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 发表:2003/2/12 17:06:47 人气:55       
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情人节的由来
Valentine's Day Just how did it come about?
Once upon a time? In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honor Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the 'Feast of Lupercalia' (festival of the wolf) which was one of the most important in Imperial Rome.
For eight hundred years prior to the establishment of Valentine's Day, the Romans had practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young men's rite of passage to the god Lupercus. The celebration featured a lottery in which young men would draw the names of teenage girls from a vase. During the festival, the pairs of children danced and played together. The girl assigned to each young man in that manner would be his sexual companion during the remaining year. Often, they would fall in love and would later marry.
In an effort to do away with the pagan festival, Pope Gelasius ordered a slight change in the lottery. Instead of the names of young women, the box would contain the names of saints. Both men and women were allowed to draw from the box, and the game was to emulate the ways of the saint they drew during the rest of the year. Needless to say, many of the young Roman men were not too pleased with the rule changes.
Although the lottery for women had been banned by the church, the mid-February holiday in commemoration of St. Valentine was stilled used by Roman men to seek the affection of women. It became a tradition for the men to give the ones they admired handwritten messages of affection, containing Valentine's name. This may have been the festival that was later named after the former saint -- Valentine's Day. It all started many centuries ago, during those times when being a Christian was against the law. One of the legends says that a Roman Emperor Claudius the Second had forbidden his men to marry. He wanted them to be heartless and fearless soldiers, free of wives and girlfriends. Claudius apparently decreed that no marriages should be celebrated and that all engagements be broken off immediately. But one of the Christian priests didn't obey the Emperor's edict. Like Father Lorenzo in Romeo and Juliet, this priest (whose name was Father Valentine) secretly performed marriages in and around the city of Rome. Found out not too long later, Valentine was imprisoned where he languished and died. Legend has it devoted friends buried him in the church of St. Praxedes on the fourteenth of February, 270 AD.
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爱我就给我，毫无保留！！！
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