VOA标准英语2012--Circus Museums Pay Tribute to 'Greatest Show on Earth'

（单词翻译）

Circus Museums Pay Tribute to 'Greatest Show on Earth'

“Ladies and gentlemen, and children of all ages!”

That’s a favorite ringmaster’s refrain at the circus, a cherished entertainment tradition across America. And it’s lovingly preserved at two unusual U.S. museums.

It was not a ringmaster’s whistle that heralded¹ “Circus Day” in every decent-sized town in America for several decades on each side of the turn of the 20th Century. 

It was the synchronized² clopping of draft horses, mingled³ with the rousing tunes⁴ of a brass⁵ band atop a four-ton wagon⁶ at the head of a grand street parade bearing the circus from the railroad depot⁷ into town.

Behind the bandwagon rolled brightly painted chariots; mounted cages carrying big cats, elephants, and other exotic animals; and baggage wagons⁸ disguised as theme floats. Raucously⁹ bringing up the rear was a steam calliope, piercing the air with peppy, whistled tunes. 

Train-borne circuses dwindled¹⁰ to a handful by 1940, and one by one, the gaudy¹¹ circus wagons found their way into carnivals¹² or storage sheds. Hundreds rotted and rusted¹³ in open fields.

But in 1959, John Kelley, a former attorney for the Ringling Brothers Circus, opened Circus World, a museum in Baraboo, Wisconsin, where the five Ringlings had founded their show. 

That museum is still going strong. It’s filled with circus wagons that arrived terribly decayed and were then restored. And one weekend each July, they again take a train ride to Milwaukee, 145 kilometers away, where they rumble¹⁴ once again in a Great Circus Parade.

The second circus museum also has a Ringling connection. One of the Ringling brothers - John - and his wife, Mable, built a beautiful estate in Sarasota, Florida. It is now a lavish¹⁵ art museum, owned by the state of Florida. On the grounds, the state built a circus museum containing more circus wagons, an animated¹⁶ miniature circus, spangled costumes and other memorabilia.

These collections are not the Greatest Show on Earth, as the Ringling Brothers called their circus.

But they are a glittering tribute to it.