沃尔科特诗选（19首）

沃尔科特诗选（19首）
附原文

一．星

假如在万物的光华中，你褪色为
凡真之物，却又黯然退向
我们约定而恰当的
距离，就像月亮
在树叶之间彻夜点亮，愿你
也无形地愉悦这间小屋；
有着双份怜悯的星星啊，你过早地
来到黄昏，又太晚地
值守黎明，愿你苍白的火焰
指引我们心中最黑暗的部分
渡过这混乱，
带着你白昼的
激情。

1969

阿九译 ****
（2006）

Star

Derek Walcott

If, in the light of things, you fade
real, yet wanly withdrawn
to our determined and appropriate
distance, like the moon left on
all night among the leaves, may
you invisibly delight this house;
O star, doubly compassionate, who came
too soon for twilight, too late
for dawn, may your pale flame
direct the worst in us
through chaos
with the passion of
plain day.

1969

二．远离非洲

风滋扰着非洲褐色的
毛皮。基库尤人，迅捷如一群苍蝇，
在草原的血流中壮大起来。
尸体在乐园遍地横陈，
只有蛆虫，这腐肉堆上的上校，在大喊：
“不要在这些零碎的尸体上挥霍怜悯！”
统计数字支持着，学者们把持着
殖民政策的要点。
对于被人砍死在被窝里的白人儿童，那意味着什么？
至于野蛮人，他们不过是犹太人一样的消耗品？

猎人不断的敲打折断了细长的灯芯草，
鹭鸶像一道白色的烟尘惊飞起来，
它们的叫声自文明之初
就盘旋在炎热的河谷，野兽出没的平原。
野兽对野兽的暴力被解读为
自然的法则，直立的人类
却通过制造创伤来追求神性。
他像那些烦躁的野兽一样癫狂，他的战争
随着蒙着兽皮的鼓点起舞，
而他称之为勇气的，是对死者们订立的
白色和平的天生的厌恶。

再一次，兽性的需要
在一块肮脏事业的纸巾上擦手；再一次，
我们的同情被滥用，就像在西班牙，
猿人和超人在彼此搏击。
我被双方的血液毒害，
分裂直到每一根血管；我该面朝何方？
我曾诅咒过
英据时代醉醺醺的官员，我该在
这个非洲和我爱恋的英语之间挑选谁？
我两个都去背叛，还是把他们给我的全都奉还？
我怎能面对如此的屠杀而保持冷静？
我怎能背离非洲而生？

1962

阿九译 ***

A Far Cry From Africa

Derek Walcott

A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt
Of Africa, Kikuyu, quick as flies,
Batten upon the bloodstreams of the veldt.
Corpses are scattered through a paradise.
Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries:
"Waste no compassion on these separate dead!"
Statistics justify and scholars seize
The salients of colonial policy.
What is that to the white child hacked in bed?
To savages, expendable as Jews?

Threshed out by beaters, the long rushes break
In a white dust of ibises whose cries
Have wheeled since civilizations dawn
From the parched river or beast-teeming plain.
The violence of beast on beast is read
As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.
Delirious as these worried beasts, his wars
Dance to the tightened carcass of a drum,
While he calls courage still that native dread
Of the white peace contracted by the dead.

Again brutish necessity wipes its hands
Upon the napkin of a dirty cause, again
A waste of our compassion, as with Spain,
The gorilla wrestles with the superman.
I who am poisoned with the blood of both,
Where shall I turn, divided to the vein?
I who have cursed
The drunken officer of British rule, how choose
Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?
Betray them both, or give back what they give?
How can I face such slaughter and be cool?
How can I turn from Africa and live?

1962

三．诗二首，记一个帝国的覆灭

其一

一只苍鹭飞过清晨的沼泽，刹住
振动的双翅装点了一个树桩
                （感谢上帝，
由于这个动作，地上的景色完美无缺，
在这一瞬间，时间和运动
成了引领罗马踏平一切的铁蹄的象征，
也是肩负律法的前殖民地总督们一生的追求）
并在这片刻的宁静上留下一声哀号。

其二

在他居所的狭小棺材里，那个退伍军人，
一个参加过非洲战役的老兵，
弯着腰，像是在穿一个永恒的针孔；
像所有的坟墓那样，他的脑袋上只睁了一只眼而且剪过毛，
他间或抬起荒凉的目光，
听孩子们唱，“征服吧，不列颠，征服……”[1]
似乎他们也需要练习装死。
尽管他只剩下一颗树脂的假眼和摇晃的下巴，
男孩们还是要为一张筛网抛洒鲜血；
如果这一只眼睛也要流泪，他们是否会相信
与这根空袖管一样蹩脚的旗帜？

