(1)马克·斯特兰德(mark strand)的诗
马克·斯特兰德(mark strand)的诗
刘康凯试译
西礁岛的徒劳
我在沙发上舒展开身子,准备打瞌睡,这时我想像一个小人儿睡在一只跟我的一样的沙发上。“醒醒,小人,醒醒,”我叫着。“你等待的那个人正从海上升起,裹在泡沫里,很快就要来到岸上。在她脚下忧郁的花园将变得鲜绿,微风将轻如婴儿的呼吸。醒醒吧,在那渊深者的造物消逝而万物像睡眠一样变得一片空白之前。”为唤醒那小人多么难,而他睡得多么难。而从海上升起的那个人,她的时辰已逝,她变得多么难——多么难那些燃烧的眼,那些燃烧的头发。
译注:1西礁岛,又译基韦斯特,美国佛罗里达州南端一城市,是墨西哥湾内佛罗里达群岛的最西端。
2此诗中的how hard有多义,汉语只能传其一。
Futility in Key West
I was stretched out on the couch, about to doze off, when I imagined a small figure asleep on a couch identical to mine. “Wake up, little man, wake up,” I cried. “The one you’re waiting for is rising from the sea, wrapped in spume, and soon will come ashore. Beneath her feet the melancholy garden will turn bright green and the breezes will be light as babies’ breath. Wake up, before this creature of the deep is gone and everything goes blank as sleep.” How hard I try to
wake the little man, how hard he sleeps. And the one who rose from the sea, her moment gone, how hard she has become — how hard those burning eyes, that burning hair.
一封不平常的信的神秘抵达
在办公室里呆过漫长的一天,又坐了很久的车回到我居住的小公寓。当我到达并咯哒一声打开灯,看到一只写着我的名字的信封躺在桌上。时钟呢?日历呢?那笔迹是我父亲的,而他死去已经四十年。一如在此情境下一个人可能会做的,我开始想,也许,仅仅是也许,他还活着,在附近某住过着一种秘密的生活。否则如何解释这封信?为了让自己镇定,我坐下,打开信封,抽出信纸。“亲爱的儿子,”它这样开头。“亲爱的儿子”,然后一无所有(译注:或,然后是无、虚无)。
The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter
It had been a long day at the office and a long ride back to the small apartment where I lived. When I got there I flicked on the light and saw on the table an envelope with my name on it. Where was the clock? Where was the calendar? The handwriting was my father’s, but he had been dead for forty years. As one might in such a situation, I began to think that maybe,
just maybe, he was alive, living a secret life somewhere nearby. How else to explain the envelope? To steady myself, I sat down, opened it, and pulled out the letter. “Dear Son,” was the way it began. “Dear Son” and then nothing.
托皮卡的神秘与孤独
黄昏黑成了夜晚。一个人越来越深地跌进睡眠的旋涡,跌进它的漂流,它的漫漠,穿越仿佛薄雾之物,他最后来到一道敞开的门前,不知道为什么他跨过这道门,接着又不知道为什么他走进一个房间,在那里他坐着,等着,房间似乎越来越紧地迫向他,黑暗更黑,黑过他所知的任何黑暗,他感到有什么东西在他内部形成,却不能确定这是什么东西,它对他的捉控在生长,仿佛一个故事正在展开,其中的两个角色,快乐与痛苦,犯了同一种罪,这是他的罪,他将一遍又一遍地予以忏悔,直到它变无所意谓(译注:或无意义、意味着虚无)。
注:Topeka,托皮卡市,美国堪萨斯州首府。位于州东北部,临堪萨斯河。
Mystery and Solitude in Topeka
Afternoon darkens into evening. A man falls deeper and deeper into the slow spiral of sleep, into the drift of it, the length of it, through what feels like mist, and comes at last to an open door through which he passes without knowing why, then again without knowing why goes to a room where he sits and waits while the room seems to close around him and the dark is darker than any he has known, and he feels something forming within him without being sure what it is, its hold on him growing, as if a story were about to unfold, in which two characters, Pleasure and Pain, commit the same crime, the one that is his, that he will confess to again and again, until it means nothing.
无以言喻
火怎么不再烧了,天气怎么变坏了,海鸥的影子怎么渺无踪迹地消失了。这是季节的终点吗?还是生命的终点?很久以前它就看似从未存在过吗?那在我们之内活在过去而渴慕将来、抑或活在将来而渴慕过去的,是什么?而那又会怎样?当光涌进房间,一个孩子在熟睡,那醒着的母亲,睁大她的眼,无比地希求着她不要被某种她无以名之的东西唤醒?
No Words Can Describe It
How those fires burned that are no longer, how the weather worsened,how the shadow of the seagull vanished without a trace. Was it the end of a season, the end of a life? Was it so long ago it seems it might never have been? What is it in us that lives in the past and longs for the future, or lives in the future and longs for the past? And what does it matter when light enters the room where a child sleeps and the waking mother, opening her eyes, wishes more than anything to be unwakened by what she cannot name?
如愿的文化部长
在办公室里度过疲惫的一天后,文化部长回到家。他躺在床上,试图无所思,但无以(已)发生,或更准确地说,无不发生。无已在别处行无所行之事,即扩大黑暗。但文化部长是有耐心的,而事物在悄悄溜走——他的墙壁、街对面的公园、邻镇上他的朋友。他相信,无已最终走向他,并且带着一付不在意的(不在场的)的样子,说:“亲爱的,你知道,我总是那么想要让你高兴,现在我来了。而且,我住下了。”
The Minister of Culture Gets His Wish
The Minister of Culture goes home after a grueling day at the office.He lies on his bed and tries to think of nothing, but nothing happens or, more precisely, does not happen. Nothing is elsewhere doing what nothing does, which is to expand the dark. But the minister is patient, and slowly things slip away — the walls of his house, the park across the street, his friends in the next town. He believes that nothing has finally come to him and, in its absent way, is saying, “Darling,you know how much I have always wanted to please you, and now I have come.
And what is more, I have come to stay.”
(选自美国《诗刊》(poetry)2011年第1期