精彩对白：Ashley: What? She's sophisticated, glamorous, gets invited everywhere...and never has to stay home because she has nothing to wear...
Miss. Braden被卡在电梯里，Damon Phillips因为没人做presentation而恼怒不已，这时Ashley急中生智，来了个即兴的策划，她的好主意masquerade（化妆舞会）也让Damon Phillips非常兴奋。Masquerade到底有什么魔力，能让脾气暴躁的Damon Phillips转怒为喜呢？它又是怎么来的呢？来看看下面这段有关masquerade的介绍吧。
化妆舞会是欧美上流社会在公司年会或大型庆功会、时尚派对上的一种安排。有参加过这种派对的人士称，化妆舞会高雅，乐趣无穷，不仅形式别致，给人新鲜和刺激，还可以给陌生人相识提供一次完美的机会。正如歌上所唱：“我戴着面纱和镶着假钻的头缀，参加这场期待已久的化妆舞会。我知道这将是我惟一的机会，与你熟悉却又陌生地相对。……你终于温柔地走向我，赶走了灰姑娘的自卑。”
A masquerade ball (or bal masqué) is an event which the participants attend in costume wearing a mask. (A masque is a formal written and sung court pageant.)
Such gatherings, festivities of Carnival, were paralleled from the 15th century by increasingly elaborate allegorical Entries, pageants and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life. Masquerade balls were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th century Renaissance (Italian, maschera). They were generally elaborate dances held for members of the upper classes, and were particularly popular in Venice. They have been associated with the tradition of the Venetian Carnival. With the fall of the Venetian Republic at the end of the 18th century, the use and tradition of masks gradually began to decline, until they disappeared altogether.
They became popular throughout mainland Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, sometimes with fatal results. Gustav III of Sweden was assassinated at a masquerade ball by disgruntled nobleman Jacob Johan Anckarström, an event which Eugène Scribe and Daniel Auber turned into the opera Gustave III. The same event was the basis of Giuseppe Verdi's opera A Masked Ball, although the censors in the original production forced him to portray it as a fictional story set in Boston. Most came from countries like Switzerland and Italy.
Masquerade balls were sometimes set as a game among the guests. The masked guests were supposedly dressed so as to be unidentifiable. This would create a type of game to see if a guest could determine each others' identities. This added a humorous effect to many masques and enabled a more enjoyable version of typical balls.
One of the most noted masquerade balls of the 20th century was that held at Palazzo Labia in Venice on 3 September 1951, hosted by Carlos de Beistegui. It was dubbed "the party of the century".
A new resurgence of masquerade balls began in the late 1990s in North America and are still held today, though in modern times the party atmosphere is emphasized and the formal dancing usually less prominent. Less formal "costume parties" may be a descendant of this tradition.
The picturesque quality of the masquerade ball has made it a favorite topic or setting in literature. Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death" is based at a masquerade ball in which a central figure turns out to be exactly what he is costumed as. Another ball in Zürich is featured in the novel Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
"Regency" romance novels, which are typically about Britain's upper class "ton" during the 1800s, often make use of masquerade balls as settings, due both to their popularity at the time and to their endless supply of plot devices.
As mentioned before, Masquerades are the centers of multiple operas. The musical and movie The Phantom of the Opera has a very important scene in the story line take place at a masked ball. This scene (in the film) features inventive choreography and music by Andrew Lloyd Webber.
考考你
请将下列句子翻译成英文：
1. 主场还是客场？
2. 那样的话，她就不会一直盯着我们的一举一动了。
3. 好感？她老谋深算，魅力迷人，忙于应酬……
4. 走开，姑娘们，你们的口水都流到地毯上了。
Just My Luck《倒霉爱神》精讲之一参考答案：
1.One door closes, and two doors open.
2.It's true. I'm furious.
3.And it says she's doing some final touches.
4.Because personally I think you're underpaid.
精彩对白：Ashley: What? She's sophisticated, glamorous, gets invited everywhere...and never has to stay home because she has nothing to wear...
（英语点津，许雅宁编辑）
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