加载中…试译华莱士 史蒂文斯诗《来自火山的明信片》
(2011-12-15 09:43:32)
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分类： 英诗汉译（美国） |
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（译者注：华莱士 史蒂文斯的诗，表面简单，但意义深远，译文不足以传达诗人的精深，请参考原著，评析）
来自火山的明信片
拾起我们骨头的孩子们
永远都不会知道; 这些骨头曾经
和山上的狐狸一样迅速;
到了秋天，当因为他们的嗅觉
葡萄变得比空气更锐利时
曾经有一种生命，呼吸寒霜；
并且更难猜到有了我们的骨头
我们留下更多，留下了现在
事物样子，留下了我们的
观感。 春天的云吹过
门户紧闭的大房子上空，
超越了我们的门以及多风的天空
叫喊出一个文雅的绝望
我们了解这所大房子已久
我们的话语已变成
大房子的一部分。。。孩子们，
还在编织发芽的光环，
将要讲我们的话而且永远蒙在鼓里，
会说大房子看上去
似乎是他曾住过并留下的
一个精灵闯入空白的墙壁，
一个空虚世界肮脏的房子，
一个破碎的影子高抵白色，
涂上丰裕太阳的一层金。
作者简介：
华莱士 史蒂文斯（1879年10月2日 -
1955年8月2日）是美国现代主义诗人。他出生在宾夕法尼亚州瑞鼎，就读于哈佛大学和纽约法学院，并花了他一生中大部分时间作为一个在康涅狄格州的哈特福德保险公司的律师工作。
他最著名的诗作包括《瓦罐轶事》，《十点钟幻灭》，《冰淇淋皇帝》，《在基韦斯特秩序的想法》，《星期天早晨》，《雪漫》，《寻找黑鸟的13个途径》，所有这些都出现在他的《诗集》，《诗集》为他赢得了1955年的普利策奖。
A Postcard From The Volcano
Children picking up our
bones
Will never know that these were
once
As quick as foxes on the
hill;
And that in autumn, when the
grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their
smell
There had a being, breathing
frost;
And least will guess that with our
bones
We left much more, left what still
is
The look of things, left what we
felt
At what we saw. The spring clouds
blow
Above the shuttered
mansion-house,
Beyond our gate and the windy
sky
Cries out a literate
despair.
We knew for long the mansion’s
look
And what we said of it
became
A part of what it is …
Children,
Still weaving budded
aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never
know,
Will say of the mansion that it
seems
As if he that lived there left
behind
A spirit storming in blank
walls,
A dirty house in a gutted
world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to
white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent
sun.
===============================================
Reference Analysis:
Wallace Stevens’ A Postcard From The
Volcano
Poetry lends itself to nostalgia.
Words---like pictures, sounds, smells, and other sensory
perceptions---trigger memories. At my cousin Kenny’s wedding this
past weekend I spent time with extended family members. It is
always special to share updates and swap old stories, but I’m
partial to the stories or phrases that remind us of the family
members that are no longer with us. A simple word, such as Zulch,
immediately and vividly conjures up my grandfather. I can picture
him eating the jiggling, brown gelatin meat dish one holiday after
another, imploring the rest of the family to join him. It didn’t
matter to him that the cow’s brain was primarily used to make
Zulch, but to us it did. I’m thankful for memories like this and
the weight that a single word or phrase can carry within an entire
family.
In Wallace Stevens’ A Postcard From The
Volcano words are majestic treasures, especially when coming from
the mouths of the next generation. Stevens frames the poem with a
complete first tercet. He sets up the characters (children and the
collective “we” narrator/speaker), he introduces the primary
conflict (time’s relentless cycles), and he supplies a stunning
metaphor ( “our bones…these were once / as quick as foxes on the
hill”). This thoroughness is not a rarity within Wallace Stevens’
poetry. His writing was lyrical and imaginative, thoughtful and
experimental, story driven and sound driven. It would be fair to
say that Wallace Stevens endeavored to stretch himself as a poet
like a child stretches a piece of taffy.
Many lines from A Postcard From The Volcano
have made their way into my memory bank. The distant story and the
direct address are balanced nicely in this poem, provided Stevens’
lines to have their maximum impact. For example, the third stanza,
chock full of ideas, is nestled tightly between two image driven
stanzas. “with our bones / We left much more, left what still is /
The look of things, left what we felt.” These lines jump off the
page and nearly jump out of the poem. It is a declaration of
fulfilled experiences to future generations. They are to carve out
their own places in this world, but not before knowing they owe
much to their ancestors, much more than they might believe
possible. The past generations, for which Stevens becomes a
spokesperson in this poem, are naturally creators. Stevens mentions
a specific mansion in the wind and summarizes “We knew for long the
mansion’s look / And what we said of it became / A part of what it
is.” Through their words, the act of naming and describing, they
crafted the essence of their times and, as aging requires, they
bequeathed these accomplishments to the children growing rapidly
into the places they previously occupied. These children, as
Stevens points out, “Will speak our speech and never
know.”
It might be true that every word, sentence,
and paragraph has been written before. It might be true that
original ideas are nearly impossible to come by these days. And it
just might be true that we owe our art to the generations that
preceded us, especially the most recent generation for continuing
the traditions and styles. Still, don’t we also deserve credit. We
recognize the “mansion” just as others have before us and we don’t
shy away from describing it because Wallace Stevens or some other
writer, actor, musician has described it as “A dirty house in a
gutted world, / A tatter of shadows peaked to white, / Smeared with
the gold of the opulent sun.” There’s no rule stipulating that only
one poem can be written about nightingales, sunsets, marching
bands, or a host of other topics. The world would be a bland and
uniform place is this was true. Fortunately for us, we have words,
tethered to our memories, collectively supplied by our
ancestors---immediate and ancient. Because of the generations
before him, Wallace Stevens was able to write this poem, shining a
poetic spotlight on the diminishing emphasis of gratitude to our
ancestors, both blood and artistic. And in a small way, this brief
essay continues the fight that Wallace Stevens took up with this
poem, a fight he was almost certainly continuing for someone else
before him.
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