經典英語美文:情人節(Valentines Day)在國外

Valentine"s Day was Feb. 14, and Chinese call it "lovers" day". I don "t think the translation is an accurate one, since it doesn"t belong exclusively to lovers. Valentine"s Day is for expressing affection of all sorts. But it is unequivocally the romantically involved who shine the brightest, who spend the most money, whose hearts are the most engaged.

When I was a boy my mother would buy enough cheap cards with clumsy drawings of butterflies and bunnies and honeybees for me to give one to every kid in my class, about 20 or so. The cards came in bags, and each card had a few fatuous words -- "Be Mine" or "I Like You" or "You"ve Got My Heart" or the utterly vapid, "Hi, Valentine!" I would scrawl my name on the cards and the name of one of my classmates on each flimsy envelope. I would the cards into the envelopes, and then I would lick each one shut, but they were so cheap that the envelopes rarely had enough glue. On Valentine"s Day, I would take the cards to school -- everyone did. We would have a party in our classroom, with cupcakes and juice and tiny candy hearts, which also had Valentine messages printed on them -- "You"re Sweet" or "Cupid" or "Love".

Ah, love! That"s the Valentine"s Day message: love. No one knows for certain the origin of the holiday. Several Catholic martyrs were named Valentine, but it"s difficult to separate legend from fact. One story tells of a priest named Valentine who was imprisoned and may have been stoned to death around 270 for performing marriages in defiance of the orders of the Roman Emperor Claudius II. But it"s hard today to find any religious connection.

As I got a little older, I came to hate the school ritual around Valentine"s Day. I didn"t like the feel of the dry, brittle paper of the cards and licking the envelope flaps disgusted me. Plus the first blush of liking everyone had worn off -- some kids just weren"t nice, and I didn"t want them as my "special" Valentine, which was always the message on the cards.

Perhaps more significantly, my own heart was beginning to flutter in the presence of certain specific girls -- I had a crush on Janice Lamb beginning at about age eleven. In fact, I remember writing her name on six or seven cards. The hard part was that Janice Lamb had a crush on Larry Jones, so she sent him extra cards, and he sent Dawn Rockwell extras, and so on around the room. Valentine"s Day became something of a torment -- an introduction to the heartbreak of unrequited love ("heartbreak" = 607,000 hits on Google; "unrequited love" = 118,000 hits).

Mercifully, the silliness of these juvenile cards stopped by about age 12, but the agony and the ecstasy of course continued. In 12th grade Mrs. Skala, my literature teacher, whose family roots were in Scotland, constantly sang the praises of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. At that age, I was not fond of school or Mrs. Skala and certainly not of poetry. But I was by that time quite enamored of Linda Fowler, whom I would have done anything to impress. On Valentine"s Day that year, Mrs. Skala read aloud Burns"s poem "A Red, Red rose." Perhaps my infatuation with Linda Fowler made me vulnerable, and the mix of sweetness and joy and despair and hope in the poem took me by surprise.

It"s appropriate to take a look at this famous poem today, in conjunction with Valentine"s Day. Incidentally, enter the first line of the poem into Google and 21,900 hits pop up.

A Red, Red Rose

O my luve is like a red, red rose,That"s newly sprung in June;O my luve is like the melody,That"s sweetly played in fair art thou, my bonnie lass,So deep in luve am I;And I will luve thee still, my dear,Till a" the seas gang a" the seas gang dry, my dear,And the rocks melt wi" the sun!O I will luve thee still, my dear,While the sands o" life shall fare thee weel, my only luve,And fare thee weel a while;And I will come again, my luve,Tho" it were ten thousand mile!

A few years ago, I read a survey of one hundred men, celebrities from various walks of life, all of whom were over 60. They were asked what they would do differently if they could live their lives again. Almost to a man they answered, "love more."

Here"s something: type "Valentine"s Day" into the Google search engine on the internet and 1.5 million hits are found. The word "love" generates a list of 120 million sites; "what is love" returns 108,000 hits.

