【精英翻譯】的部落格

Was Purple Unpatriotic?　　國旗五彩繽紛　為何獨缺紫色

精英翻譯社轉自: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0061/344081/web/

by William Ryan

　　Despite its popularity, the color purple has hardly ever been used on the flags of nations. With nearly two hundred national flags in existence, the virtual absence of purple from the scene is apparent. One might wonder, then, if there is some little-known historical reason for this lack of purple. Was purple somehow considered unpatriotic? Not at all. It was just impractical.

　　儘管紫色這個顏色很受歡迎，在國旗上卻幾乎不見其蹤影。在現存近兩百面的國旗中，就能明顯看出幾乎沒有紫色。那麼，你可能會想，在缺少紫色的背後是不是有鮮為人知的歷史原因呢。紫色因某種緣故而被認為是不愛國的嗎？並不是這樣。它只是不切實際。

　　For centuries, a single species of Mediterranean sea snail was the only known source of purple dye. Merchants sold it in Tyre, a Phoenician trading city in present-day Lebanon. Ten thousand snails had to be harvested to produce a single gram of the substance, making it rare and unaffordable to all but the super-rich. Until the end of the 19th century, purple dye was literally worth more than its weight in gold. Due to its scarcity, purple naturally became associated with royalty and the imperial classes of Egypt, Persia, Rome, and England. Even so, it wasn't worth spending that kind of money on a flag; purple was never used to represent an empire or civilization. Purple was also considered a spiritual color because people who wore it seemed somehow godlike.

　　有好幾個世紀的時間，只有一種地中海海螺是唯一已知的紫色染料來源。商人在泰爾（位於現今黎巴嫩的一座腓尼基貿易城市）販售這種染料。要產出一克染料必須採集一萬隻這種海螺，這使它變得稀有，只有超級有錢人才負擔得起。一直到十九世紀末，紫色染料真真確確地比同樣重量的黃金還貴。由於其稀少性，紫色自然而然就變得與皇室及埃及、波斯、羅馬和英格蘭帝王階級有關。即便如此，花那麼大筆的金額在一面國旗上是不值得的；紫色從未被用來代表一個帝國或文明。紫色也被認為是充滿靈性的顏色，因為穿戴紫色的人不知怎的有種神聖的感覺。

　　In 1856, William Henry Perkin, a British chemist, accidentally created the first synthetic purple dye. By the end of the century, it was being mass-produced. Since then, a few countries have included purple in their national banners: Nicaragua in 1908, the Second Republic of Spain from 1931 to 1939, and Dominica in 1967. Who knew this calming hue, so easy on the eyes, was once only for civilization's elite?

　　1856 年，一名英國化學家威廉．亨利．珀金意外創造出首批人造紫色染料。到了該世紀末，紫色染料已被大量製造。自那時起，有些國家將紫色納入國旗上：尼加拉瓜於 1908 年納入、西班牙第二共和國於 1931 至 1939 年間納入，而多米尼克則於 1967 年加入。誰能想得到，這種寧靜的色調看在眼中是如此舒服，卻一度只為文明中的菁英所用呢？