危险与死亡——西班牙的红色圣佛明节

Surely the most interesting part of Pamplona's San Fermin Festival is its focus on danger and death. Why would so many people, over hundreds of years, take part in something everyone fears?

当然，在旁普罗纳的圣佛明节中，最有意思的就是对危险和死亡的关注。为什么数百年来有那么多人要参与这个所有人都害怕的事呢？

The American writer Ernest Hemmingway explores this very question in his 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises. The main1 characters, who begin to feel empty2 living in modern Paris, travel to Spain and join in the San Fermin Festival. There, they see death through Spanish eyes.

美国作家海明威在他1926年写的小说《太阳照常升起》中，探讨了这个问题。小说的主人公住在繁华的巴黎，由于内心感到空虚，就到西班牙旅游，参加圣佛明节。在那里，他们领悟到西班牙人对死亡的看法。

By joining in the events of this colorful festival, they begin to understand how the Spanish, in celebrating death, are actually celebrating life. Through the images3 of the black bull and the bullfighter's blood-red cloth, they discover that the Spanish find meaning in life by worshipping4 heroic5 death. With people running for their lives, and bullfighters dancing with the bulls, life and death come together at the San Fermin Festival.

由于参加这个多采多姿的庆典活动，他们开始了解，西班牙人在庆祝死亡的同时，其实是在庆祝生命。由黑色的公牛、斗牛士手中血红色的布，他们发现西班牙人透过崇拜悲壮的死亡，发掘生命的意义。随着人们没命地奔逃、斗牛士和公牛舞蹈，在圣佛明节，生命和死亡总是如影随形，密不可分。

--by Michael Loncar

—迈克尔·隆卡迈克尔·隆卡