湖南译界名家 || 库库君：发表在美国著名诗刊《日晷》（The Dial）的作品汇总
1927-1928年间，陈逵的英诗创作达到了高潮，在美国当时最有影响的文艺刊物Dial上先后5次刊登他的作品。1927年8月号的Dial在扉页上介绍了五位作者，第一位就是Kwei Chen（陈逵）。
❖陈逵先生早期在美国发表诗、文的刊物
陈逵发表在Dial上的作品主要有英诗、汉诗英译和散文三类。
英诗有：My Friend the Bachelor（1927年8月发表在Dial），New Year Day（1928年1月发表在Dial），Of Tung-Ting Lake I Am Reminded（1928年4月发表在Dial）
汉诗英译有：Evening Bells（1928年10月发表在Dial）
散文有：Seven Chapters of Autobiography（前四章于1928年发表在Dial），The Gift of the First Presentation（1928年4月发表 在Dial）
1
英诗
01
My Friend the Bachelor
（1927年月8发表在Dial，选自《陈逵中英诗文选》P7-9）
My friend the bachelor,
Having just returned from his trip around the world,
Without regret, tells me
That for him travel is preferable to the married life.
I soothe him with two stories of his Chinese comrades:
A thousand years ago,
In a hut at the edge of the West Lake
Lived a poet who, throughout his life, married not.
In his garden he planted a plum-tree,
And upon a pedestal he mounted the two wings of a crane.
The former he acclaimed as his wife; and the latter, his son.
Every year the Bright Clearness of the Spring found him in rapture
Under the ample foliage of the willows by the Lake, crooning;
Early in the wintry morning, after a night of heavy snowfall,
He failed not to visit the blossomy plum, his wife—
With a crooked cane and a conical hat of bamboo leaves,
Alone he stood there.
His poems he threw away as fast as they were written.
He declared, Laughing:
“For fame with my contemporaries I do not care;
Should I care for fame with posterity?”
Poor was he, but the Emperor’s call to office he refused.
Lonely he might be, yet for a score of years
His foot-prints had not marked the neighbouring city.
By the cottage where he lived,
He prepared himself a grave, in which he was buried
With a copy of his last poem in the coffin beside him.
At present in his garden every year are
Hundreds of plums, hung with snow-flakes;
But on the pedestal from which the crane took his flight,
Only an inscription is erected.
The other comrade is my own dear, poor, mad Uncle,
Auther of the World’s Unmarried Heroes,
Still maintaining his principle,
“No marriage without Platonic love”!
He lives a very simple life,
But he inherits a thousand volumes of the best literature,
A large collection of masterpieces of painting and calligraphy,
And urns, centuries old.
He possesses gifts as a poet, a painter, and calligrapher.
Alone or with an understanding friend,
He spends his days and evenings
In reading, criticizing, reciting and in composing poetry;
In painting and in cultivating the precious art of calligraphy;
In fishing and gardening on sunny days;
In walking and singing on moonlit evenings.
He is known as wise and good; obscure and mad;
He is reverenced by everyone, and helped by none!
My friend seems greatly moved in listening to these stories.
02
New Year Day
（1928年1月发表在Dial，选自《陈逵中英诗文选》P11-12）
The day is yet weak,
My father lights the Tung oil-lamp,
A lamp with a flame like a bean.
He lights also the incense in the brass burner,
He opens the ink-grinder and takes up a new brush,
Upon the sheet of red paper he writes, meditating:
“In the dawn of the New Year Day I try my pen on the red;
May all things go as willed.”
Outside dogs bark;
Hither guests come—a large group—
Men in long dark blue gowns and black satin coats,
By their father’s side, the children wearing red hats embroidered in gold.
“Congratulations, congratulations for the Happy New Year!”
Shout all guests, young and old alike.
“Stay!” cries out my father, stretching his arms across the doorway.
All sit round the large table—
There the wine is warm and fragrant; the candies are piled in a pagoda.
The elders drink and talk; the children eat and listen.
In the court-yard are large petals of snow-blossoms, flying.
03
Of Tung-Ting Lake I Am Reminded
（1928年4月发表在Dial，选自《陈逵中英诗文选》P17-18）
Alone I sit by the lakeside,
By the side of Mendota, bright with illusion.
I gaze at the curves of the distant hills;
I listen to the many-colored sounds; it is spring.
In the neighbouring wood they are chanting,
Birds and colours, on boughs yet hung with last year’s leaves;
No too slow, not hasting—birds, in their several kinds.
They do not sing to please my ear; yet all is pleasantness.
The pure water, the very clear water, the pearl water,
Striking against the rock—the grey, bull-neck rock.
The sound is like the dong of the jade bell
Or is it rain on the bamboo tile of the Sage’s hut?
From beyond the thicket under the large poplar—
The morning sun gleams there, the Great Sun of morning!
