雙語散文:將美麗進行到底
【英文原文】
Pots of Promise
中國有句老話：女爲悅己者容。只要地球上男人和女人還得共存，美容業就一定會生生不息，財源滾滾。
Medieval noblewomen swallowed arsenic and dabbed on bats' blood to improve their complexions; 18th-century Americans prized the warm urine of young boys to erase their freckles; Victorian ladies removed their ribs to give themselves a wasp waist.1 The desire to be beautiful is as old as civilisation, as is the pain that it can cause.
The pain has not stopped the passion from creating a $160 billion-a-year global industry, encompassing make-up, skin and hair care, fragrances, cosmetic surgery, health clubs and diet pills. Americans spend more each year on beauty than they do on education. Such spending is not mere vanity. Being pretty -or just not ugly -confers enormous genetic and social advantages.2 Attractive people (both men and women) are judged to be more intelligent and sexy; they earn more, and they are more likely to marry.
Beauty matters most, though, for reproductive success.3 A study by an American scientist, logged the mating preferences of more than 10,000 people across 37 cultures4. It found that a woman's physical attractiveness came top or near top of every man's list. Nancy Etcoff, a psychologist and author of "Survival of the Prettiest", argues that "good looks are a woman's most fungible5 asset, exchangeable for social position, money, even love."
Beauty is something that we recognise instinctively.6 A baby of three months will smile longer at a face judged by adults to be "attractive". Such beauty signals health and fertility7. Long lustrous hair has always been a sign of good health; mascara makes eyes look bigger and younger; blusher and red lipstick mimic signs of sexual arousal.8 Whatever the culture, relatively light and flawless skin is seen as a testament9 to both youth and health.
Then again, a curvy body, with big breasts and a waist-to-hip ratio of less than 0.8 -Barbie's is 0.54 -shows an ideal stage of readiness for conception.10 Plastic surgery to pad breasts or lift buttocks serves to make a woman look as though she was in her late teens or early 20s.11
Basic instinct12 keeps the beauty industry powerful. In medieval times, recipes for homemade cosmetics13 were kept in the kitchen right beside those used to feed the family. But it was not until the start of the 20th century, when mass production coincided with mass exposure to an idealised standard of beauty (through photography, magazines and movies) that the industry first took off.14
In 1909, Eugene Schueller founded the French Harmless Hair Colouring Co., which later became L'Oreal15 -today's industry leader. Two years later, Paul Beiersdorf, a Hamburg pharmacist16, developed the first cream to bind oil and water. Today, it sells in 150 countries as Nivea, the biggest personal-care brand in the world.
But it was the great rivalry between two women in America that made the industry what it is today. Elizabeth Arden opened the first modern beauty salon17 in 1910, followed a few years later by Helena Rubinstein, a Polish immigrant. The two took cosmetics out of household pots and pans and into the modern era.18 Both thought beauty and health were interlinked. They combined facials with diets and exercise classes in a holistic approach that the industry is now returning to.19
The emerging beauty industry played on the fear of looking ugly as much as on the pleasure of looking beautiful, drawing on the new science of psychology to convince women that an inferiority complex could be cured by a dab of lipstick.20 On launching her famous eight-hour cream, developed for her horses, Arden quipped: "I judge a woman and a horse by the same criteria: legs, head and rear end."21
【重點講解】
1. 中世紀時，貴婦們服食砒霜、敷蝙蝠血來改善面色；18世紀的美國婦女則將男童的新鮮尿液視爲去除雀斑的上好佳品；維多利亞時期的婦女更是不惜抽去肋骨來獲得纖細的腰肢。arsenic：砒霜；dab：輕敷，輕塗。
2. 容貌姣好，或者說不難看，具有遺傳和社會兩方面的極大優勢。也就是下面一句中說的，掙得更多，婚配機率更高。
3. 不過，美對於繁衍生息纔是至關重要的。
4. 調查了37種文化1萬多人心目中理想異性的取捨標準。log：把……記入記錄簿。
5. fungible：可替代的，可互換的。fungible asset即“容易折現的資產”。
6. 美是憑直覺就能感覺到的東西。
7. fertility：繁殖力。
8. 有光澤的長髮一向代表健康，睫毛膏襯得眼睛更大更有活力，腮紅和紅色脣膏使人性感。後一句話直譯應爲“腮紅和紅色脣膏模擬性喚起的特徵。”
9. testament：證明，證據。
10. 還有，女性優美的身段——豐滿的胸部和不足0.8的腰臀比(芭比娃娃是0.54)，顯現出適合生育的理想狀態。curvy：（女性）體型富於曲線美的；Barbie：即Barbie Doll，芭比娃娃，一種金髮碧眼的玩具娃娃。
11. plastic surgery：整形外科(手術)，即美容手術；pad breasts or lift buttocks：隆胸或提臀。
12. basic instinct：這裏指“愛美的天性”。
13. recipes for homemade cosmetics：自制化妝品的配方。
14. 直到20世紀初，一方面(美容品)實現了大規模生產，另一方面大衆(通過照片、雜誌和電影)大量接觸到近乎理想化的美，兩者的契合才使美容業第一次起飛。
15. LOreal：歐萊雅，世界知名的化妝品品牌。下面的Nivea（妮維雅)是一種護膚品的品牌。
16. pharmacist：藥劑師。
17. beauty salon：美容院。
18. 這兩位女性使化妝品脫離了家中的瓶瓶罐罐，跨入了一個全新的時代。
19. 她們把美容、節食和健身課程有機結合起來，這也正是目前美容業迴歸的方向。holistic：全盤的，全面的。
20. 美容業的興起不僅有賴於人們對醜的恐懼，同樣也得益於人們對美貌的追求，並利用新的心理學知識讓女士們相信一抹脣膏就可以讓自卑情結一掃而光。
21.雅頓俏皮地說：“我評判一個女人和一匹馬的標準是一樣的：腿、頭和臀部。”quip：俏皮地說，挖苦；rear end：<口>臀部，屁股。
