“… the bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars did wander darkling in the eternal space”
“……明亮的太阳熄灭了，星星确实在永恒的空间中徘徊在黑暗中”
So begins “Darkness” by Lord Byron, a Romantic era poem that takes a lyric wandering through an end-of-days scenario where all light and colour is drained from the world.
拜伦勋爵的《黑暗》由此开始，这是一首浪漫主义时代的诗歌，在末日的场景中抒情地徘徊，所有的光和色彩都被从世界上抽走。
Not a single colour is named, unless you count black; instead we are offered glimpses of a world gone mad, of “bones… tombless as their flesh”, of “birds and beasts and famished men”, of an “icy earth… blind and blackening in the moonless air”.
除非你算上黑色，否则没有一种颜色被命名；相反，我们瞥见了一个疯狂的世界，“骨头……像肉一样没有坟墓”，“鸟、野兽和饥荒的人”，“冰冷的地球……在无月的空气中失明和变黑”。
The poem was composed during the “Year Without a Summer”, a time when global temperatures dropped due to eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia in 1815. This resulted in worldwide weather abnormalities, and crop failures across Europe and North America. Combined with the fallout from a series of recent conflicts including the Napoleonic Wars, the poem captures a feeling of despair and hopelessness that many people felt during that time of darkness and uncertainty.
这首诗是在“没有夏天的一年”期间创作的，当时由于1815年印度尼西亚坦博拉山的喷发，全球气温下降。 这导致了全球天气异常，以及整个欧洲和北美的农作物歉收。 结合包括拿破仑战争在内的一系列近期冲突的后果，这首诗捕捉到了许多人在黑暗和不确定时期感受到的绝望和无望的感觉。
It’s a rollicking read, offering arresting images of destruction, destitution and the lengths people can be driven to when the means of food production are taken away from them.
这是一本令人发指的读物，提供了毁灭、匱乏的引人注目的图像，以及当粮食生产手段被剥夺时，人们可以被逼到的程度。
It is, also, perhaps not too unbelievable as the end game of a world without colour, without sunlight, without warmth. I am reminded of a recent sandstorm over Nanjing, which, while less extreme in its effects than Byron’s consumed cities, still offered us a “dull sky” awash with dust.
作為一個沒有顏色、沒有陽光、沒有溫暖的世界的結局，這也許不太令人難以置信。 我想起了最近南京上空的一场沙尘暴，虽然其影响不如拜伦被消耗的城市那么极端，但仍然为我们提供了一片尘土飞扬的“淒凉的天空”。
The effect was disconcerting. Just the previous day I had commuted in and out of work with a light heart, lifted by the brightening mornings.
效果令人不安。 就在前一天，我带着轻松的心情上下班，被明亮的早晨所鼓舞。
The grass was spring green, the sky a soft and serene pale blue. The Niushoushan River sparkled a twinkling gold in my eye, too bright to look at full on.
草是春天的绿色，天空是柔和宁静的淡蓝色。 牛首山河在我眼中闪烁着金色的光芒，太亮了，无法全看。
I was consciously aware of the rise in spirits the colours brought me.
我有意识地意识到颜色给我带来的精神上升。
Then the very next day I left under a literal cloud of gloom. While mercifully brief, the absence of colour and light on my commute home had as much a conscious effect on my spirits as its presence had in reverse. I was grumpy, impatient and a little more liberal with my e-bike horn than normal.
然后第二天，我在一片阴云中离开了。 谢天谢地简短，我上下班回家时没有颜色和光线对我的精神产生了有意识的影响，就像它的存在反过来一样。 我脾气暴躁，不耐烦，对电动自行车喇叭比平时更自由一些。
It is no secret, then, that colour holds immense power to evoke emotion, influence mood and communicate meaning. Colours are used across the spectrum (sorry) in art, business branding, fashion, advertising, and tourism, and often hold significant cultural and symbolic meaning.
因此，颜色具有唤起情感、影响情绪和传达意义的巨大力量，这已不是什么秘密。 颜色在艺术、商业品牌、时尚、广告和旅游中被使用（抱歉），通常具有重要的文化和象征意义。
Cultures with significant history to draw upon tend to gather associations around colours that can be opaque (forgive me again) or hard to make out to outsiders. Sometimes these associations have direct historical links. Yellow, for example, was once reserved for the Emperor, and anyone else caught wearing it was subject to punishment. In Europe, purple was the colour of royalty and power, and was off limits to those of lower social status.
