DEEP DIVES

Hey you – yes, you! Are you bored of storing your carrots and potatoes in a chest? Are you tired of that creaking sound as they open and close? Do you wish you had a fresh, modern, alternative storage option? Well, allow me to present our block of the week: the barrel.
瞧一瞧看一看！说的就是你，看这边来！你是否已经厌倦了把胡萝卜和马铃薯存放在箱子里？你是不是受够了开合箱子时呕哑嘲哳的嘎吱声？你在寻找新异的存储替代方案吗？嗯哼，请允许我向你推介我们的本周方块——木桶。

Barrels were added to Minecraft in the Village & Pillage update in 2019, alongside foxes, bells, and bamboo forests. They were added to serve as a job block for fishermen in villages, and they’re very good at that. But that’s not all they can do.
木桶于 2019 年发布的村庄与掠夺更新中加入了 Minecraft，与之一同加入的还有狐狸、钟和竹林。木桶是作为村庄里渔民的工作站点方块加入游戏的，它们的表现也确实不负所望，但这只是它们用途中的一小部份。

Getting hold of a barrel is pretty easy. You can hunt down a fisherman in a village and borrow one of theirs (don’t worry, they have plenty). Or you can make one yourself out of either six planks (in Java edition) or six sticks (in Bedrock edition) and two slabs (in both).
想要得到木桶并不难。你可以追随村庄里的渔夫，向它们借用一个（无需内疚，它们木桶多得是）；也可以自己做，用六块木板（仅Java版）或六根木棍（仅基岩版），再加上两个台阶即可制得。

Set your barrel down on the floor, and hit the use button on it, and you’ll get an inventory screen that you can use just like a chest. Unlike chests, though, a barrel can still be opened if it’s placed below a solid block. They can be filled with droppers, and filled and emptied using hoppers.
把你的木桶放到地上，对着它按使用键，就会出现一个物品栏界面，使用方法与箱子没有太大不同，有个不一样的地方就是，木桶即使上方放有固体方块也照样能打开。木桶可通过投掷器填充，可通过漏斗填充或清空。

But that’s not all. You can burn barrels as fuel – you’ll be able to smelt 1.5 items per block, and you can also place one under a note block to get a “bass” sound. Not bad, huh? But watch out – piglins love barrels, and get a tad sensitive around them. Woe betide any player who opens or breaks a barrel near a piglin.
还没说完呢，你可以把木桶用作燃料，每个木桶可烧炼 1.5 个物品；还可以把木桶放在音符盒的下方，音符盒会发出低音吉他的声音。还不赖吧，嗯？但要注意，猪灵也一样喜爱木桶，会对周围的木桶留有些许注意。这样一来，在它们周围打开或破坏木桶的玩家就得头大咯。

Credit: Bbadgett / CC BY-SA 3.0
Credit: Bbadgett / CC BY-SA 3.0

In the real world, barrels date back to at least 2600 BC. Archeologists have found a wall painting in the tomb of ancient Egyptian Hesy-Ra who died around then, which depicts a barrel being used to measure wheat.
在现实世界中，木桶的历史至少可追溯到公元前 2600 年。考古学家在死于那时候的古埃及人 Hesy-Ra 的墓中发现了一幅壁画，上面就描绘了一个用来量度小麦的木桶。

Do you know someone with ** “Cooper”? If so, their ancestors might have been barrel-makers. People who make barrels are called coopers, and like the names “Smith”, “Fisher”, and “Carpenter” it’s now a fairly common last name in the English-speaking world.
你有认识姓 Cooper 的人吗？如果有的话，他们的先祖可能就曾是制桶匠。制作木桶的人就叫 Cooper。像现在 Smith（铁匠）、Fisher（渔夫）和 Carpenter（木匠）在英语世界都是相当常见的姓氏了。

Barrels are traditionally made of wood, but today you’ll find barrels made of all sorts of things – steel, aluminium, and even plastic. The word “barrel” is also used as a standard measure for certain liquids – a barrel of oil (which is 160 litres) is still used to measure volume, even though oil is no longer shipped in barrels.
传统意义上，桶是用木做的，但今天你可以见到由钢、铝，甚至是塑料制成的桶。“桶”也是某些液体的标准度量单位。即便现在的原油已经不装在木桶里运输了，但也还是使用桶作为其体积单位，1 桶约合 160 升。

Finally, one fun fact is that barrels were once used as a form of punishment. In England, in the mid-1500s, drunkenness was a crime and the punishment was the “drunkard’s cloak” – a barrel with holes cut for the head and arms. The drunkard had to wear the barrel while they were paraded around the town. Luckily, it’s not possible to wear barrels in Minecraft, so you’re safe from this strange and unusual punishment. For now…
最后还要说一个有趣的事情，木桶曾被用作惩罚工具。在 16 世纪中期的英格兰，喝醉酒是犯法的，而惩处方式就是让醉酒者穿上“酒鬼斗篷”——实际上是个钻了洞，可以让胳膊和头露出来的木桶。醉酒者需要“穿”着这个桶游街示众。幸运的是，Minecraft 里的桶是装不了人的，你也就不会受到这等稀奇古怪的惩罚了，起码目前来说是这样……




【taskmgr.exe (aka Olvcpr423) 译自官网 2021 年 12 月 23 日发布的 Block of the Week: Barrel；原作者 Duncan Geere】
【本文排版借助了：SPXX】