2月14日是瓦倫丁節，中國人稱之爲情人節。我認爲對這一節日名稱的中文翻譯並不準確，因爲這個節日並不僅僅屬於相愛的男女。瓦倫丁節是表達各種愛的節日，但毫無疑問，陷入浪漫愛情的人在這個節日最有神采，也最肯花錢，也最爲動情。

當我還是個小男孩時，媽媽會在瓦倫丁節之前給我買來很多便宜的賀卡，上面有畫工拙劣的蝴蝶、小兔、蜜蜂，用來送給班裏的每個孩子(全班一共有大約20名同學)。這些賀卡是裝在塑料袋裏的，每張賀卡上都有一句冒傻氣的話：“做我的人吧”，“我喜歡你”，“你贏得了我的心”，還有十足的空話“你好，瓦倫丁!”我在每張賀卡上面潦草地寫上自己的名字，並且在每個薄薄的信封上寫上一個同學的名字。我把賀卡裝進信封，然後用舌頭去舔，好讓信封粘上，但是因爲價格太便宜，極少的信封上面纔有足夠的膠。在瓦倫丁節那天，我就把這些賀卡帶到學校——其實誰都這樣做。我們就在教室裏開派對，有紙託蛋糕、果汁，還有小小的心形糖果，上面還印着瓦倫丁節的特有詞語——“你可愛”、“丘比特”或是“愛”。

啊，愛!這就是瓦倫丁節的信息：愛。沒有人確切知道這一節日的來源。有幾名天主教殉道士的名字叫瓦倫丁，但是要把傳說與事實分開是件很困難的事。有個故事是說在公元270年左右有一個名爲瓦倫丁的神父，他無視羅馬皇帝克勞狄二世的禁令爲一對新人主持了婚禮而被關進牢房，後來可能被石頭砸死。但是今天很難找到這個節日與宗教的任何關聯。

在我長大一點兒後，開始討厭學校裏過瓦倫丁節的那套儀式。我不喜歡那種又幹又脆的賀卡紙的感覺，用舌頭舔信封的封口也讓我覺得噁心。此外，喜歡每一個同學的第一次衝動已經消退——有的孩子並不那麼好，我不想將他們作爲我在瓦倫丁節最喜歡的人，可賀卡上總是寫着這類的話。

也許更爲有意義的是，我的心開始在某些女孩面前悸動——大約11歲的時候，我對詹妮斯·拉姆開始了少不更事的迷戀。實際上，我記得曾在六七張賀卡上寫上了她的名字，而令我難受的是，詹妮斯戀上了萊瑞·瓊斯，所以她就給他很多賀卡，可萊瑞卻給了多恩·洛克威爾很多賀卡，事情就這樣在教室裏發生着。瓦倫丁節變成了一件痛苦的事情——它帶來了因爲愛沒有回報而感到的心碎。(在Google鍵入“心碎”，有607000個網址;鍵入“沒有回報的愛”，118000個網址)

謝天謝地，在大約12歲的時候，這些少年之間送賀卡的愚蠢遊戲結束了。當然，內心的痛苦與狂喜還繼續着。在12年級(高三)的時候，我的語文老師斯嘎拉夫人(她祖上是蘇格蘭人)不斷地讚美蘇格蘭詩人羅伯特·彭斯的.詩。在那個年齡，我還不喜歡學校，不喜歡斯嘎拉夫人，當然也不喜歡詩，但那時候我很傾心於琳達·弗勒，爲了給她留下好印象我願意做任何事情。在那年的瓦倫丁節，斯嘎拉夫人大聲朗讀了彭斯的詩《一朵紅紅的玫瑰》。或許是我對琳達的迷戀讓我變得敏感，詩中交織在一起的甜蜜與快樂、無望與希望一下子就抓住了我。

現在，在剛過了瓦倫丁節的時候，我們讀一下這首著名的詩是很適宜的，順利說一句，在Google上鍵入這首詩的第一行，就會有21900個網址蹦出來。

一朵紅紅的玫瑰

啊，我的戀人像紅紅的玫瑰，六月裏綻放;啊，我的戀人像一支樂曲，美妙，悠揚。你真美，可愛的姑娘，我愛你至深至切;永遠愛你，我的摯愛，直到四海涸竭。直到四海涸竭，直到岩石消融!我會永遠愛你，只要生命無窮。再見吧，我唯一的戀人，再見吧，這只是暫別片刻;我定會回來，我的戀人，即使萬里相隔!

幾年以前，我讀到一份有關100個男人的調查，他們是各行各業的明星人物，全都過了60歲。他們被問及如果能重新活一次，會有哪些與今生不一樣的地方，他們幾乎異口同聲地回答：“要更多地去愛。”

這裏還有一些信息：在因特網的Google搜索引擎中鍵入“瓦倫丁節”，會發現150萬個網點，而“愛”一詞則是1. 2億個網點，“什麼是愛”10.8萬個網點。