1962

阿九译 ***

[1] 征服吧，不列颠！你征服一切。1745年英人James Thomson写的一首宣泄爱国主义情绪的歌，歌中唱道：“征服吧，不列颠！征服这万顷波涛！不列颠人永远不做奴隶。”(Rule, Britannia! Britannia, rule the waves: Britons never shall be slaves.) 伴随着这首歌，英国在全球扩张，并使众多弱小民族沦为奴隶，包括沃尔科特的故乡圣卢西亚。诗人在这两首作品中，用“感谢上帝”“蹩脚的旗帜”等措辞对覆灭的日不落帝国进行了冷峻的嘲弄。

Two Poems on the Passing of an Empire

Derek Walcott

I

A heron flies across the morning marsh and brakes
its teetering wings to decorate a stump
  (thank God
that from this time and motion at a period
as such an emblem led Rome's trampling feet,
pursued by late proconsuls bearing law)
and underline this quiet with a caw.

II

In the small coffin of his house, the pensioner,
A veteran of the African campaign,
Bends, as if threading an eternal needle;
One-eyed as any grave, his skull, cropped wool,
Or lifts his desert squint to hear
The children singing, "Rule, Britannia, rule,"
As if they needed practise to play dead.
Boys will still pour their blood out for a sieve
Despite his balsam eye and doddering jaw;
And if one eye should weep, would they believe
In such a poor flag as an empty sleeve?

1962

四．海葡萄 [1]

那张因厌倦了岛屿
而依向阳光的帆 [2]
是一艘加勒比海上击水的纵帆船

在返航的途中，也许是奥德修
在爱琴海上踏上归途；
那是一个父亲和丈夫的

渴望，挂在一串酸葡萄下，正如
那个奸夫能在海鸥的每一声叫喊中
听见瑙西卡的名字。

这让所有人都不得安宁。迷恋与责任[3]
之间的那场古老的战争
将永无尽头，而且一直如此，

无论对海上的漂泊者，还是此刻已在岸上
吊着拖鞋回家的人，从特洛伊
叹别它最后的战火，

到瞎眼的巨人将巨石投入浪谷，[4]
直到自那狂涛中，伟大的六音步诗行
拍岸到达了终点。

经卷抚慰人心。可惜远远不够。

1976

阿九译 ***

[1] 在1976年发表于《美国诗刊》(The American Poetry Review)时，这首诗的标题是“酸葡萄”，编入1984年的《沃尔科特诗选》时才改为现在的题目。全文有不少修改。
[2] “依向阳光”(leans on lght)在1976年初稿里写作“驶在无云的光下”(sails in cloudless light)。
[3] “迷恋”(obsession)在初稿里作“激情”(passion)。
[4] 这里的巨人指奥德修在库克罗普斯遇到的独眼巨人，海神之子波吕菲摩斯(Polyphemus)。他被狡猾的奥德赛刺瞎眼睛后，朝他逃逸的方向扔下了一块巨石，掀起波涛。这暗示了旅程的艰险。

Sea Grapes

Derek Walcott

That sail which leans on light,
tired of islands,
a schooner beating up the Caribbean

for home, could be Odysseus,
home-bound on the Aegean;
that father and husband's

longing, under gnarled sour grapes, is like
the adulterer hearing Nausicaa's name in
every gull's outcry.

This brings nobody peace. The ancient war
between obsession and responsibility will
never finish and has been the same

for the sea-wanderer or the one on shore now
wriggling on his sandals to walk home, since
Troy sighed its last flame,

and the blind giant's boulder heaved the trough from
whose groundswell the great hexameters come to the
conclusions of exhausted surf.

The classics can console. But not enough.

五．欧罗巴

满月如此强劲，我分明能够看见
椰子树投在平房上的彼此簇拥的影子；
那些白色的墙壁正因失眠而愠怒。
星星们一滴一滴地漏在
海杏树的铁甲片上，坏笑的云彩 [1]
皱成一团，像是明媚的床单。
浪花那永不满足的淫荡的呻吟
穿墙过来，而我感到我的心
也在月光下一片空白，涂改着
白昼设计的毫不含混的图案，
将树影改编成浪沫中弯曲的少女的身体；
再近一点，却是一座黑色的山丘，
带着温存的呼哧声，在靠近 [2]
正向酥胸上泼洒银波的赤裸少女。
假如贞洁的月亮没有迅速拉上黑云的帘子
让双方的影子交合在一起，
他们恐怕还保持着得体的距离。

