Cats and Humans

Cats share our homes, our sofas and quite often our beds. They can be independent one minute and affectionate the next, and even after thousands of years at our side they still seem a little wild. Hundreds of millions of cats live as pets around the world, and online they are everywhere, starring in an endless stream of videos and memes.

猫和我们共享家园、沙发，常常还有床。它们前一刻还独来独往，下一刻又黏人撒娇；即便在我们身边生活了几千年，它们身上仍带着几分野性。全世界有数亿只猫作为宠物生活在人类家中，而在网上，猫更是无处不在，主演着源源不断的视频和表情包。

How did a small desert hunter end up in so many human homes? The story runs from the first farming villages to Egyptian temples, medieval festivals and Japanese shops, and finally to our phones. Along the way, it says a lot about what people want from the animals they live with.

一种生活在沙漠里的小型猎手，是怎样走进千家万户的？这个故事从最早的农耕村落讲起，经过埃及的神庙、中世纪的节庆和日本的店铺，最后来到我们的手机里。一路上，它也道出了人们对朝夕相处的动物有着怎样的期待。

Dogs were shaped by humans for jobs like hunting and herding. Cats, most scientists believe, largely domesticated themselves. About 10,000 years ago, people in the Middle East began farming and storing grain, and the grain attracted mice and rats. The mice, in turn, attracted wild cats.

狗是人类为了打猎、放牧等工作而培育的。而大多数科学家认为，猫在很大程度上是自己驯化了自己。大约一万年前，中东地区的人们开始种地、储存粮食，粮食引来了老鼠，老鼠又引来了野猫。

Farmers were happy to let the cats stay, since they kept pests down. Over many generations, the cats that were less afraid of people did better in the villages, and slowly they became tamer. Genetic studies show that all domestic cats descend from the Near Eastern wildcat, Felis silvestris lybica. Neither side was really in charge: both simply gained from the arrangement.

农民很乐意让猫留下，因为它们能控制鼠害。经过许多代，那些不太怕人的猫在村庄里过得更好，也慢慢变得温顺起来。基因研究表明，所有家猫都源自近东野猫（Felis silvestris lybica）。双方谁也没有真正说了算，只是各取所需、互惠互利。

Few ancient peoples loved cats as much as the Egyptians. Cats lived in Egyptian homes from early times, hunting mice and snakes, and over the centuries they became linked with the gods. The goddess Bastet, who protected homes, mothers and children, was first shown as a lioness. From around 1000 BCE she usually appeared as a cat or as a woman with a cat's head, and her temple at Bubastis became the center of a huge cat cult.

古代很少有哪个民族像埃及人那样喜爱猫。猫很早就生活在埃及人的家中，捕捉老鼠和蛇，几百年下来，它们渐渐与神灵联系在了一起。守护家庭、母亲和孩子的女神巴斯特起初是以母狮的形象出现的。大约从公元前1000年起，她通常被描绘成一只猫或猫头女人，她在布巴斯提斯的神庙也成了盛大猫崇拜的中心。

Greek writers who visited Egypt reported that killing a cat, even by accident, could cost a person their life, and that when a family cat died, everyone in the house shaved their eyebrows in mourning. Cats were mummified and buried in special cemeteries. In 1888 a farmer at Beni Hasan found one that held hundreds of thousands of cat mummies. Many tons of them were shipped to England and ground into fertilizer.

到访过埃及的希腊作家记载说，杀死一只猫，哪怕是无意的，也可能赔上性命；家里的猫死了，全家人都会剃掉眉毛以示哀悼。猫死后会被制成木乃伊，葬在专门的墓地里。1888年，贝尼哈桑的一位农民发现了这样一处墓地，里面有数十万具猫木乃伊。其中好几吨被运往英国，磨碎后做成了肥料。

In medieval Europe, cats were valued for catching mice, but many people also saw them as creatures of the night, linked with witches and the devil. Black cats had the worst reputation. In some towns, killing cats even became part of public festivals: in Paris, cats were burned in the Midsummer bonfire, and in Ypres, in Flanders, live cats were thrown from a tower until 1817.

