Three Poems

 

 

［意大利］阿尔达／梅里尼短诗三首

Alda Merini ［意］阿尔达／梅里尼
translated from the Italian by Susan Stewart （英译）［美］苏珊／斯图尔特

中文自英文翻译： 唐凯

 

As for me, I used to be a bird

 

至于我，曾经是一只小鸟

 

As for me, I used to be a bird
with a gentle white womb,
someone cut my throat
           just for laughs,
           I don't know.

As for me, I used to be a great albatross
and whirled over the seas.
Someone put an end to my journey,
without any charity in the tone of it.
But even stretched out on the ground
I sing for you now
my songs of love.

 

至于我，我曾经是一只小鸟

有柔柔的白色的子宫

有人割断我的喉咙

         是否只是为了取乐

         我不能知情。

 

至于我，我曾经是一只很棒的信天翁

在大海上方的高空飞行

有人终止了我的旅程

没有任何宽厚之心

但是即使在地面上将我蹂躏

我也要敞开喉咙

现在就为你们歌唱爱情

 

The Overcoat

 

大衣

 

A certain overcoat lived at our house for a long time
it was made of good wool
a finely-combed wool
a many-times-made-over overcoat
well-worn, a thousand times turned inside out
it wore the outline of our father
his very figure, whether worried or happy.

Hanging on a hook or on the coat rack
it took on a defeated air:
through that ancient overcoat
I came to know my father's secrets
to live that life, in the shadow.

 

一件大衣住在我们的房子里已然很久

它由上好的羊毛制成

细致梳理的羊毛

是一件历尽“千锤百炼”的大衣

它旧了，曾被（家庭）一千遍地翻穿

它穿过我们父亲的轮廓

穿过他的极致身影，而不管是忧虑还是幸福

 

现在它不管是挂在衣钩上或者放在衣架上

都呈现着一种磨难的气氛

那气氛穿透了那件古旧的大衣

我蓦然间洞知了父亲的秘密：

以那样的阴暗，过那样的生存

 

 

The Apron

 

围裙

 

My mother, though, had an old apron
for holidays and work,
and she consoled herself with it by living.
We found solace in that apron
that was given away to the ragmen
after her death, but a tramp,
recognizing its maternity,
made a soggy pillow from it
for his living funeral rites.

 

我的母亲，虽然，有一件旧围裙

应付假日和劳动

她用它给自己慰藉，坚守人生

 

围裙中，我们发现了慰藉

在母亲去世后，我们处理了围裙

（没有）送给收旧物的人

而是一个流浪汉

（他或许能）认出它的为母之道

用它做一个潮湿的枕头

为他活着的葬礼

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

 

［注］搞这种二手翻译，思维有些乱套，就加上了括号。我很喜欢第一首。

不懂意大利文，不知道意大利诗人在鼓捣什么东东，就这么将就了一下下。

 

2009-11-23 大庆

―――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

 

 (Text of the poems in the original Italian)（点击意大利原文）

Featured Poet 介绍诗人

Alda Merini

Alda Merini is one of Italy's most important, and most beloved, living poets. She has won many of the major national literary prizes and has twice been nominated for the Nobel Prize—by the French Academy in 1996 and by Italian PEN in 2001. (Author photo by Guiliano Grittini)

Susan Stewart (translator)（英译者情况）

Susan Stewart is the author of five books of poems, including Red Rover and Columbarium, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other books include Poetry and the Fate of the Senses, which won the Christian Gauss and Truman Capote prizes for literary criticism, and The Open Studio: Essays on Art and Aesthetics. A former MacArthur Fellow, she is the Annan Professor of English at Princeton and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.

View featured poem （链接原文）

Love Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini （原作出处：《阿尔达／梅里尼诗选》）
Princeton University Press 普林斯顿大学出版社