There I hear delicate voices, and at times laughter;
But no wraith of human folk do I see.
On the waves, riding forth, a pair of ducks!
Often I watched them on Tung-Ting Lake, often!
They rise; they fall with the wave, free and content—
Even away from their kind—yet they two never separate.
Alone I sit by the lakeside,
By the side of Mendota, bright with illusion.
I gaze at the curves of the distant hills;
I listen… On Tung-Ting Lake, also, it is spring!
2
汉诗英译
Evening Bells
By Fang Ling-yu
（1928年10月发表在Dial，选自《陈逵中英诗文选》P163-164）
The evening bells are ringing…
Words of divine talk…
For whom?
The moon is round and bright…
But the Garden of Renown
Stands silent.
Wind blows…
Leaves fall at my feet…
In my light coat
I walk in the cold…
Alone…
Above my head—
Tears shining…
3
散文
01
The Gift of the First Presentation
（1928年4月发表在Dial，选自《陈逵中英诗文选》P67-77）
It was soon after breakfast. Stealthily I made my way out to the garden house. There I folded back my sleeve-muffs; I shook off my felt-soled shoes, held only by the toe-covering, tugged at the cotton socks, and rolled up the long trouser legs from my now bare ankles. I dug my toes into the warming earth, just to try them—for it was spring and the saps were running.
“This morning I must complete my dam. Perhaps I shall find fish this very afternoon!” This I said to myself, imagining the speckled silver-green bodies—lithe and lacy like the scurry of finny Foam Flower on the painted roll in my father’s collection… perhaps, he would hang the lovely Foam Flower picture to-day, for with us that is suitable to the walls which is seasonable to the year!
At the edge of our garden flowed a tiny streamlet, beyond which extended the bamboo forest. To this I walked, and stood for a while, hesitating. Should I indeed work on my dam this fine morning? Or dig bamboo shoots? There were so many enticing occupations! Springtimes not a single soul in our village is not working. The men are in the rice-fields. The women are spinning and weaving, and their clean, shrill voices penetrate the lattices screening them from the eye. Not even the children are at leisure. If you do not hear them from the schoolhouses, shouting our their lessons, you will see them cow-back, blowing famously at their bamboo flutes, or barefoot like myself busily at work on dams for the village brooks.
I decided to postpone bamboo-shoot digging to another day. Somehow I felt that I should finish the work which I had begun. Besides, mother had told me often enough never to leave one work unfinished in order to start another. Then, too, we might expect rain at any hour—for it was spring—and after the rains come sudden floods, swelling the village brooks into swift little rivers. The speckled Foam Flower travel upstream at this season, upstream with the flood. So, if one have a cunning dam prepared, with the retreat of the flood they are caught in the pool it creates. I set to work at once, to complete my dam.
Alone I worked, with diligence and hopefulness. The morning sun of the late springtime was all loveliness. The water was a little chilly, but only soothingly chilly. And it was so fresh and clear! No sooner had I roiled it with the mud of the dammaking than it became clear once more, all of its own flow. This gave an added joy to my work. I liked to see the incessant coming of the clear water, driving away the muddied wateer…
“Ching-yü, Ching-yü!”
I heard my name called, and, a little frightened, I turned. It might be mother, who had warned me to stay away from the stream. This was because the Astrologer had carefully cautioned her to keep me far from the evil influence of the Water-Star and all that was within his influence. For my part, I should tell the Astrologer to mind his own stars, and sing to his hu-ching! To my mind Astrologers know little enough either of stars or music!
But it was only my grandmother’s nurse.
“Oh, here you are! Get out of the water quickly! I won’t tell your mother this time—but I shall if ever I find you there again… Your mother wants you at once. Two very dear and honourable guests have come.”
“Who are they? And why do guests always wish to see me?” I am irritated. I do not like to have my work interrupted. It might rain this very night, and my pool become an underwater garden, filled with Foam Flower.
“They are from a distance. You’ll learn to know them. Come on now and change your clothes.”
“Ching-yü,” says my mother when I have made my appearance in the parlour—now with my handsomest flowered robe and jacket and silk-topped shoes—“kotow to Third Aunt.”
“So this is Ching-yü,” observes the guest. “How well he knows polite manners.” She turns to me: “You are in school, I suppose?”
I shake my head, embarrassed, but my mother answers for me, apologetically:
“I have not felt like sending him away with his brothers. At present I devote whatever leisure I have to teaching him. And you know that he has been adopted by the Merciful Goddess.”
I was standing beside my mother, motionless and with bowed head. I was not at all interested in her conversation with Third Aunt. There was another guest, who also was in the room. My heart was throbbing.