在中世纪的欧洲，猫因为会抓老鼠而受到重视，但许多人也把它们看作夜间出没的生灵，与女巫和魔鬼有关。黑猫的名声最差。在一些城镇，杀猫甚至成了公共节庆的一部分：在巴黎，人们在仲夏的圣约翰篝火中烧猫；在佛兰德的伊珀尔，人们把活猫从塔楼上扔下去，这一习俗一直延续到1817年。

A popular story says that Europeans killed so many cats that rats took over and spread the Black Death in the 14th century. Historians find little evidence for this. The plague reached Europe in 1347, while the great witch hunts came much later, mostly between about 1450 and 1750. Cats can also catch the plague themselves.

有一种流传很广的说法：欧洲人杀了太多的猫，结果老鼠泛滥，在14世纪传播了黑死病。历史学家几乎找不到支持这一说法的证据。鼠疫在1347年传入欧洲，而大规模的猎巫运动要晚得多，主要发生在大约1450年至1750年之间。况且，猫自己也会感染鼠疫。

In Japan, cats have a much happier reputation. The maneki-neko, or 'beckoning cat', is a small figure of a cat with one paw raised, as if waving customers inside. It sits by the door of many shops and restaurants to bring good business, and it has become a familiar symbol of Japan around the world.

在日本，猫的名声要好得多。招财猫（日语叫maneki-neko，意思是“招手的猫”）是一种举起一只爪子的小猫摆件，仿佛在招呼顾客进门。许多商店和餐馆都把它摆在门口，祈求生意兴隆，如今它已成为世界各地都熟悉的日本象征。

Japanese folklore also has darker cats. The bakeneko is a cat that can change its shape, often into a person, and the nekomata is a cat demon with a tail split in two. In China, cats appear in paintings as wishes for a long life. The word for cat, mao, sounds like the first half of maodie, an old word for very old age, so a picture of a cat with a butterfly (die) means 'may you live to a great age'.

日本民间传说里也有更阴森的猫。“化猫”能变换形态，常常化作人形；“猫又”则是一种尾巴分成两叉的猫妖。在中国，猫常出现在画中，寄托长寿的祝愿。“猫”（māo）与“耄耋”（màodié）的“耄”读音相近，“耄耋”是古时对高龄老人的称呼，所以画一只猫配上一只蝴蝶（“蝶”，dié），寓意“愿你长命百岁”。

Writers have loved cats for a long time. Lewis Carroll created the grinning Cheshire Cat in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), a cat that slowly disappears until only its smile is left. In 1939 T. S. Eliot published Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, a collection of funny poems that Andrew Lloyd Webber turned into the hit musical Cats in 1981.

作家们很早就钟爱猫。刘易斯·卡罗尔在《爱丽丝漫游奇境》（1865年）中塑造了咧嘴笑的柴郡猫，它会慢慢消失，最后只剩下笑容。1939年，T. S. 艾略特出版了《老负鼠的实用猫经》，这本诙谐的诗集后来在1981年被安德鲁·劳埃德·韦伯改编成了大受欢迎的音乐剧《猫》。

Artists have been just as keen. A cat hunts birds in a wall painting from the tomb of Nebamun in Egypt, and the Japanese artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi filled his woodblock prints with cats. In Paris, Édouard Manet put a black cat at the foot of the bed in his painting Olympia, and Pierre Bonnard painted cats in many of his quiet scenes of home life.

画家们也同样热衷于画猫。在埃及内巴蒙墓的一幅壁画中，一只猫正在捕鸟；日本画家歌川国芳的浮世绘木版画里满是猫。在巴黎，爱德华·马奈在名作《奥林匹亚》中把一只黑猫画在床尾，皮埃尔·博纳尔也在许多宁静的家居场景中画了猫。

Psychologists have long asked why so many people feel close to their cats. Research suggests that living with a pet can lower stress and blood pressure. One large American study published in 2008 found that people who had owned a cat were less likely to die of a heart attack, although it could not prove that the cats were the reason. Some researchers have also suggested that the low sound of a purr, at about 25 to 150 Hz, helps with healing, but this has not been proven.

