can we seek any historical information

我们是否能从荷马史诗中
from Homer's poems at all?

得出当时的史实呢
It would be a terrible blow to me

如果我们不能
and everybody else in the field if the answer was "No,"

那么这对我们所有人将是一次沉重的打击
because just about everything we have to say about this period

因为我们将要讲到的这个时期是在
between the Bronze Age and the emergence of the polis--

青铜时代和城邦的出现之间的阶段
most of it involves inferences from our understanding

很大一部分的内容都是我们根据
of what the Homeric poems tell us.

荷马史诗的推断和猜想
But I think we need to take a hard look at what we can do,

我们应该认真探究我们能从中得到什么
and I thought it would be worthwhile reading a sentence

我觉得你们应该认真的阅读
from each of the introductory paragraphs that we provide for you in the problem

我所分发资料的每一句话
packet to show you the range of opinion

因为其中收录了很多代表性学者