[中文] 古罗马的美惠三女神雕像是一座包括三个年轻美丽、赤身裸体(或者用早期的话来说,在穿着上很吝啬的)处女女神。她们互相缠绕着彼此的手在跳舞,有时是三人成圈,或者有时以两人面向前方,一人面向后方的队形三人成排。塞内加曾经在公元1世纪的时候在一篇经典的赠文中曾顺带地用一种敏感性的话题提及到了这三个女神。他曾说过,他一定会在他的作品当中提及到她们,因为所有的作家在他们谈论到上帝的恩赐的时候,都一定会讨论她们所代表的意义—就好像她们代表着所有一样。塞内加说,这些作家(他们的作品至今还没有回落到我们的手中)一直都在讨论,为什么她们会是三个人,而且还是姐妹?她们的手为什么要彼此连结在一起?为什么说她们是年轻快乐的处女,而她们却又穿得这么少?
大众比较同意的一种说法是,美惠三女神雕像代表奉献社会,接受社会和社会回报的象征。她们手挽着手跳舞就象征着快乐是可以在人与人之间互相传递的,并且最终会回归到给予者那里。这样的说法如此具有说服力以至于很多人不会很在意最初的给予者给予的是什么,但是会习惯性地去忽略掉中间的过程去把给予者当作“获得最终收益的人”:她虽然给予了,但她最终会得到回报。女神像为三个女孩是因为Gratia和Charis(希腊语中美惠的词)都是阴性名词;在欧洲的语言中,抽象名词一般都是阴性名词,所以常常会被和女性联系在一起。她们的美丽是不间断排列着的优雅:她们代表着天赋的不间断循环于人世间。她们是快乐的,因为这个世界整体上也是快乐的。她们的无暇就象征着这个世界上利益的得到必须是不能通过坑蒙拐骗来获得,在群众看来,那些利益一定要是纯洁无暇,圣洁的。她们的年轻就代表着快乐的记忆是永远不会随着时间而“变老的”,快乐的记忆不一定是不可遗忘的,但是它一定能够激起另一种记忆,并且两者相隔的时间并不远。[/中文]
[外文]The Three Graces
The ancient Roman Graces were three beautiful, young, naked (or, in earlier times, skimpily dressed) virgin goddesses. They were shown dancing with their hands entwined, sometimes in a circle but usually in a row with two facing forward and the middle one backward. Seneca, writing a massive treatise on gift-giving in the first century AD, mentions the three Graces irritably and in passing. He had to bring them in, he complains, because all writers invariably discussed what the Graces meant---as if they meant anything at all---when they talked of gifts. These people (whose writings have not come down to us) kept asking, says Seneca, why there were three of them. Why were they sisters? Why were their hands interlocked? Why were they happy; youthful, and virginal women? And why did they wear so little clothing?
The Graces, it was generally agreed, represented the social obligations of giving, receiving, and returning gifts and favours. They danced holding hands because a benefit passes from one person to another and eventually returns to the giver. This was so firmly believed that many did not think primarily of the giving of the first giver, but habitually jumped a step and called her “the one who earns benefits”: she gave, but would eventually get something back. The Graces are girls because both Gratia and Charis (the Greek for Grace) are feminine nouns; abstractions are commonly feminine in European language, and therefore tend to be embodied by women. Their beauty is the elegance of an uninterrupted sequence: they represent gifts circulating without hitch. They are happy because the whole cycle is joyous, virginal because gifts must not be bribes but rather “pure and undefiled and holy in the eyes of all,” and young because the memory of a gift should not “grow old” it must not be forgotten but should provoke a response, and not too late.[/外文]
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