经济学人26:三千青丝飘万年 Hairy old myths

 　　Books and Arts; Exhibition Review;Human tresses;

　　文艺；书评；展览回顾;人类的头发;

　　Hairy old myths;The power of pilosity;

　　三千青丝飘万年;头发的魔力;

　　Blondes are dumber and brunettes more dependable. Or so it is said. But it is redheads who have long been the more feared, revered¹, loathed² and loved; hence the rumour³ that it takes more than an average dose of anaesthetic to sedate⁴ a carrot-top. As Sylvia Plath, herself a Titian tigress of sorts, once remarked, “Out of the ash I rise with my red hair, and eat men like air.”

　　据说，金发女郎有些傻气，而深褐色头发的女人比较可靠。但长期以来，人们又敬、又畏、又爱、又恨的却是红色头发的人。因此有传言说，给红头发的人进行麻醉都得多打一点麻药。西尔维娅·普拉斯本人就勉强算是一个长着“提香式红发”的母老虎，她曾经写道：“我站起身来 披着红发走出灰烬 我大啖人肉 如同吞噬空气”。

　　Man's fascination⁵ with hair is almost as old as humanity itself. But humans have been cutting and coiffing their hair for at least 25,000 years, mostly with the aim of pleasing themselves and distancing or differentiating⁶ themselves from others. Yves le Fur, curator of a new show about hair at the Quai Branly museum in Paris, is well aware that one of the earliest depictions of styled hair is a paleolithic figurine known as the Venus of Brassempouy, which was discovered in south-west France in 1894. But he hides his anthropological⁷ light under a bushel and draws visitors into “Cheveux Chéris” with a quick tour d'horizon of stylists, styles and styled, from Gina Lollobrigida to Ingres and the sirens of Ulysses.

　　人们对头发的迷恋几乎和人类历史本身一样古老。但至少两万五千年以来，人们一直在修剪、打理自己的头发，主要是为了满足自己、胜过别人或是让自己显得与众不同。巴黎的凯布朗利博物馆举办了一场关于人类头发的新展览。展览负责人伊夫·乐福很清楚：对发型最早的刻画之一是1894年在法国西南部出土的旧石器时代雕像（被称为“布拉瑟普的维纳斯”）。但他并未显露自己在人类学方面的才华，而是快速而广泛地涉及了 历史上的一些造型师、发型和做发型的人（包括吉娜·劳洛勃丽吉达、安格尔和《尤利西斯》里的塞壬海妖等等），以此来把参观者吸引到“心爱的头发”这场展览中来。

　　Having enticed⁸ the public in with the seductiveness of youthful locks, Mr le Fur moves on to hair loss and the show takes a serious and far more interesting turn. Middle age and chemotherapy are just two reasons why people lose their hair. Though often painful, at least privately⁹, this is loss via a gradual process and in the case of the latter, is reversible. Examples of voluntary and instantaneous hair loss include styling by punk rockers of the 1980s and the swastika-shaped shavings of neo-Nazi thugs. Either way, the visitor is reminded of what rapid hair loss has meant over time.

　　乐福先是用充满朝气、富有魅力的头发展品吸引了观众的注意力，然后转移到了脱发的话题上，于是展览变得严肃了起来，却也更加有趣。上了年纪和化学疗法仅仅是人类脱发的两个原因。尽管脱发的过程往往比较痛苦（至少脱发者心里是痛苦的），但这是一个渐进的过程，而且如果因为化疗而脱发，头发还是可以再长回来的。而也有一些人出于自愿、快速地剃掉了自己的头发——包括八十年代的朋克摇滚歌手、以及在头上剃出“卍”型记号的新纳粹暴徒。无论如何，随着时间推移，参观者都明白了快速脱发意味着什么。

　　A ponytail of three thick curls severed¹⁰ at the nape is all that remains¹¹ after a young Frenchwoman named Emma surrendered to a Carmelite convent. Where today parents save first curls as a souvenir of babyhood, in the 19th century it became fashionable to work the hair of a dead beloved into a locket, bracelet¹² or even a ring. One of the most touching¹³ pieces in the show is a small curl of blonde hair pasted onto a heart-shaped piece of mother-of-pearl. It was cut from the head of Louis XVI's heir, Louis-Charles, who was born just before the French Revolution and died in the Temple prison two years after his parents were guillotined, having been put under the care of a shoemaker tasked with making him forget his royal origins.