I could see only her dress—white linen printed with green bamboo leaf design. She was seated sedately, with her hands folded in her lap, and I could see her hands, little delicate hands adorned with lovely bracelets of jade as translucently green as the bodies of my admired Foam Flower in the clear water. She was seated close beside her mother, and I ventured—shielded from observation by the conversational interest of my elders—to take a brief, surreptitious glance at her face. Beautiful! beyond poet’s words beautiful! My cheeks, my eyes, my neck—I could feel them hot and red. I knew that I had been impolite, yet I did not wish to leave the place; I should have been content to stay if but for the hope of another vision of the cocoon-smooth hair and the bright black eyes and the lotus-petal cheeks of her! Once again I tried to look up—but manners had conquered courage, and I dared go no further than her shoulder, and the smooth curve beneath her chin. There, around her neck, was a silver ring, and suspended from it a pendant inscribed with the two characters which pray “Long Life” for their wearer. I was delighted. For I had had a neck-ring of the same kind. It was now two years since I had ceased to wear it. People regarded it as unbecoming for a boy to wear a neck-ring after he had passed his eighth birthday. Girls, of course, might continue with theirs until the age of ten. Nevertheless, I wished that I might show her my ring, and that I might closely examine hers. If we could only compare them intimately, she and I… But I knew that this was impossible.
For the moment I was sunk in sadness. If I were but a girl! or she a boy cousin and not a girl cousin! It did not occur to me to rebel against the established code of a Confucian family, but I was conscious, and keenly conscious, of suffering from this ancient and honoured law of familiar deportment. Right thought it might be, it was depriving me of a playmate for whom, I longed… parlours and conversations and sittings-in-chairs were all well enough for growth people; they seemed to enjoy them… but for us, the two of us, my lovely cousin and my longing self… why, there might be Foam Flower in the pool even now! The thought was maddening, and no doubt I appeared to be tired and awkward; and when I heard my mother say: “You are excused, Ching-yü,” I hurried away from the parlour.
Directly I went to my bedroom. I took from its red leather box my silver neck-ring, and examined it attentively to see if it really closely resembled the one worn by my girl cousin. Yes, there was no mistaking! They were verily mates! I was elated, for here at least was a symbol of kinship, and I felt as if I knew my lovely cousin as well as if hours of playtime had been passed together. I remembered, too, that the ring had been given me by Second Aunt, now five years gone. It was on the day that I had been given in Sonship to beautiful Kwan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. I had been a sickly child, and my mother had prayed to the goddess, and had named me in her presence, and had asked for me her mothering protection and fostering care. Perhaps my cousin also had been devoted to Kwan Yin? Perhaps we were both children of the Divine Mother? Surely, it was Second Aunt who had given both rings, and surely it was for the one reason, and surely we were for each other… After some minutes of close examination, I replaced the ring in its red leather box.
I went to the kitchen and asked the cook for two eggs.
“What for?” she questioned.
“To make fire-fly lanterns,” I answered.
“Oh no!” she jested, “I know! I know!”
“What do you know? You know nothing!”
I was provoked, fearing she had discerned my secret. The whole world was too small for me! I could have nothing that I desired. Even the cook had the right to interfere in my affairs!
I felt the kitchen with the eggs, but I could not but overhear the cook’s laugh, as she joked with the kitchen-maid: “Fire-fly lanterns! For younger cousin Yu Lian!”
Delightful! At least, I had learned my girl cousin’s name! This knowledge added immense richness to my idealization of her.
“Yu Lian!” I muted the name with pleasantness, thinking all the while of its meaning. “Yu Lian! What name can better suit her sweet form? Lotus of Jade! But she is far more lovely than even her name signifies… more lovely, yes, more lovely than the jade-green Foam Flower in the clear pool!”
The whole house was upset for the celebration of the arrival of our rare and dear and honourable guests. All conversation, all thinking, all work was concerned with them, and only them. My two elder sisters were recalled from their school in the rear apartment. One of them took the place of mother as mistress of the household, so that my mother could give herself wholly to the entertainment of my aunt. The other was appointed hostess of our Younger Cousin, and the two were speedily at play. As for me, I was carefully instructed not to go near them. “Go see our teacher in the rear apartment,” First Elder Sister suggested. Then all left me.
The banquet of welcome was in preparation. Our best china was brought forth—china which commanded high respect in our house, for it was a portion of mother’s dowry, and had been given her by her Fourth Uncle who had obtained it while he was Imperial Examiner of the Province of Kiangsi, and it is in Kiangsi that the finest china of the Middle Kingdom is produced. Then Laurel Blossom Tea was brewed. Laurel blossoms are the annual product of the two laurel-trees in our garden, but the tea-leaves came from far-away Hangchow. Of course, the ivory chopsticks also appeared. They are for all rare occasions.