具有重要历史的文化往往会围绕颜色聚集联想，这些颜色可能不透明（再次原谅我）或外人难以理解。 有时这些协会有直接的历史联系。 例如，黄色曾经是为皇帝保留的，任何被发现穿着黄色的人都将受到惩罚。 在欧洲，紫色是皇室和权力的颜色，社会地位较低的人是被禁止的。
These days, wearing a green hat is an unthinkable colour faux pas here in the Middle Kingdom. Explanations why vary, with one theory stating that back in the Yuan dynasty, relatives of prostitutes were forced to wear green hats. While the provenance of the symbol is murky, the meaning isn’t. It has a European counterpart also, in the Shakespearian era idea of wearing antlers on your head; you are a victim of infidelity by your significant other.
如今，在中王国，戴一顶绿色帽子是一种不可想象的色假。 原因的解释各不相同，一种理论指出，早在元朝，妓女的亲属被迫戴上绿色帽子。 虽然这个符号的来源是模糊的，但其含义并不模糊。 它还有一个欧洲的对应物，在莎士比亞时代，头上戴鹿角的想法；你是另一半不忠的受害者。
Some use of colour is more universal. There are few more recognisable symbols than traffic lights; green to go, yellow for caution and red to stop. And thank the colour gods for this worldwide adoption! A less vital but no less useful colour usage is brown for a tourism road sign. I was pleasantly surprised to see this hold true in China as well as my native Britain.
一些颜色的使用更普遍。 很少有比红绿灯更容易辨认的符号；绿色表示走，黄色表示警告，红色表示停车。 感谢色彩之神在全球范围内的采用！ 对于旅游路标来说，棕色是一种不太重要但不那么有用的颜色使用。 我惊喜地看到，这在中国以及我的祖国英国都是如此。
These uses of colour are arguably arbitrary, or at least don’t seem to be deeply tied to any sort of objective or biologically-led effect of the colour itself. But much research has been conducted on the effect of colour on humans, with “warm” colours such as red, orange and yellow being able to create a sense of excitement. Branding companies and advertising agencies are well aware of this. Think how many fast-food companies use red and yellow in their logos and décor to create a sense of urgency and energy. I’m willing to bet you can think of least one!
可以说，这些颜色的使用是武斷的，或者至少似乎与颜色本身的任何客观或生物驅動的效果都沒有很深的聯絡。 但对颜色对人类的影响进行了很多研究，红色、橙色和黄色等“暖”的颜色能够产生一种兴奋感。 品牌公司和广告公司都很清楚这一点。 想想有多少快餐公司在他们的标志和装饰中使用红色和黄色来营造一种紧迫感和活力。 我敢打赌，你至少能想到一个！
Meanwhile “cool” colours like blue, green and purple can have a calming effect and are used for relaxation. But blue has also been described as conveying trust, loyalty, cleanliness and understanding. To throw a third splash onto the palette (last time!), blue also has a long and established tradition as the colour of depression, loneliness and pain, especially in American blues music, or when someone is “feeling blue”.
与此同时，蓝色、绿色和紫色等“凉爽”的颜色可以产生镇静效果，并用于放松。 但蓝色也被描述为传达信任、忠诚、清洁和理解。 在调色板上抛出第三滴（上次！），蓝色作为抑郁、孤独和痛苦的颜色也有着悠久的传统，特别是在美国蓝调音乐中，或者当有人“感到忧郁”时。
So which is it? Can one colour really communicate all these disparate concepts and emotions? Or is there something else going on here?
那麼是哪一個呢？ 一种颜色真的能传达所有这些不同的概念和情感吗？ 或者这里還有其他事情在發生嗎？
The answer, as ever, is; it depends. It depends on context, background, and history. While blue may signify the sky and immortality to some cultures, it might equally signify sadness and melancholy to others. It seems colour cuts across biology, psychology, and culture to pick up meanings and associations like a chameleon.
答案一如既往，是；这取决于。 这取决于上下文、背景和历史。 虽然对某些文化来说，蓝色可能意味着天空和不朽，但对其他文化来说，它同样可能意味着悲伤和忧郁。 颜色似乎跨越了生物学、心理学和文化，像变色龙一样拾取意义和联想。
I’d like to keep things simpler. While it may be ambitious to wish for a technicolour commute every morning in to school, I do hope the days when I’m subjected to apocalyptic dust clouds are few and far between. Let’s move from the colourless void of Byron’s darkness to another Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, and his celebration of colour in all its impactful beauty:
我想让事情变得简单一些。 虽然希望每天早上有彩色通勤到学校可能是雄心勃勃的，但我确实希望我遭受世界末日尘埃云的日子很少。 让我们从拜伦黑暗的无色空白到另一位浪漫主义诗人威廉·华兹华斯，以及他对色彩的所有影响力之美的颂扬：
“I wandered lonely as a cloud
“我像云一样孤独地徘徊
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
漂浮在山谷和山丘上，
When all at once I saw a crowd,
当我一下子看到一群人时，
A host, of golden daffodils…”
一大家庭，金色水仙花……”
