照。

Last summer, a local photographer captured a row of irresponsible people sitting at the site, with their feet dangling over an edge which is not even there any more.
去年夏天，一個(gè)本地?cái)z影師在該景點(diǎn)拍下了一張照片，一群人坐在懸崖邊緣，他們的腿在空中晃來晃去，但那塊崖石現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)不知所蹤了。

In another shot, a man is sitting on a chalk overhang which already has a very obvious fault line running down the side.
另一張照片中，一個(gè)男人坐在一塊突出的白堊巖上，但這塊巖石已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)了明顯的裂紋，很有可能會滑落。

It is purely down to luck rather than judgment that no one has been sitting on these chunks of rock when the ground has given way. For erosion is a fact of life here.
目前還未有人坐在上面剛巧遇上巖石崩塌的情況，這不是因?yàn)榕袛嗔?，純粹是走運(yùn)，因?yàn)轱L(fēng)化侵蝕是當(dāng)?shù)厥终５淖匀滑F(xiàn)象。

‘Very often, you come here in the morning and see a great pile of chalk and rocks on the beach,’ says Molly, a volunteer in the National Trust visitor centre. ‘But with two tides a day, it gets washed away, so people don’t see it for long.’
“你早上來到這兒，很有可能會在沙灘上看見一些白堊巖粉末與石塊，”英國國民托管組織游客中心的志愿者莫莉說，“只不過因?yàn)槊刻靸纱螡q潮，這些石塊都被海水帶走了，所以人們往往看不見這些痕跡?！?/p>

And in recent years, for reasons which are not entirely clear, there has been a run of particularly hefty falls. Indeed, as Molly points out: ‘The Seven Sisters have now become eight.’
近年來，已經(jīng)有數(shù)起崖壁垮塌事件發(fā)生，原因尚不清楚。并且如莫莉所說：“七姐妹懸崖現(xiàn)在不只是七座而是有八座懸崖了?！?/p>

That’s because one stretch of cliff has had such severe falls either side of a grassy promontory that it has now created an extra peak.
那是因?yàn)槠渲幸惶帒已碌氖w數(shù)次墜塌落在長滿草的海角周圍，從而產(chǎn)生了一處新的陡崖。

The worst cliff-fall in living memory occurred during a storm in the winter of 2013-2014 when several yards fell into the sea at once. But these episodes are by no means restricted to extreme weather.
最嚴(yán)重的一次崖體墜落，發(fā)生在2013年到2014年那個(gè)暴雪肆虐的冬天，長達(dá)幾英里的山崖巖石全部發(fā)生滑落，但這種小插曲絕不僅僅是極端天氣導(dǎo)致的。

A German woman with two young children welcomes the idea of a fence but then wonders whether it would be wise to bash poles into ground that is already unstable.
一位育有兩個(gè)孩子的德國媽媽認(rèn)為這里應(yīng)該裝上護(hù)欄，但轉(zhuǎn)念一想，如果這塊巖石本來就不穩(wěn)固，插上護(hù)欄桿又有什么意義呢？

英文來源：每日郵報(bào)
翻譯：趙雪瑩（中國日報(bào)網(wǎng)愛新聞iNews譯者）
編審：yaning