　　一个叫做艾玛的法国女人进入加尔默罗会修行以后，所留下的只有从后颈处剪断的一条打了三个鬈的马尾辫。今天，有些父母会把孩子初生的鬈发保留下来，当作对他们儿时的纪念；而在十九世纪，人们流行把逝去挚爱的头发嵌进盒式吊坠、手镯甚至是戒指里。本次展览最为感人的展品之一就是粘在一块心形珍珠母上的一小鬈金发。这是从路易十六的子嗣——路易-查尔斯头上剪下来的。路易-查尔斯生于法国大革命前夕，后来他的父母被送上了断头台，而他被送给一名鞋匠抚养，鞋匠的任务就是让他忘记自己的皇室出身。两年后，路易-查尔斯死在狱中。

　　It should perhaps be obvious that such an exhibition in France would turn next to the second world war. But photographs of l'épuration, a grisly moment at the time of the liberation when the country rose up against those suspected of being collaborators, are still shocking. Taking a cue from the “purification” of Republican women in Spain in the 1930s, French women who had slept with the enemy were marched on to public squares and shaved.

　　在法国，这样的展览接下来可能显然要转到二战的方向上来。但这里展出的关于大清洗 的照片却更加令人震惊——恐怖的大清洗 发生在法国解放前后 ，当时全国人民起身反抗那些有通敌嫌疑的人。二十世纪三十年代，西班牙对支持共和的妇女进行了“清洗”。法国效仿此举，将曾经与敌人有染的妇女押往广场示众并强行剃去了她们的头发。

　　Jeering¹⁴ crowds accompanied this public depilation, adding to the stigma¹⁵. A series of pictures taken by a Magnum photographer, Robert Capa, in Chartres in August 1944, just a week before the liberation of Paris, are a testimony¹⁶, three-quarters of a century later, to the hate, curiosity, shame and indifference¹⁷ of crowds. Even more striking, because it is so rarely seen, is a montage of film clips of that time in which a group of women is trundled through the streets on a cart marked les poules à boche while a soldier chucks one of them under the chin.

　　这种公开脱发过程还引来了一些围观人群的嘲弄奚落，更是加重了这些妇女的耻辱。1944年8月，在巴黎解放前的一个星期，马格兰摄影通讯社的摄影师罗伯特·卡帕在沙特尔拍下了一组照片。事隔七十多年以后，这组照片仍然能证明当时围观人群的种种心理：厌恶、猎奇、羞耻和冷漠。还有一些电影片段的剪辑组合，从中可以看到一批妇女坐在推车上被推过大街，车身上标记着“德国佬的姘头”，有个士兵轻佻地摸着其中一名妇女的下巴。这些剪辑组合很少公诸于世，因此更是令人惊讶。

　　Hair shorn on these occasions was never kept. In other civilisations the power of hair lay in its importance as a trophy¹⁸ believed to be infused with the strength or magic of its original owner. It is this appropriation¹⁹ of hair that Mr le Fur explores in the final section of the show. From Peru to Gabon, and from India to China, coats, crowns and headdresses of human hair have been made for centuries. It is easy, in these politically correct times, to forget that similar practices were just as common in Europe and America. The Quai Branly museum may be just six years old, but it is in its way old-fashioned, a throwback to a less timorous²⁰ time when museums were proud to display human scalps and heads shrunken by Amazon tribes (pictured). By exhibiting such items, and putting them in an historical context, Mr le Fur has increased our knowledge and added to an exhibition that is hard to forget.

　　在这些场合里，人们从不保留剪下的头发。而在其他一些文明中，头发的魔力在于它作为纪念品的重要性——人们认为头发具有原主人的力量或魔力。乐福在展览的最后一个部分所探索的正是这种“移用”头发的现象。从秘鲁到加蓬，从印度到中国，数百年来人们一直在用头发制作外衣、帽子和头饰。在这些政治立场正确的时期，我们很容易忘记一点：类似行为在欧美也是司空见惯的。凯布朗利博物馆可能只有六年的历史，但它的展览方式却有些复古怀旧，回到了过去那种较为大胆的时期：以展出人类的头皮和亚马逊部落缩制而成的头颅（如图）为荣。乐福展出了这些物品并把它们放在了历史背景之中。通过这种方式，他让参观者大开眼界，也为一场令人难忘的展览增添了乐趣。

