Chapter 21 THE NEW ENGLAND HOLIDAY
第二十一章 新英格兰的节日

But we perhaps exaggerate the grey or sable tinge, which undoubtedly characterised the mood and manners of the age. The persons now in the market-place of Boston had not been born to an inheritance of Puritanic gloom. They were native Englishmen, whose fathers had lived in the sunny richness of the Elizabethan epoch; a time when the life of England, viewed as one great mass, would appear to have been as stately, magnificent, and joyous, as the world has ever witnessed. Had they followed their hereditary taste, the New England settlers would have illustrated all events of public importance by bonfires, banquets, pageantries, and processions. Nor would it have been impracticable, in the observance of majestic ceremonies, to combine mirthful recreation with solemnity, and give, as it were, a grotesque and brilliant embroidery to the great robe of state, which a nation, at such festivals, puts on. There was some shadow of an attempt of this kind in the mode of celebrating the day on which the political year of the colony commenced. The dim reflection of a remembered splendour, a colourless and manifold diluted repetition of what they had beheld in proud old London- we will not say at a royal coronation, but at a Lord Mayor's show- might be traced in the customs which our forefathers instituted, with reference to the annual installation of magistrates. The fathers and founders of the commonwealth- the statesman, the priest, and the soldier- deemed it a duty then to assume the outward state and majesty, which, in accordance with antique style, was looked upon as the proper garb of public or social eminence. All came forth to move in procession before the people's eye, and thus impart a needed dignity to the simple framework of a government so newly constructed.
不过,我们也许过于夸张了这种灰黑的色调,尽管那确实是当年的心情和举止的特色。此刻在波士顿市场上的人们,并非生来就继承了清教徒的阴郁。他们本来都生在英国,其父辈曾在伊丽莎白时代的明媚和丰饶中生活;当时英国的生活,大体上看,堪称世界上前所未见的庄严、壮丽和欢乐。假若新英格兰的定居者们遵依传统的趣味,他们就会用篝火、宴会、表演和游行来装点一切重大的公共事件。而且,在隆重的典礼仪式中,把欢欣的消遣同庄重结合起来,就象国民在这种节日穿戴的大礼服上饰以光怪陆离的刺绣一样,也就没什么不实际的了。在殖民地开始其政治年度的这一天庆祝活动中,还有这种意图的影子。在我们祖先们所制定的每年一度的执政官就职仪式中,还能窥见他们当年在古老而骄傲的伦敦——我们妨且不谈国王加冕大典,只指市长大人的就职仪式——所看到的痕迹的重现,不过这种反映已经模糊,记忆中的余辉经多次冲淡已然褪色。当年,我们这个合众国的奠基人和先辈们——那些政治家、牧师和军人,将注重外表的庄严和威武视为一种职责,按照古老的风范,那种打扮正是社会贤达和政府委员的恰当装束。他们在人们眼前按部就班地一一定来,以使那刚刚组成的政府的简单机构获得所需的威严。

Then, too, the people were countenanced, if not encouraged, in relaxing the severe and close application to their various modes of rugged industry, which, at all other times, seemed of the same piece and material with their religion. Here, it is true, were none of the appliances which popular merriment would so readily have found in the England of Elizabeth's time, or that of James- no rude shows of a theatrical kind; no minstrel, with his harp and legendary ballad, nor gleeman, with an ape dancing to his music; no juggler, with his tricks of mimic witchcraft; no Merry Andrew, to stir up the multitude with jests, perhaps hundreds of years old, but still effective, by their appeals to the very broadest sources of mirthful sympathy. All such professors of the several branches of jocularity would have been sternly repressed, not only by the rigid discipline of law, but by the general sentiment which gives law its vitality. Not the less, however, the great, honest face of the people smiled-grimly, perhaps, but widely too. Nor were sports wanting, such as the colonists had witnessed, and shared in, long ago, at the country fairs and on the village-greens of England; and which it was thought well to keep alive on this new soil, for the sake of the courage and manliness that were essential in them. Wrestling-matches, in the different fashions of Cornwall and Devonshire, were seen here and there about the market-place; in one corner, there was a friendly bout at quarterstaff; and- what attracted most interest of all- on the platform of the pillory, already so noted in our pages, two masters of defence were commencing an exhibition with the buckler and broadsword. But, much to the disappointment of the crowd, this latter business was broken off by the interposition of the town beadle, who had no idea of permitting the majesty of the law to be violated by such an abuse of one of its consecrated places.
在这种时刻,人们平日视如宗教教义一般严加施行的种种勤俭生活方式,即使没有受到鼓励吧,总可以获准稍加放松。诚然,这里没有伊丽莎白时代或詹姆斯时代在英国比比皆是的通俗娱乐设施,没有演剧之类的粗俗表演,没有弹着竖琴唱传奇歌谣的游吟诗人,没有奏着音乐耍猴的走江湖的人,没有变戏法的民间艺人,也没有逗得大家哄堂大笑的“快乐的安德鲁”①说那些由于笑料选出、虽已流传上百年、仍让人百听不厌的笑话。从事这种种滑稽职业的艺人们,不仅为严格的法律条文所严厉禁止,也遭到使法律得以生效的人们感情上的厌恶。然而,普通百姓那一本正经和老成持重的面孔上依然微笑着,虽说可能有点不自然,却也很开心。竞技活动也不算缺乏,诸如移民们好久以前在英国农村集市和草地上看到和参加的格斗比赛,由于本质上发扬了英武和阳刚精神,被视为应于这片新大陆上加以保留。在康沃尔和德文郡的种种形式的角力比赛,在这里的市场周围随处可见;在一个角落里,正在进行一场使用铁头木棍作武器的友谊较量;而最吸引大家兴趣的,是在刑台上——这地方在我们书中已经颇为注目了,有两位手执盾牌和宽剑的武士,正在开始一场公开表演。但是,使大家扫兴的是,刑台上的这场表演因遭到镇上差役的干涉而中断,他认为对这祭献之地妄加滥用,是侵犯了法律的尊严,是绝对不能允许的。