But in all the excitement I was left unheeded. The servants were whispering, but when I approached they ceased at once, and smiled at one another knowingly. This irritated me. I hid myself in my bedroom. I did not wish to see any one. It was then that I accidentally discovered that something had been left, quite in plain sight, since I had come to examine my neck-ring and see if it truly were a mate for the “Long Life” at the neck of my lovely Younger Cousin. There it was, a packer in bright paper, with my name clearly written upon it. I picked it up, and carefully untied the golden thread and folded out the scarlet wrappings. There within was the Gift of the First Presentation. First, an ink-grinder of chrysanthemum stone, and the case within which it was set was of palisander wood beautifully carved with the nebulous curves of the Cloud Pattern, and second there was a cloisonne’ ink-holder, blue with the Heron-and-Lotus design which means that its owner shall be a sage fisher after wise thoughts in the pool bright with the Flower of the Good Man. For ours had always been a family proud of its scholars and poets. I knew very well that these treasures were from Third Aunt. I had been shown into her presence for the first time, and here were her Good Fortune greetings to me.
“Ching-yü!” A familiar voice came from behind me. I turned to see my chum Hwa-yuan. “Can you guess why your aunt is paying her visit to your mother?”
“Why is it?” I asked indifferently. “I don’t know.”
“It is a secret. I won’t tell you. I am not expected to tell any one.” His manner was that of a merchant of precious goods, which, as a matter of fact, he would sell most cheaply. I was, therefore, not discouraged.
“A secret! Come, tell me! I have always told you what I have heard. Come, tell! Please!”
“Well, you must not disclose that you have learned it from me. And you must not blush.”
“What is it? I won’t do anything of that sort, you may be sure. The Thunder God blow me if I do!” I began to be impatient.
“It is about yourself,” he said in a low voice. “Have you seen your dear Cousin Yu Lian? It is about her, too.” He took on a jesting manner: “O child! I heard my sisters say that she is the prettiest girl in the world! She used to go to the new school, and was the best student of all! Her calligraphy is even superior to that of your Second Elder-Brother. What luck! O child! ... But I must be going. Elder-Sister sent me to borrow some bush-case patterns for embroidery. She is waiting.”
I had been embarrassed while Hwa-yuan was talking. Now that he was gone I rejoiced. I felt that I should blush to see any one in the house. I wished to be alone. So I pretended to be reading a book, there in my bedroom.
Supper was over. Day embraced Night. Frogs began their Hastening-the-Farmers-to-Work song, which is always theirs when spring breaks and the rice-fields call for labour. The moon was yet behind the Eastern Hill. But the fire-flies were already abroad, wandering wandering, and flecking the dusk with their momentary glows.
Equipped with a bulrush fan, I went out to the Drying-Rice Field, and there I caught many fire-flies. One by one I put them into the shells of the two eggs, from which the original contents had been drained through a tiny hole. With my take of flies I return to my room. There, carefully, I hang the fragile fire-fly cages by silken threads, each to an ivory curtain-hook of my bed. Within their narrowed universes the fire-flies show their glories. They are perfect little lanterns. In my heart I dedicate one of them to my Younger Cousin Yu Lian. “Lotus of Jade,” I think. “How lovely is her name!” Rejoicing, I look out into the dusk. I can hear faintly the trickle and tinkle of the stream that courses at the foot of the bamboo grove. There is a pool there for the Foam Flower, and some day—how soon! —we to shall be watching the lacy fins in the clear waters…
The Moon looks in through the window. He has just peeped over the Eastern Hill. I am inspired! And down I kneel with the Gift of the First Presentation upheld with both hands.
“Good Old Man, Moon,” I cry. “Be kind to us on this Earth! It is you who can see true hearts of true lovers! Through you they become happy! O Wise-man Moon! If you see that my heart and the heart of my Heart’s Man are true, do spin for us a red silken thread, to bind our feet together, that we may love for ever! Every day I will burn incense, every day I will kotow to you, every day while I live! Be kind to us on Earth!
I kotowed many times before I arose.
I was in the Flowery Land. There I saw Younger Cousin Yu Lian, at a little distance. She was reaching up her lily hand—still wearing the jade-green bracelet—about to die a poem to a branch of blossoming peach-tree. The poem was very beautiful; it was written in the most exquisite calligraphy. In my heart I knew that it must be a love-poem…
Boldly I advanced my steps. Her name… “Lotus of Jade” … it was all but spoken… But when I came to the place where she had been..
It is only in their own world, within the water, that the Foam Flower are truly beautiful… Their life is there…
“Ching-yü, Ching-yü!”
It was my mother’s voice. I rubbed my eyes as the morning sun looked in upon me.
02
Seven Chapters of Autobiography
（注：该文单独编辑在另一篇推文中）
《陈逵中英诗文选》，张墨，南开大学出版社，1995年6月第1版
主编：李伟荣
编辑：王梦华
校对：郭紫云
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