為了阻止新冠病毒的傳播，人們已經停止握手，改為其他問候方式。握手是從什麼時候起成為現代通用的問候方式的呢？歷史學家表示，這個真不太好說。
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Shaking hands seems like a gesture that has been around forever. Indeed, a throne base from the reign of ancient Assyria's Shalmaneser III in the 9th century BCE clearly shows two figures clasping hands. The Iliad, usually dated to the 8th century BCE, mentions that two characters 「clasped each other's hands and pledged their faith.」 Centuries later, Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It that two characters 「shook hands and swore brothers.」 It might seem like shaking hands is an ancient custom, the roots of which are lost to the sands of time.
握手作為一種打招呼的方式似乎一直都存在。確實，公元前9世紀亞述國王撒縵以色三世統治時期的寶座上就刻著兩個人握手的圖案。通常認為創作於公元前8世紀的《伊利亞德》也提到，兩個角色「握住彼此的手，以表忠心」。幾個世紀之後，莎士比亞在《皆大歡喜》中寫道，兩個角色「握手並結為兄弟」。握手也許看起來是一種古老的習俗，但隨著時間的流逝，已經難以尋根溯源。
Except.
不過也未必。
Historians who have pored over old etiquette books have noticed that handshaking in the modern sense of a greeting doesn’t appear until the mid-19th century, when it was considered a slightly improper gesture that should only be used with friends. But if Shakespeare was writing about shaking hands a few hundred years earlier, what happened?
翻遍禮儀典籍的歷史學家注意到，握手作為現代的問候方式直到19世紀中期才出現，當時握手被認為是一種有點不得體的姿勢，只有在朋友之間才能使用。但既然莎士比亞在幾百年前就把握手寫進了書中，那麼這中間發生了什麼呢？
DEFINING THE HANDSHAKE握手的內涵
According to author Torbjrn Lundmark in his Tales of Hi and Bye: Greeting and Parting Rituals Around the World, the problem comes in differing definitions of the handshake. The early handshakes mentioned above were part of making deals or burying the hatchet; Shalmaneser III’s throne base references him honoring a treaty with the Babylonian king during a revolt. In the Iliad, Diomedes and Glaucus shook hands when they realized they were 「guest-friends,」 and Diomedes proclaimed 「Let’s not try to kill each other.」 Shakespeare was similarly referencing settlement of a conflict.
根據作家託爾伯恩·德馬克的著作《打招呼的故事：世界各地歡迎和告別的禮儀》，問題來自握手定義的差別。上述的早期握手是達成協議或和解的一部分：撒縵以色三世的寶座上刻畫的是他在一次叛亂中履行和巴比倫國王的合約；在《伊利亞德》中，狄俄墨得斯和格勞克斯在意識到他們是「客人朋友」時握了手，狄俄墨得斯宣稱「讓我們不要再與彼此為敵」；同樣，莎士比亞也是在描述解決衝突的場面。
bury the hatchet: v. 和解；停戰
The modern handshake as a form of greeting is harder to trace. Traditionally, the origins are often given to the Quakers. But as Dutch sociologist Herman Roodenburg—the chief authority for the history of handshaking—wrote in a chapter of an anthology called A Cultural History of Gesture, 「More than in any other field, that of the study of gesture is one in which the historian has to make the most of only a few clues」.
作為問候方式的現代握手起源更難追溯。傳統上，人們通常認為貴格會信徒是最早用握手來打招呼的。但荷蘭社會學家赫爾曼·盧登伯格——握手史的權威人物——在選集《手勢的文化歷史》的一章中寫道：「和其他領域相比，歷史學家只能通過寥寥無幾的線索來研究手勢。」
One of the earliest clues he cites is a 16th-century German translation of the French writer Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel. When one character meets Gargantua, Rabelais writes (in one modern English translation), 「he was greeted with a thousand caresses, a thousand embraces, a thousand good-days.」 But according to Roodenburg, the 16th-century German translation adds references to shaking hands.
