花衣魔笛手（The Pied Piper of Hamelin），又名魔笛，是格林兄弟的作品。找寻这篇文章好久了。小时候读过一本《读者文摘》（至今也没弄清这本是不是和现在《读者》一家。现在的《读者》，最初叫《读者文摘》，后来因为美国的《读者文摘》要求版权，改成了《读者》），很老很老了，只记得书页都泛黄了，厚厚的一大本，翻过很多遍，里面就有这篇故事，印象非常深刻。记得那时的名字叫《魔笛》，在网上找过多次，都只是链接到了莫扎特的作品上。查手头的格林童话集，也没有收录此篇，大概是因为有点儿晦暗吧。幸运的是今天偶然买了份报纸，偶然看到了一条小新闻，一下子认出来了。原来它的另一个名字是彩色吹笛手。网上搜搜，原来资料很丰富，彩色吹笛手，名字怪怪的，译得不够好，不如叫彩衣吹笛手。更喜欢其它译名：花衣吹笛手、花衣魔笛手、或者魔笛。这篇故事并非完全杜撰，据说公元1284年德国的哈姆林镇（Hamelin）有一百多名儿童神秘失踪了，原因不明。公元1816年，德国格林兄弟将这个悬案写成传说故事，警惕所有人“善良、守信”。后来英国诗人ROBERT BROWNING还借这个故事写了一首诗The Pied Piper of Hamelin: A Child's Story。后来再后来，有人改编成电影《仙笛神童》（Pied Piper, The）, 导演：雅克·戴美（Jacques Demy）。还有了政治上的引申意：
Pied piper: 花衣魔笛手
(China Daily) Updated:2004-09-24 09:23
在西方国家，pied piper（花衣魔笛手）是一个常用的政治宣传标语，这个标语的政治喻意是什么呢？让我们从下面这个古老的民间传说找寻答案吧。
传说，在德国普鲁士的哈梅林（Hamelin）曾发生鼠疫，死伤极多，居民们束手无策。后来，来了一位法力高强的魔笛手，身穿红黄相间的及地长袍，自称他能铲除老鼠。镇子里的首脑们答应给他丰厚的财宝作为答谢，魔笛手便吹起神奇的笛子，结果全村的老鼠都在笛声的指引下跑到了河里，全部被铲除。但是那些见利忘义的首脑们却没有兑现承诺，拒绝付给他酬劳。为了进行报复，花衣魔笛手就又吹起神奇的笛子，全村的小孩都跟着他走了，从此便无影无踪。
后来，一提起pied piper，人们脑海里就会浮现出数百只没有头脑、愚笨无知的老鼠跟在魔笛手后面，走向死亡。
现在，你们能猜到pied piper的政治含义了吧，它通常用来指代那些善开空头支票的领导者。它用幽默而有力的方法暗示如果你盲目地跟随、支持这样的政治人物，就会和传说中的老鼠一样，结果只是自寻死路。
（中国日报网站译）
Tales from the Brothers Grimm
THE PIED PIPER OF HAMELIN
Once upon a time...
on the banks of a great river in the north of Germany lay a town called Hamelin. The citizens of Hamelin were honest folk who lived contentedly in their Grey stone houses. The years went by, and the town grew very rich.
Then one day, an extraordinary thing happened to disturb the peace.
Hamelin had always had rats, and a lot too. But they had never been a danger, for the cats had always solved the rat problem in the usual way - by killing them. All at once, however, the rats began to multiply.
In the end, a black sea of rats swarmed over the whole town. First, they attacked the barns and storehouses, then, for lack of anything better, they gnawed the wood, cloth or anything at all. The one thing they didn't eat was metal. The terrified citizens flocked to plead with the town councilors to free them from the plague of rats. But the council had, for a long time, been sitting in the Mayor's room, trying to think of a plan.
"What we need is an army of cats!"
But all the cats were dead.
"We'll put down poisoned food then . . ."
But most of the food was already gone and even poison did not stop the rats.
"It just can't be done without help!" said the Mayor sadly.
Just then, while the citizens milled around outside, there was a loud knock at the door. "Who can that be?" the city fathers wondered uneasily, mindful of the angry crowds. They gingerly opened the door. And to their surprise, there stood a tall thin man dressed in brightly colored clothes, with a long feather in his hat, and waving a gold pipe at them.
"I've freed other towns of beetles and bats," the stranger announced, "and for a thousand florins, I'll rid you of your rats!"
"A thousand florins!" exclaimed the Mayor. "We'll give you fifty thousand if you succeed!" At once the stranger hurried away, saying:
"It's late now, but at dawn tomorrow, there won't be a rat left in Hamelin!"
The sun was still below the horizon, when the sound of a pipe wafted through the streets of Hamelin. The pied piper slowly made his way through the houses and behind him flocked the rats. Out they scampered from doors, windows and gutters, rats of every size, all after the piper. And as he played, the stranger marched down to the river and straight into the water, up to his middle. Behind him swarmed the rats and every one was drowned and swept away by the current.
By the time the sun was high in the sky, there was not a single rat in the town. There was even greater delight at the town hall, until the piper tried to claim his payment.
"Fifty thousand florins?" exclaimed the councilors,
"Never..."
" A thousand florins at least!" cried the pied piper angrily. But the Mayor broke in. "The rats are all dead now and they can never come back. So be grateful for fifty florins, or you'll not get even that . . ."
His eyes flashing with rage, the pied piper pointed a threatening finger at the Mayor.
"You'll bitterly regret ever breaking your promise," he said, and vanished.
A shiver of fear ran through the councilors, but the Mayor shrugged and said excitedly: "We've saved fifty thousand florins!"
That night, freed from the nightmare of the rats, the citizens of Hamelin slept more soundly than ever. And when the strange sound of piping wafted through the streets at dawn, only the children heard it. Drawn as by magic, they hurried out of their homes. Again, the pied piper paced through the town, this time, it was children of all sizes that flocked at his heels to the sound of his strange piping.
The long procession soon left the town and made its way through the wood and across the forest till it reached the foot of a huge mountain. When the piper came to the dark rock, he played his pipe even louder still and a great door creaked open. Beyond lay a cave. In trooped the children behind the pied piper, and when the last child had gone into the darkness, the door creaked shut.
A great landslide came down the mountain blocking the entrance to the cave forever. Only one little lame boy escaped this fate. It was he who told the anxious citizens, searching for their children, what had happened. And no matter what people did, the mountain never gave up its victims.
Many years were to pass before the merry voices of other children would ring through the streets of Hamelin but the memory of the harsh lesson lingered in everyone's heart and was passed down from father to son through the centuries.
格林童话英文版：http://www.yankeeweb.com/library/storytime/grimmbros/
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2834/
A poem by Robert Browning
The Pied Piper of Hamelin: A Child's Story
诗太长，不贴出来了，有兴趣的可以到网站上看看。
@pp!e 2006.11.19
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