情人节，又叫圣瓦伦丁节或圣华伦泰节（St. Valentine's Day），即每年的2月14日，是西方的传统节日之一。
男女在这一天互送巧克力、贺卡和花，用以表达爱意或友好。
关于情人节的起源，大致有2种不同说法：
说法一：
公元3世纪，罗马帝国皇帝克劳迪乌斯二世在首都罗马宣布废弃所有的婚姻承诺，当时是出于战争的考虑，使更多无所牵挂的男人可以走上争战的疆场。
一名叫瓦仑廷（Sanctus Valentinus）的神父没有遵照这个旨意而继续为相爱的年轻人举行教堂婚礼。事情被告发后，瓦仑廷神父先是被鞭打，然后被石头掷打，最后在公元270年2月14日这天被送上了绞架被绞死。14世纪以后，人们就开始纪念这个日子。现在，中文译为“情人节”的这个日子，在西方国家里就被称为Valentine's Day，用以纪念那位为情人做主而牺牲的神父。
与此相关的其他传说，包括这位神父帮助天主教徒从罗马监狱里逃脱而被处死。
在这个神父在监狱里时，据说他送出了第一个“情人节”祝福。据说他爱上了曾来监狱看望他，狱长失明的女儿亚斯得莉斯，并奇迹地治好了她的眼睛，使之重见光明。在他临刑前，给女孩一封信，署名“from your Valentine”（这个表达现在还在使用）。尽管这些传说不真切，但是却表达了他的富有同情心、英雄气概、以及最重要的浪漫主义的人格。
说法二：
来源于古罗马的牧神节（Lupercalia Festival）
这个说法是基督教会庆祝这一天是为了把古罗马的牧神节（每年的2月15日庆祝，为了保佑人、田、牲畜的生产力）基督教化。在古罗马，2月春天的开始，被认为是纯洁的。按照一定的仪式打扫房屋，然后把盐水和一种小麦洒遍房间。
牧神节，是为了庆祝罗马的农神Faunus 和罗马的奠基人Romulus和Remus。这个节日开始时，Luperci的成员（也就是罗马祭司的一种）会聚集在一个神圣的山洞里。这个山洞被认为是还是婴儿的Romulus和Remus待过的地方。在这个洞里，他们由一头母狼，lupa，照料。祭司们会牺牲一头羊，为了生殖；一只狗，为了纯洁。
然后男孩子会把羊的皮撕成小条，蘸上神圣的血后，跑到街上用它轻轻的抽打女人和田里的庄稼。罗马的女人不仅不会害怕，反而会乐意被羊皮条接触，因为据说这样她们在这一年里就会生殖力旺盛。后来，根据传说，这个城市所有的女人会把自己的名字放到一个花瓶里。单身汉们会从里面选一个。这样这一年里，他们就是一对。通常他们会结婚。
教皇在大约公元498年宣布2月14日是情人节。罗马人的这种婚配方式被基督教徒认为是不合法的。中世纪时，在英国和法国，通常认为2月14日是鸟交配的季节。因此就把此日增加了一个内容，那就是它应该是一个浪漫的日子。
最早的情人节礼物是奥尔良的公爵，查理斯在伦敦塔狱中写给他妻子的诗。因为他在Agincourt战役中被俘虏了。现在这个写于1415年的祝福被收藏在伦敦的大英博物馆。几年以后，英皇亨利五世雇John Lydgate写了一首曲子给Catherine of Valois作为情人节礼物。
Saint Valentine's Day or Valentine's Day is on February 14. It is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other; sending Valentine's cards or candy. It is very common to present flowers on Valentine's Day. The holiday is named after two men, both Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of "valentines." Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten notes have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards. The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending holiday of the year behind Christmas. The association estimates that women purchase approximately 85 percent of all valentines.[1]
In the United States, the marketing of Valentine's Day has tagged it as a "Hallmark holiday." A recent trend has been to refer to February 14 as Singles Awareness Day.
At least three early Christian Roman martyrs named Valentinus are known (see Saint Valentine for more details). In the two most prominent Valentinus traditions, represented by late fictionalized acta that were both included in Bede, the martyrs were venerated on the same day, February 14, though the years, as they represent two traditions, varied according to the source.[2] An overview of attested traditions relevant to the holiday is presented below, with the legends about Valentine himself discussed in the end.
[edit] February fertility festivals
It has been hypothesised [specify][citation needed] that Graeco-Roman holidays devoted to fertility and love might be related to St Valentine's Day, since there is some correspondence between the time when they were celebrated.
On the ancient Athenian calendar, the period between mid-January and mid-February was the month of Gamelion, dedicated to the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera.