心理学家一直在探究，为什么这么多人和自己的猫如此亲近。研究表明，和宠物一起生活可以缓解压力、降低血压。2008年发表的一项大型美国研究发现，养过猫的人死于心脏病发作的可能性更低，不过研究无法证明原因就在于猫。还有研究人员提出，猫咪低沉的呼噜声频率约在25至150赫兹之间，有助于愈合，但这一点尚未得到证实。

Cats also give people company without needing constant attention the way dogs do. They don't need walks, and they cope well in small apartments, which suits people with busy lives. Some psychologists add that a cat's affection feels special because it has to be earned: when a cat chooses your lap, it feels like a compliment.

猫还能给人陪伴，却不像狗那样需要人时时关注。它们不用遛，也能很好地适应小公寓，正适合生活忙碌的人。一些心理学家还补充说，猫的亲近之所以显得珍贵，正是因为它需要你去赢得：当一只猫选择跳上你的膝头时，那感觉就像受到了称赞。

Cats found a new stage on the internet. Early hits like Keyboard Cat, a cat that seems to play an electric keyboard, spread across YouTube in the late 2000s. In the 2010s Grumpy Cat and Lil Bub became celebrities, with millions of fans, books and even films of their own.

猫在互联网上找到了新的舞台。早期的走红视频，比如看起来像在弹电子琴的“键盘猫”，在21世纪头十年的末期传遍了YouTube。到了2010年代，“不爽猫”和Lil Bub成了明星，拥有数以百万计的粉丝，还出了书，甚至有了自己的电影。

In 2015 a researcher at Indiana University asked nearly 7,000 people about watching cat videos. Most said the videos gave them more energy and made them feel happier and less anxious. Seen this way, internet cats are just the newest chapter of a very old friendship: people once kept cats in temples, and now they keep them on their phones.

2015年，印第安纳大学的一位研究人员就观看猫咪视频的感受调查了近7000人。大多数人表示，这些视频让他们更有活力，心情更好，焦虑也减轻了。这样看来，网红猫不过是一段古老友谊的最新篇章：过去人们把猫养在神庙里，如今则把它们装进了手机。

Scientists still have a lot to learn about how cats behave. With each other, cats communicate mostly through body language and scent, along with hisses, growls and purrs. Adult cats rarely meow at other cats. Kittens meow to their mothers, but grown cats seem to keep the meow mainly for talking to humans.

关于猫的行为，科学家还有很多需要了解。猫与猫之间主要靠肢体语言和气味交流，另外还会发出嘶嘶声、低吼声和呼噜声。成年猫很少对其他猫喵喵叫。小猫会冲着妈妈叫，而成年猫似乎主要把“喵”留给了与人交流。

Other habits are harder to explain: knocking things off tables, squeezing into boxes that are far too small, bringing dead mice to their owners as 'gifts', or racing around the house in the middle of the night. Some of these may come from hunting instincts or a need for safe, tight spaces, but many questions are still open.

还有一些习惯更难解释：把东西从桌上拨下去，硬挤进小得多的纸箱，把死老鼠当作“礼物”叼给主人，或者在半夜满屋子狂奔。其中一些可能源于捕猎本能，或者源于对安全、狭小空间的需要，但许多问题至今仍没有答案。

From Egyptian temples to today's living rooms and social media feeds, cats have lived alongside people for about 10,000 years. They have been worshipped and feared, burned at festivals and turned into lucky charms, but people have never stopped keeping them.

从埃及的神庙到今天的客厅和社交媒体，猫已经与人类共同生活了大约一万年。它们曾被崇拜，也曾被畏惧；曾在节庆中被焚烧，也被做成了招财的吉祥物，但人们从未停止养猫。

Unlike most domestic animals, the cat still does much as it pleases. It hunts, sleeps and chooses its friends, and it stays with us because it wants to. After ten thousand years, people still seem to like it that way.

和大多数家养动物不同，猫至今仍然在很大程度上随心所欲。它捕猎、睡觉、自己挑选朋友，留在我们身边是因为它自己愿意。一万年过去了，人们似乎依然喜欢它这个样子。