Good evening! What's the matter? Are you afraid of vampires?
晚上好！怎么了？你害怕吸血鬼吗？
He he, no need to worry, I'm not staying for dinner.
呵呵，不用担心，我来这不是为了吸血。
I'm here to guide you through a brief history of vampires,
我来这里是为了引导你简单了解一下吸血鬼的历史，
illustrating how our image has changed from a shambling corpse to the dapper gentleman you see before you.
向你解释下我们的形象是如何从一个步履蹒跚的死尸变成现在你面前这样一位翩翩君子。
Vampires are nearly as old as you humans.
吸血鬼几乎跟你们人类历史一样久远。
Stories about us, revenants, appear in cultures extending as far back as prehistoric times.
关于我们存在的故事，甚至能追溯到史前文明。
But we weren't called vampires back then and most of us did not look the way we imagine vampires today. Ha, far from it!
但那时候我们还不叫“吸血鬼”，并且我们中的大多数看上去并不像我们今天所想象的吸血鬼一样，差远了！
For example, the Mesopotamian Lamashtu was a creature with the head of a lion and the body of the donkey,
比如说，美索不达米亚的拉马什图，就是一个长着狮子头跟驴子身体的怪物，
and the ancient Greek striges were simply described as bloodthirsty birds. Others were even stranger.
再比如古老希腊的史特雷姬斯，人们简单描述为嗜血的鸟类。其他的就更加奇怪了。
The Philippine manananggal would sever her upper torso and sprout huge, bat-like wings to fly.
菲律宾的曼杜哥会撕裂自己的上半身并从中长出巨大的、蝙蝠般的翅膀来飞行。
The Malaysian penanggalan was a flying female head with dangling entrails.
马来西亚的潘那贾拉是个飞在空中的女人头，下面还挂着内脏。
And the Australian Yara-ma-yha-who was a little red guy with a big head, a large mouth, and bloodsuckers on his hands and feet.
澳洲的亚拉马亚胡全身红色，小身板却长着个大脑袋，一张血盆大口，用双手双脚来吸血。
Oh, and let's not forget the Caribbean's soucouyant, the West African obayifo, and the Mexican Tlahuelpuchi.
噢，对了，让我们不要忘了加勒比海的斯库样，西非的奥巴伊弗，还有墨西哥的特拉海尔普契。
Charming, aren't they? Though they may look vastly different, all of these beings have one common characteristic:
它们是不是很迷人？尽管它们彼此看上去有很大不同，它们却有着一个共同特征：
They sustain themselves by consuming the life force of a living creature.
它们靠吸食生灵的血来生存。
This shared trait is what defines a vampire -- all the other attributes change with the tides.
这一共有的特质决定了它们是吸血鬼，而其他的特征会随着时间改变。
So, how do we arrive at the reanimated fellow you see before you?
所以，我们是怎样最终转变成你所看到的像我这样的形象呢？
Our modern ideal emerges in 18th-century Eastern Europe.
我们的现代形态出现于18世纪的东欧。
With the dramatic increase of vampire superstitions, stories of bloodsucking, shadowy creatures become nightly bedside terrors.
随着对吸血鬼迷信的急剧增强，吸血鬼这种虚无的生物变成了人们睡前的恐怖故事。
And popular folklore, like the moroi among the Romani people and the lugat in Albania,
还有流传甚广的民间传说，比如罗马尼人口中的莫罗伊以及阿尔巴尼亚地区的鲁噶，
provide the most common vampire traits known today, such as vampires being undead and nocturnal and shape-shifting.
提供了我们今天所熟知的吸血鬼的特征，比如吸血鬼不死之身以及夜行性，还有可以变身。
You see, Eastern Europe in the 18th century was a pretty grim place with many deaths occurring from unknown diseases and plagues.
你看，18世纪的东欧是一个十分糟糕的地方，很多人死于不知名的疾病和瘟疫。
Without medical explanations, people searched for supernatural causes
由于没有医学方面的解释，人们便开始寻找非自然的原因，
and found what looked like evidence in the corpses of the victims.
进而在死者尸体里发现了似是而非的证据。
When villagers dug up bodies to discern the cause of the mysterious deaths,
当村民们挖出尸体想要辨别这些离奇死亡的原因时，
they would often find the cadavers looking very much alive
他们通常发现这些尸体看上去就跟活着一样，
longer hair and fingernails, bloated bellies, and blood at the corners of mouths.