他提到的最早的一個線索是16世紀法國作家拉伯雷的《巨人傳》的德語譯本。在現代英語譯本中，當一個角色遇到卡岡都亞時，拉伯雷寫道：「歡迎他的是一千個愛撫、一千個擁抱和一千個問候。」但是盧登伯格指出，16世紀的德語譯本提到了握手。
There's additional evidence for a handshaking tradition in that era: In 1607 the author James Cleland (believed to have been a Scotsman living in England) proclaimed that instead of things like bowing down to everyone’s shoes and kissing hands, he』d rather 「retaine our good olde Scottish shaking of the two right hands together at meeting with an vncouered head".
還有一個握手傳統起源於那個年代的證據：1607年作家詹姆士·克雷蘭德（據認為是生活在英格蘭的一個蘇格蘭人）宣稱，與其讓他深深地鞠躬和親吻別人的手，他寧願「保持古老的蘇格蘭習俗，在會面時低頭伸出右手相握」。
HANDSHAKING—BACK TO THE FUTURE握手的歷史回顧
A popular hypothesis suggests that Cleland’s statements against bowing were actually a wish to go back to a potentially very traditional (though poorly recorded) method of greeting in Europe. As the centuries progressed, handshaking was replaced by more 『hierarchical』 ways of greeting—like bowing. According to Roodenburg, handshaking survived in a few niches, like in Dutch towns where they』d use the gesture to reconcile after disagreements. Around the same time, the Quakers—who valued equality—also made use of the handshake. Then, as the hierarchies of the continent weakened, the handshake re-emerged as a standard greeting among equals—the way it remains today.
一個流傳較廣的假說認為，克雷蘭德反對鞠躬的聲明其實是想回到歐洲傳統的問候方式（儘管鮮有記載）。幾百年間，握手被更為「等級化」的問候方式取代了——比如鞠躬。盧登伯格稱，握手作為打招呼的方式在一些偏僻的地方保留了下來，比如荷蘭的某些城鎮居民會用握手來言和。大約在同一時期，重視平等的貴格會信徒也採用了握手的問候方式。隨著歐洲大陸的等級制度被削弱，握手重新成為地位相同的人之間通用的打招呼方式，直至今日。
Not everyone fell in love with the handshake, however. According to an article from December 1884, 「the usage has found its way into other nations, but so contrary is it to their instinct, that, in France, for example, a society has been recently formed to abolish 『le shake-hands』 as a vulgar English innovation.」
不過，不是每個人都喜歡握手的問候方式。1884年12月的一篇文章曾寫道：「這種用法已經普及到其他國家，但是法國人認為這實在有違本性，於是近日就成立了一個社團來廢除握手的問候方式，認為這是粗俗的英格蘭人的發明。」
As for why shaking hands was deemed a good method of greeting, rather than some other gesture, the most popular explanation is that it incapacitates the right hand, making it useless for weapon holding. In the 19th century it was argued that shaking hands without removing gloves was quite rude and required an immediate apology. One 1870 text explains that this 「idea would also seem to be an occult remnant of the old notion that the glove might conceal a weapon.」
至於為什麼握手被視為一種打招呼的好方法，而非其他，最普遍的解釋是它佔用了右手，讓其無法持有武器。在19世紀，人們認為戴著手套握手是一種相當無禮的行為，需要立刻道歉。1870年的一段文字解釋說「這種想法似乎也是老觀念的一種神秘延續，舊時認為手套可能會隱藏武器」。
incapacitate[nkpstet]: vt. 使無能力；使不能；使不適於
Sadly, in a world where obscure Rabelais translations provide critical evidence, the true reason may remain forever elusive.
可悲的是，在一個只有拉伯雷的不知名譯本能提供關鍵證據的世界，握手的真正起源可能會永遠不為人所知。
英文來源：Mental Floss
翻譯&編輯：丹妮
來源：中國日報網