The meaning of Halloween
万圣节的内涵
原文地址：http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/10/economist-explains-28
ON OCTOBER 31st, American children will dress up as witches and ghosts, sometimes dripping with fake blood, and knock on their neighbours’ doors to demand sweets. Often, their parents will too. In the days before, many will have transformed their gardens into graveyards, scattered with polystyrene bones and headstones, and crawling with enormous furry spiders. Visiting Europeans often find this bizarre; but Halloween is catching on in their countries, too. In Britain, it has long been out-competed by Guy Fawkes Day, held on November 5th, when Brits light bonfires and fireworks to remember the foiling of an early-17th-century plot by Catholic terrorists to blow up the House of Lords. Yet Halloween is on the rise, as growing bands of drunken ghouls in Britain’s city centres attest. So what is it?
在 10 月 31 日，美国的孩子们会把自己打扮得像女巫或者幽灵，甚至会用假血把自己涂抹的湿淋淋的，然后敲开邻居家的门要糖果吃。通常，他们的父母也会这么干。在之前的几天，许多人会将自己的花园装扮成墓地，放上一些塑料制作的骨头或者头骨，最后再加一些毛茸茸的蜘蛛。对此来游玩的欧洲人可能会觉得很奇怪；但万圣节也在其他国家开始流行起来。在英国，举办于 11 月 5 号的盖伊·福克斯之夜是一个超越了万圣节的节日，在那一天，英国人会燃起篝火，燃放烟花来纪念在 17 世纪早期成功挫败了一批天主教徒阴谋炸毁国会大厦的事件。尽管如此，万圣节也越来越受欢迎，正如在英国城市中心增加的喝醉的食尸鬼数量所证明的。那么，万圣节是什么呢？
Its shiny, inflammable witch costumes probably have their origins in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, during which people marked the onset of winter by dressing up as evil spirits. Around the eighth century, the Christian church co-opted the festival. It became Hallows (or “Holy”) Day, on which Christians remembered dead relations and saints. Hallows Day began with a vigil held the evening before—hence Hallow E’en, a contraction of evening, which became Halloween. At this time, the poor would sing and pray for alms, a practice known as “souling”. Some think this was the precursor to modern trick-or-treating. After Hallows Day became frowned upon, as a Catholic festival, during the Reformation, the holiday was construed as a burst of pre-Winter revelry. It became known as Mischief Night, taking on an association with naughtiness that has stuck. In the America of 1950, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee tried in vain to rescue the festival for the virtuous. They recommended that Halloween be rebranded as “National Youth Honour Day”. This didn’t catch on.
万圣节中的那些光鲜的女巫服饰或许来源于古代凯尔特人名为萨温节的节日，在那一天，人们会打扮成恶灵来预示冬季的来临。在 8 世纪，基督徒加入了这个节日。于是它就成为了 Hollows Day ，基督徒以此来纪念死去的亲友与圣人。Hollows Day 以守夜作为开端，于是成为了 Hallow E’en ，也就是夜晚的缩写，最终演变成了 Halloween 。在这个节日，穷人会歌唱以及请求施舍，也就是被称为“souling”的活动。许多人认为这就是现代不给糖就捣乱的前身。在宗教改革期间，万圣节作为天主教节日被禁止之后，它的含义就演变成了冬季前的狂欢。也被称之为恶作剧之夜而广为人知，开始于顽皮相联系。在 1950 年美国的参议院司法委员会试图将这个节日重新定义为高尚的，然而徒劳无果。他们推荐把万圣节改为全国青年纪念日。但并没有被广泛接受。
For Halloween was by then in the process of being transformed into the hugely popular and commercialised event it is today. Having fallen dormant elsewhere, it enjoyed an early 20th-century revival in America, perhaps because of its similarity to non-European festivals celebrated there, including the Latin American Day of the Dead, and Teng Chieh, at which Chinese commune with their ancestors. As Halloween grew in popularity, other European traditions were mixed with it, especially those of harvest festivals, including games such as apple bobbing and guessing the identity of a future spouse. But it was not until the post-war period that it really took off. A swelling consumer culture, shifts to suburbia—which lends itself to pop-up graveyards and trick-or-treating—and the advent of horror movies all gave rise to a prolonged boom in trickery, treats and haunted houses.
从那时起，万圣节就慢慢演变成为了现在这样一个高度流行与商业化的节日。经过在其他地区的蛰伏，最终万圣节在 20 世纪中期的美国焕发青春，或许是因为它与其他的许多非欧洲节日存在许多的相似之处，例如拉丁美洲的死亡节，中国人纪念祖先的中元节。随着万圣节越来越受到欢迎，许多的欧洲习俗特别是感恩节的也开始混合进来，例如咬苹果以及猜测未来伴侣身份的游戏。但这些直到二战之后才真正的流行起来。膨胀的消费文化影响到了郊区人民的生活态度，同样也带来了将花园装扮成目的，不给糖就捣乱以及恐怖电影的来临，这些最终都促使捣蛋，糖果以及鬼屋文化的繁荣。
Today, the sight of grown men dressed as zombies, half-burying themselves in their front-gardens in order to rise up and terrify passers-by can still be surprising, to foreign eyes at least. Hardworking Americans really do go for Halloween; this year they will spend about $7 billion on the festival. But then, if you have only a couple of weeks’ holiday a year, why wouldn’t you let your hair down, dye it green, and douse yourself in fake blood?
如今，成年人装扮成僵尸，将自己半埋在门口花园然后突然爬起来恐吓路人仍然效果拔群，至少对外国人是这样。勤劳的美国人确实热爱万圣节；今年他们在这个节日大约会消费 70 亿美元。但同时，如果你一年只有几个星期的假期，那么为什么不把头发梳下来，染成绿色，往自己身上泼洒假血呢？