头发跟指甲都变长了，肚子变得浮肿，嘴角边还有血迹。

Clearly, these people were not really dead. Heh, they were vampires!
显然，这些人并没有真正死亡。嘿，他们是吸血鬼！
And they had been leaving their graves to feast on the living.
他们会离开自己的坟墓去寻找活人为食。
The terrified villagers would quickly enact a ritual to kill the undead.
惊恐万分的村民们迅速举行仪式来杀死这些吸血鬼们。
The practices varied across the region, but usually included beheadings, burnings,
不同的地区方式也不同，但通常包含了斩首、火烧
and staking the body to the coffin to prevent it from getting up. Grizzly stuff!
以及将尸体钉在棺材里，来防止它从里面跑出来。真疯狂！
But what the villagers interpreted as unholy reanimation were actually normal symptoms of death.
然而，这些村民眼中所谓的邪恶复活，实际上都是正常的死亡症状。
When a body decomposes, the skin dehydrates, causing the hair and fingernails to extend.
当尸体分解时，皮肤会脱水，从而引起头发跟指甲外露。
Bacteria in the stomach creates gases that fill the belly, which force out blood and matter through the mouth.
胃中的细菌会产生气体使腹部鼓起，并且压迫血和体液从嘴里流出。
Unfortunately, this science was not yet known, so the villagers kept digging.
不幸的是，这些科学解释尚不为人所知，所以村民们不停挖掘尸体寻找解释。
In fact, so many bodies were dug up that the Empress of Austria sent her physician around to disprove the vampire stories,
事实上，被挖出来的尸体太多，以至于奥斯丁帝国的皇后派遣自己的医师来证明这些吸血鬼的故事是假的，
and she even established a law prohibiting grave tampering.
并且制定法律禁止村民们破坏坟墓。
Still, even after the vampire hunts had died down, the stories of legends survived in local superstition.
可是呢，尽管对吸血鬼的狩猎慢慢减少了，这些传说却在民间迷信中保存了下来。
This led to works of literature, such as Polidori's 'The Vampyre,'
这也启发了很多文学作品，比如波里多利的《吸血鬼》，
the Gothic novel 'Carmilla,' and, most famously, Bram Stoker's 'Dracula.'
哥特式的小说《卡米拉》，以及最有名的布莱姆·斯托克的《德拉库拉》。
Although Stoker incorporated historical material,
尽管斯托克在他的作品中加入了历史材料，
like Elizabeth Bathory's virgin blood baths and the brutal executions of Vlad Dracul,
比如伊丽莎白·巴托里的处女血浴以及弗拉德·德古拉的残忍行刑，
it was these local myths that inspired the main elements of his story:
却是这些民间神话启发了他的故事中的主要元素：
the Transylvanian setting, using garlic to defend oneself, and the staking of the heart.
特兰西瓦尼亚式的设定，用大蒜保护自己，还有用木棍插入心脏。
While these attributes are certainly familiar to us,
这些特性都是为我们所熟知，
elements he invented himself have also lasted over the years:
他（布莱姆·斯托克）自己所发明的吸血鬼特性也延续了很多年：
fear of crucifixes, weakness in sunlight, and the vampire's inability to see their reflection.
害怕十字架，恐惧太阳光，以及吸血鬼不能从镜子中看到自己。
By inventing new traits, Stoker perfectly enacted the age-old tradition of elaborating upon and expanding the myth of vampires.
通过发明这些新的吸血鬼特征，斯托克通过详细描述并扩充吸血鬼的故事完美地造就了这个古老的传说。
As we saw, maybe you met my relatives, a huge of variety of creatures stalked the night before Dracula,
就像我们所看到的，也许你已经见过我的近亲们，一群早于吸血鬼德拉库拉的潜伏在夜晚的生物，
and many more will continue to creep through our nightmares.
并且还会有更多会慢慢爬到我们的噩梦中去。
Yet, so long as they subsist off a living being's life force, they are part of my tribe.
是的，只要它们依赖生灵的血而活，它们就属于我们吸血鬼家族。
Even sparkling vampires can be included.
即使闪闪发光的吸血鬼也算数。
After all, it's the continued storytelling and reimagining of the vampire legend that allows us to truly live forever.
说到底，是这种一直以来对于吸血鬼传奇的讲述跟想象加工，使我们吸血鬼真正永久存活下来了。