In Ancient Rome, February 15 was Lupercalia. Plutarch wrote:
Lupercalia, of which many write that it was anciently celebrated by shepherds, and has also some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. At this time many of the noble youths and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy.[5]
The word Lupercalia comes from lupus, or wolf, so the holiday may be connected with the legendary wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus. Priests of this cult, luperci would travel to the lupercal, the cave where the she-wolf who reared Romulus and Remus allegedly lived, and sacrifice animals (two goats and a dog). The blood would then be scattered in the streets, to bring fertility and keep the wolves away from the fields. [6] Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning "Juno the purifier "or "the chaste Juno," was celebrated on February 13-14. Pope Gelasius I (492-496) abolished Lupercalia. Some historians [specify][citation needed] argue that Candlemas (then held on February 14, later moved to February 2) was promoted as its replacement, but this feast was already being celebrated in Jerusalem by AD 381. The pope also declared in 496 that the feast of St. Valentine would be on February 14.
[edit] Chaucer's love birds
A portrait of English poet Geoffrey Chaucer by Thomas Hoccleve (1412). The earliest known link between Valentine's Day and romance is found in Chaucer's poetry.The first recorded association of Valentine's Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules (1382) by Geoffrey Chaucer:[3]
For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese [choose] his make [mate].
This poem was written to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia[7]. A treaty providing for a marriage was signed on May 2, 1381.[8] (When they were married eight months later, he was 13 or 14. She was 14.)
On the liturgical calendar, May 2 is the saints' day for Valentine of Genoa. This St. Valentine was an early bishop of Genoa who died around AD 307.[9][10] Readers incorrectly assumed that Chaucer was referring to February 14 as Valentine's Day. However, mid-February is an unlikely time for birds to be mating in England.[4]
Chaucer's Parliament of Foules is generally set in a supposed context of an old tradition, but in fact there was no such tradition before Chaucer. The speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among eighteenth-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. Most notably, "the idea that Valentin'e Day customed perpetuated those of the Roman Lupercalia has been accepted uncritically and repeated, in various forms, up to the present"[5]
[edit] Medieval and modern times
Swedish calendar showing St Valentine's Day, February 14, 1712Using the language of the law courts for the rituals of courtly love, a "High Court of Love" was established in Paris on Valentine's Day in 1400. The court dealt with love contracts, betrayals, and violence against women. Judges were selected by women on the basis of a poetry reading.[11][12]
The earliest surviving valentine is a fifteenth-century rondeau written by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his "valentined" wife, which commences.
Je suis desja d'amour tanné
Ma tres doulce Valentinée… (Charles d'Orléans, Rondeau VI, lines 1–2)
At the time, the duke was being held in the Tower of London following his capture at the Battle of Agincourt, 1415.[6]
Valentine's Day is mentioned ruefully by Ophelia in Hamlet (1600-01): "Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day."
In 1836, relics of St. Valentine of Rome were donated by Pope Gregory XVI to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland. In the 1960s, the church was renovated and relics restored to prominence.[13]
In the 1969 revision of the Roman Catholic Calendar of Saints, the feastday of Saint Valentine on 14 February was removed from the General Roman Calendar and relegated to particular (local or even national) calendars for the following reason: "Though the memorial of Saint Valentine is ancient, it is left to particular calendars, since, apart from his name, nothing is known of Saint Valentine except that he was buried on the Via Flaminia on 14 February."[7] The feast day is still celebrated in Balzan and in Malta where relics of the saint are claimed to be found, and also throughout the world by Traditionalist Catholics who follow the older, pre-Vatican II calendar.
Valentine's Day postcard, circa 1910
Tree decorated for Valentine's DayValentine's Day was probably imported into North America in the 19th century by British settlers. In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store, and she took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received. Since 2001, the Greeting Card Association has been giving an annual "Esther Howland Award for a Greeting Card Visionary."
In the second half of the twentieth century, the practice of exchanging cards was extended to all manner of gifts in the United States, usually from a man to a woman. Such gifts typically include roses and chocolates. In the 1980s, the diamond industry began to promote Valentine's Day as an occasion for giving jewelry.
The day has come to be associated with a generic platonic greeting of "Happy Valentine's Day."
In some North American elementary schools, students are asked to give a Valentine card or small gift to everyone in the class. The greeting cards of these students often mention what they appreciate about each other.
[edit] The evolving legend
The Early Medieval acta of either Saint Valentine were excerpted by Bede and briefly expounded in Legenda Aurea,[8] According to that version, St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.
Legenda Aurea still providing no connections whatsoever with sentimental love, appropriate lore has been embroidered in modern times to portray Valentine as a priest who refused an unattested law attributed to Roman Emperor Claudius II, allegedly ordering that young men remain single. The Emperor supposedly did this to grow his army, believing that married men did not make for good soldiers. The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail. On the evening before Valentine was to be executed, he wrote the first "valentine" himself, addressed to a young girl variously identified as his beloved,[9] as the jailer's daughter whom he had befriended and healed,[10] or both.[11] It was a note that read "From your Valentine."[9]
In another apparently modern embellishment[citation needed], while Valentine was imprisoned, people would leave him little notes, folded up and hidden in cracks in the rocks around his cell. He would find them and offer prayers for them.