1 revered   

v.崇敬，尊崇，敬畏( revere的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• A number of institutions revered and respected in earlier times have become Aunt Sally for the present generation. 一些早年受到尊崇的惯例，现在已经成了这代人嘲弄的对象了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Chinese revered corn as a gift from heaven. 中国人将谷物奉为上天的恩赐。 来自辞典例句

2 loathed   

v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢

参考例句：

• Baker loathed going to this red-haired young pup for supplies. 面包师傅不喜欢去这个红头发的自负的傻小子那里拿原料。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Therefore, above all things else, he loathed his miserable self! 因此，他厌恶不幸的自我尤胜其它！ 来自英汉文学 - 红字

3 rumour   

n.谣言，谣传，传闻

参考例句：

• I should like to know who put that rumour about.我想知道是谁散布了那谣言。
• There has been a rumour mill on him for years.几年来，一直有谣言产生，对他进行中伤。

4 sedate   

adj.沉着的，镇静的，安静的

参考例句：

• After the accident,the doctor gave her some pills to sedate her.事故发生后，医生让她服了些药片使她镇静下来。
• We spent a sedate evening at home.我们在家里过了一个恬静的夜晚。

5 fascination   

n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋

参考例句：

• He had a deep fascination with all forms of transport.他对所有的运输工具都很着迷。
• His letters have been a source of fascination to a wide audience.广大观众一直迷恋于他的来信。

6 differentiating   

[计] 微分的

参考例句：

• They succeed in differentiating the most commodity-like products. 在最通用的日用产品方面，它们也能独树一帜标新立异。
• The simplest and most effective method of differentiating areas is to use different colours. 区别面状要素最简单而又行之有效的办法，是使用不同的颜色。

7 anthropological   

adj.人类学的

参考例句：

• These facts of responsibility are an anthropological datums- varied and multiform. 这些道德事实是一种人类学资料——性质不同，形式各异。 来自哲学部分
• It is the most difficult of all anthropological data on which to "draw" the old Negro. 在所有的人类学资料中，最困难的事莫过于“刻划”古代的黑人。 来自辞典例句

8 enticed   

诱惑，怂恿( entice的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He enticed his former employer into another dice game. 他挑逗他原来的老板再赌一次掷骰子。
• Consumers are courted, enticed, and implored by sellers of goods and services. 消费者受到商品和劳务出售者奉承，劝诱和央求。

9 privately   

adv.以私人的身份，悄悄地，私下地

参考例句：

• Some ministers admit privately that unemployment could continue to rise.一些部长私下承认失业率可能继续升高。
• The man privately admits that his motive is profits.那人私下承认他的动机是为了牟利。

10 severed   

v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂

参考例句：

• The doctor said I'd severed a vessel in my leg. 医生说我割断了腿上的一根血管。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We have severed diplomatic relations with that country. 我们与那个国家断绝了外交关系。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

12 bracelet   

n.手镯，臂镯

参考例句：

• The jeweler charges lots of money to set diamonds in a bracelet.珠宝匠要很多钱才肯把钻石镶在手镯上。
• She left her gold bracelet as a pledge.她留下她的金手镯作抵押品。

13 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

14 jeering   

adj.嘲弄的，揶揄的v.嘲笑( jeer的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Hecklers interrupted her speech with jeering. 捣乱分子以嘲笑打断了她的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He interrupted my speech with jeering. 他以嘲笑打断了我的讲话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

16 testimony   

n.证词；见证，证明

参考例句：

• The testimony given by him is dubious.他所作的证据是可疑的。
• He was called in to bear testimony to what the police officer said.他被传入为警官所说的话作证。

17 indifference   

n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎

参考例句：

• I was disappointed by his indifference more than somewhat.他的漠不关心使我很失望。
• He feigned indifference to criticism of his work.他假装毫不在意别人批评他的作品。

18 trophy   

n.优胜旗，奖品，奖杯，战胜品，纪念品

参考例句：

• The cup is a cherished trophy of the company.那只奖杯是该公司很珍惜的奖品。
• He hung the lion's head as a trophy.他把那狮子头挂起来作为狩猎纪念品。

19 appropriation   

n.拨款，批准支出

参考例句：

• Our government made an appropriation for the project.我们的政府为那个工程拨出一笔款项。
• The council could note an annual appropriation for this service.议会可以为这项服务表决给他一笔常年经费。

20 timorous   

adj.胆怯的，胆小的

参考例句：

• She is as timorous as a rabbit.她胆小得像只兔子。
• The timorous rabbit ran away.那只胆小的兔子跑开了。