巴西世界盃引發中國古詩預言熱大綱
This week will long be woefully remembered by many Brazilian soccer fans as one of shame, with the five-time World Cup winner's hopes of victory being dashed in a game against the Netherlands, which it lost 3-0.
未來很長一段時間許多傷心的巴西足球迷都不會忘記上週的恥辱，曾五次奪得世界盃冠軍的巴西隊以0-3敗給荷蘭，爭奪世界盃季軍的希望破滅。
Was it a surprise? In fact, a Chinese poet foretold Brazil's defeat almost 2,000 years ago -- according to some Chinese Internet users, anyway.
這是意外結果嗎？事實上，一位中國詩人在大約2,000年前就預言了巴西的敗績――反正中國一些網民是這樣說的。
With its own national team locked out of this year's World Cup, China's internet users had fun with a distinctly unusual meme: fake poetry pretending to be from the Tang dynasty that supposedly predicted the outcome of the 2014 competition.
由於中國國家隊未能晉級今年的世界盃決賽圈，中國網民們樂此不疲地玩起了一種極爲獨特的遊戲：仿作號稱預測了2014年世界盃比賽結果的“唐詩”。
Move over, Paul the Octopus. What's a World Cup-forecasting octopus compared to ancient Chinese poets who knew the outcome of the 2014 World Cup more than 1,000 years ago?
章魚保羅恐怕也要靠邊站。與1,000多年前就預知了2014年世界盃比賽結果的中國古代詩人相比，章魚算什麼？
One poem, written by an anonymous Internet user who pretended it was written by famous Chinese Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai and posted online last week after Germany beat Brazil, mused on springtime and the mountains of Sichuan.
其中一首詩來自一位不知名的網民。上週德國戰勝巴西之後，該詩作者在網上發佈了這首詩，並假稱這是著名唐朝詩人李白所作。詩歌內容是描寫春光以及四川的山水靈秀。
The first lines of the poem, vertically spelled out, read '2014 Brazil suffers miserable defeat.'
這是一首“藏頭詩”，每句的第一個字連起來就是“二零一四巴西慘敗”。
The joke poem was immediately hailed by some Chinese Internet users as a 'prophetic statement' and became an instant hit. Other similar fake poems quickly followed. (One acrostic, based on an actual poem by Chinese writer Bai Juyi titled 'Remembering the South of Yangtze River,' also spelled out '2014 Germany wins big.')
這首搞笑的詩馬上就被一些中國網民捧爲“先知灼見”，並瞬間走紅。很快還出現了其他類似的僞作。（另外一首藏頭詩的題目採用了中國古代詩人白居易的作品《憶江南》，其每句第一個字連成“二零一四德國奪冠”。
Such parody poetry became among the hottest-trending memes in Asia during the game. At one point last week, searches for such poems even outstripped the number of searches for the term 'Brazil' in both Taiwan and Hong Kong.
這類詩歌仿作成爲世界盃期間亞洲最熱門的話題之一。上週在臺灣和香港，這類詩歌的搜索量一度超過“巴西”一詞的搜索量。
Although the intent of the poems appeared to be attempts to gets some laughs, some Chinese found such writings offensive, saying they were disrespectful to poets who are much revered and studied among Chinese-speaking communities worldwide.
雖然這些詩歌的內容似乎只是想搞笑，但一些中國人覺得這些作品很無禮，說它們冒犯了那些備受尊崇、成爲全世界中文圈學習對象的詩人。
Be as that may, it was hardly the first time Chinese Internet users had some laughs at the expense of the country's ancient poets. In 2012, for example, one of the year's most popular Internet memes was photoshopped pictures of revered Chinese poet Dufu, who was variously pictured by netizens as being dressed like Ronald McDonald, wearing a bikini and tangoing with a rose in his mouth.
但雖然如此，這也絕非中國網民首次拿古代詩人開玩笑。例如2012年，最流行的網絡熱潮之一就是中國古代大詩人杜甫的畫像遭到PS惡搞，網民們將杜甫打扮成麥當勞叔叔、給他“穿”上比基尼，或是讓他嘴裏叼着玫瑰花跳探戈。
