海外文化:英美民俗-打喷嚏

【英文原文】

To one who has just sneezed, people generally say, “God bless you.” In many European countries, sneezing is traditionally associated with death. Americans believe that one is very close to death when one sneezes, because sneezing can drive the soul from the head, or the life from the body. So to the sneezer they say, “God bless you”, as a charm against the danger of the moment. But some people have given more sensible explanations for the custom. They say it was St.Gregory who first said, “God bless you”, after others sneezed, because in his time there was a deadly disease, and sneezing was a sign that the sneezer might have caught the disease. Aristotle mentions a similar custom among the Greeks. One Greek writer tells us that sneezing was an important symptom of a disease that spread in Athens.

【中文译文】

打喷嚏

对刚打过喷嚏的人，人们通常说：“上帝保佑你。“在欧美，打喷嚏意味着死到临头，因为过去有人以为打喷嚏会把灵魂从脑袋里打出去，或者把生命从身体里打出去。于是人们祝福一下，以化解危险。但还有一些解释似乎更合理。有人说是教皇圣格列高利最先说这句祝福话的，他在世时正流行一种致命的疾病，打喷嚏是一个症状。亚里士多德也在著作中提到，希腊人就有向打喷嚏的人祝福的习俗。另一位古希腊作家写道，雅典流行的一种疾病的重要症状就是打喷嚏。