博客闭关了几个月，收捡信息时发现网友“如风”问了我关于波德莱尔《致读者》翻译的问题。

                                

 《告读者》
                
                      【法】 夏尔·皮埃尔·波德莱尔


愚蠢，谬误，贪吝以及罪恶，
形役我们的灵魂，折耗我们的身体，
犹如乞丐给养他们身上的虱子，
我们在培育我们庸碌的自责。

我们的罪恶顽固，我们的痛悔无力；
我们为自己的招认开出可观的酬目，
我们欢快地溜回泥泞的道路，
相信廉价的眼泪能洗尽一切污迹。

魔高一丈的撒旦在恶的枕畔
久久摇撼我们迷醉的精魂，
我们的意志高贵如金
通通被这博学的术士化为轻烟。

正是恶魔擎住操纵我们的线！
我们自可憎的事物发现迷魅；
一日一堕步，更靠向地狱迈腿，
没有恐惧，穿过散发恶臭的黑暗。

仿佛一个浪荡的穷鬼又啃又吻
年老娼妓那皱缩而摧残的乳房，
一路上偷把秘密的欢愉品尝
不断榨取着，似一枚干瘪的柑橙。

紧紧地蜂拥，仿佛百万只蠕虫，
恶魔在我们的头脑大快朵颐，
死神流动着，伴随着我们每一次呼吸
仿佛无形的河，呻吟着向肺翻涌。

如果强奸，毒药，匕首，火患
还没运用它们那些可爱的构图
装点我们可怜命运寻常的画布，
这是我们的灵魂，唉！不够大胆。

但是在那些豺狼，虎豹，母狗，
猴子，蝎子，秃鹫，和毒蛇那里，
我们罪恶昭著的动物园污秽不已，
怪物们在咆哮，爬行，嗥叫 ，怒吼。

却有个东西它更丑，更肮脏，更凶劣！
虽然它不张牙舞爪，也不叫喊哭闹，
他更甘心令这片大地碎掉
在呵欠的片刻吞下整个世界；

这即是无聊！-- 眼中不由得噙满泪水，
他抽水烟管时候便浮想断头台。
读者，你知道它，这考究的妖怪，
 -- 伪善的读者，--我的兄弟，-- 我的同类！

                                                 2013.5.24

（原诗）

Au Lecteur

                       Charles Pierre Baudelaire


La sottise, l'erreur, le péché, la lésine,
Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps,
Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords,
Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine.

Nos péchés sont têtus, nos repentirs sont lâches;
Nous nous faisons payer grassement nos aveux,
Et nous rentrons gaiement dans le chemin bourbeux,
Croyant par de vils pleurs laver toutes nos taches.

Sur l'oreiller du mal c'est Satan Trismégiste
Qui berce longuement notre esprit enchanté,
Et le riche métal de notre volonté
Est tout vaporisé par ce savant chimiste.

C'est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent!
Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas;
Chaque jour vers l'Enfer nous descendons d'un pas,
Sans horreur, à travers des ténèbres qui puent.

Ainsi qu'un débauché pauvre qui baise et mange
Le sein martyrisé d'une antique catin,
Nous volons au passage un plaisir clandestin
Que nous pressons bien fort comme une vieille orange.

Serré, fourmillant, comme un million d'helminthes,
Dans nos cerveaux ribote un peuple de Démons,
Et, quand nous respirons, la Mort dans nos poumons
Descend, fleuve invisible, avec de sourdes plaintes.

Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie,
N'ont pas encor brodé de leurs plaisants dessins
Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,
C'est que notre âme, hélas! n'est pas assez hardie.

Mais parmi les chacals, les panthères, les lices,
Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents,
Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants,
Dans la ménagerie infâme de nos vices,

II en est un plus laid, plus méchant, plus immonde!
Quoiqu'il ne pousse ni grands gestes ni grands cris,
Il ferait volontiers de la terre un débris
Et dans un bâillement avalerait le monde;

C'est l'Ennui! L'oeil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,
II rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
— Hypocrite lecteur, — mon semblable, — mon frère!


（主要参考英译）

1 To the Reader

Folly, error, sin, avarice
Occupy our minds and labor our bodies,
And we feed our pleasant remorse
As beggars nourish their vermin.

Our sins are obstinate, our repentance is faint;
We exact a high price for our confessions,
And we gaily return to the miry path,
Believing that base tears wash away all our stains.

On the pillow of evil Satan, Trismegist,
Incessantly lulls our enchanted minds,
And the noble metal of our will
Is wholly vaporized by this wise alchemist.

The Devil holds the strings which move us!
In repugnant things we discover charms;
Every day we descend a step further toward Hell,
Without horror, through gloom that stinks.

Like a penniless rake who with kisses and bites
Tortures the breast of an old prostitute,
We steal as we pass by a clandestine pleasure
That we squeeze very hard like a dried up orange.

Serried, swarming, like a million maggots,
A legion of Demons carouses in our brains,
And when we breathe, Death, that unseen river,
Descends into our lungs with muffled wails.

If rape, poison, daggers, arson
Have not yet embroidered with their pleasing designs
The banal canvas of our pitiable lives,
It is because our souls have not enough boldness.

But among the jackals, the panthers, the bitch hounds,
The apes, the scorpions, the vultures, the serpents,
The yelping, howling, growling, crawling monsters,
In the filthy menagerie of our vices,

There is one more ugly, more wicked, more filthy!
Although he makes neither great gestures nor great cries,
He would willingly make of the earth a shambles
And, in a yawn, swallow the world;

He is Ennui! — His eye watery as though with tears,
He dreams of scaffolds as he smokes his hookah pipe.
You know him reader, that refined monster,
— Hypocritish reader, — my fellow, — my brother!

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)


2 To the Reader

Infatuation, sadism, lust, avarice
possess our souls and drain the body's force;
we spoonfeed our adorable remorse,
like whores or beggars nourishing their lice.

Our sins are mulish, our confessions lies;
we play to the grandstand with our promises,
we pray for tears to wash our filthiness;
importantly pissing hogwash through our styes.

The devil, watching by our sickbeds, hissed
old smut and folk-songs to our soul, until
the soft and precious metal of our will
boiled off in vapor for this scientist.

Each day his flattery makes us eat a toad,
and each step forward is a step to hell,
unmoved, through previous corpses and their smell
asphyxiate our progress on this road.

Like the poor lush who cannot satisfy,
we try to force our sex with counterfeits,
die drooling on the deliquescent tits,
mouthing the rotten orange we suck dry.

Gangs of demons are boozing in our brain —
ranked, swarming, like a million warrior-ants,
they drown and choke the cistern of our wants;
each time we breathe, we tear our lungs with pain.

If poison, arson, sex, narcotics, knives
have not yet ruined us and stitched their quick,
loud patterns on the canvas of our lives,
it is because our souls are still too sick.

Among the vermin, jackals, panthers, lice,
gorillas and tarantulas that suck
and snatch and scratch and defecate and fuck
in the disorderly circus of our vice,

there's one more ugly and abortive birth.
It makes no gestures, never beats its breast,
yet it would murder for a moment's rest,
and willingly annihilate the earth.

It's BOREDOM. Tears have glued its eyes together.
You know it well, my Reader. This obscene
beast chain-smokes yawning for the guillotine —
you — hypocrite Reader — my double — my brother!

— Robert Lowell, from Marthiel & Jackson Matthews, eds., The Flowers of Evil (NY: New Directions, 1963)