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Valentine's Day
情人節
February 14th is a complicated but interesting holiday. First of all, Valentine's Day is not a holiday from work. No one gets a day off. On Valentine's Day people ususlly send romantic cards to someone they love or want to be loved by. The cards are called "valentines". They are very colourful, often decorated with hearts, flowers or birds, and have humorous or sentimental verses printed inside. The basic message of the verse is always "Be My Valentine", "Be My Sweet Heart" or "Lover".
2月14日是一個復雜而又有趣的節日。首先，情人節不是一個休假日。沒人放假。在情人節這一天，人們愛誰或想得到誰的愛，就可給那個人寄去充滿浪漫情趣的卡片。這種卡片叫“情人卡”。情人卡色彩鮮艷，常裝飾有心、花或鳥，里面還印有幽默或感傷性的詩句。這些詩句傳遞的基本信息總是“做我的情人吧”、“做我甜蜜的心上人或情人吧”。
One of the symbols of St.Valentine's Day is the Roman god of Love, called Cupid. Cupid is often printed on the card, who is winged infant without wearing anything, poised to shoot his arrow into a heart. He would shoot an arrow of love into a person's heart to make the person fall in love immediately, maybe with the first person to come along. Sometimes one arrow would go through two hearts, holding them together. So on February 14th not only do we have picture of the Christian St.Valentine but we also have pitures of the non-Christian Cupid, the Roman god of love.
情人節的標志之一是羅馬愛神——丘比特。丘比特經常被印在卡片上，他是一個赤身裸體、長有翅膀的嬰兒，手里拿著箭，擺出一副要射心的姿勢。他把愛之箭射中一個人的心，這個人會很快墜入愛河，可能是和他（她）第一個見到的人。有時候，一支箭會射中兩顆心，把它們穿在一起。所以在2月14日，我們不僅有基督的“圣·瓦倫登”的畫像，還有非基督的羅馬愛神丘比特的畫像。
But it is from the Christians that we get the stories about Valentine's Day that most people have come to believe. One story is about a Christian man whose name sounded something like "Valentine." He lived around 250 A.D. At that time the Roman Emperor Claudius refused to allow any Roman soldiers to get married for any reason whatsoever. Christian couples came to Valentine to be married. So Valentine would marry them in a Christian way. He was discovered and put in prison by the Emperor. One tradition says that he wrote notes to his friends by making on leaves and then throwing them out the window of his prison. And the leaves were shaped like a heart.
大多數人相信的情人節的故事來源于基督教。其中有個故事提到，有一個基督徒的名字聽起來像“瓦倫登”。他大約生活在公元前250年。那時羅馬皇帝克勞狄烏斯禁止羅馬士兵以任何借口結婚。信奉基督教的夫婦就去找“瓦倫登”主持結婚。“瓦倫登”以基督教方式為他們秘密舉行婚禮，后來被羅馬皇帝發現送進監獄。傳說他在葉子上做標記給他朋友傳遞信息，然后把葉子扔出監獄的窗外。這些葉子的形狀是心形的。