她与那华丽的闪光调情，是的，可一旦
你臣服于人性的淫乱，你就能
透过月光看清他们究竟是什么，
那是扮成配种的公牛或是发情的天鹅的诸神——
就像是极尽煽情的农夫的手抄本。
有谁看见过她白皙的双臂勾着他的犄角，
她的大腿在他们大幅起落的驰骋中死死地夹住，[3]
谁又看见过，伴随着尽情释放的咝咝的白沫，
她白嫩的肉体聚起一个星座，发出白磷般的微光，
正如咸腻的黑暗里，野兽和美女一起来了？[4]
和从前一样，那里什么也没有，
只有泡沫在楔入天际的熹微，
再穿透精细的，镶着银钉的甲胄，
像他黯淡的毛皮上仍在颤栗的水滴，
那隆起和犄角也都消解并潜隐于群星之中。

阿九译 ***

[1] 海杏树，原文作 sea almond (Terminalia catappa)，一种生长在热带和亚热带海边的阔叶乔木，叶子呈椭圆状，厚实如小甲片。
[2] 呼哧声，原文作snorting。注意不是snoring (鼾声)，而是牛马大牲畜呼吸时鼻子里发出的轻微呼哧声；发情中的牲口尤其明显。
[3] 原文是their deep-plunging ride，这个their表明ride这个动作是两个人的事。前面的deep-plunging ride是典型的隐喻，第一层意思是欧罗巴神话里欧罗巴被宙斯幻化成的公牛劫持，下海狂奔，第二层意思则是男女“以骑跨姿势深深的交合”。此前读过傅浩先生的译作，此处他译作“他们深潜的驰骋”，其中“驰骋”二字完美得无可挑剔，也让我在翻译时无法绕过。不过，因为二人并未深潜入海，而是在海面上狂奔，所以我姑且译作“大幅起落的驰骋”，同样保留了所有的双关。
[4] 来了，原文作come，指性高潮。傅译作“丢了”，正是中国传统情色文学里的习惯用法，在当代汉语里却很少使用。用“来了”更加自然。

Europa

Derek Walcott

The full moon is so fierce that I can count the
coconuts' cross-hatched shade on bungalows,
their white walls raging with insomnia.
The stars leak drop by drop on the tin plates
of the sea almonds, and the jeering clouds
are luminously rumpled as the sheets.
The surf, insatiably promiscuous,
groans through the walls; I feel my mind
whiten to moonlight, altering that form
which daylight unambiguously designed,
from a tree to a girl's body bent in foam;
then, treading close, the black hump of a hill,
its nostrils softly snorting, nearing the
naked girl splashing her breasts with silver.
Both would have kept their proper distance still,
if the chaste moon hadn't swiftly drawn the drapes
of a dark cloud, coupling their shapes.

She teases with those flashes, yes, but once
you yield to human horniness, you see
through all that moonshine what they really were,
those gods as seed-bulls, gods as rutting swans---
an overheated farmhand's literature.
Who ever saw her pale arms hook his horns,
her thighs clamped tight in their deep-plunging ride,
watched, in the hiss of the exhausted foam,
her white flesh constellate to phosphorous
as in salt darkness beast and woman come?
Nothing is there, just as it always was,
but the foam's wedge to the horizon-light,
then, wire-thin, the studded armature,
like drops still quivering on his matted hide,
the hooves and horn-points anagrammed in stars.

六．东方的不死之黍

玉米是东方的不死之黍。永远不要收割，也无须播种。
我相信，它一直站立在那里，从永远直到永远。
——特拉赫恩，《诸世纪的沉思》

在十三岁的他面前，自然像一个巨兽。
患上疟疾，浑身流淌着罪恶，
在立马可和晚祷中被赦免。[1]
当黄昏染红他憔悴的面容，这个天才少年
在研究燕子如何一边反复念叨着人类堕落
一边接合了对峙的檐角。
当那无声的滑翔带着自己的体温
掠过树叶、山坡、屋顶和庭院，
他又对着铁皮反射过来的耀眼异象泪流满面，
虽然为什么他也不大清楚。
就这样，在炽热的白铁皮的提示下，
天国向一双生着热病的眼睛打开，
罪就是这样发生的，天真也变成了智慧。

这场热病被称为原罪，
这人格化了的爱照亮了地狱，
也在天父的面前为他招来了一个指控：
为街上气若游丝的孤儿
还有在昏暗中朝着家爬行的病残者流泪，
当那个人头随着乱发摇曳的掌灯人走来，
带着他的脚步踏上台阶时的阴森：
像端着汤的老妈，但更像是
混沌，大地的生母，她的名字叫作夜。

1962

阿九译 ***

[1] 立马可，原文作Limacol，与市场上销售的一种植物油精同名，用于爽身止痒。

Orient and Immortal Wheat

Derek Walcott

The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never
should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood
from everlasting to everlasting.
- Traherne, Centuries of Meditations

Natue seemed monstrous to his thirteen years.
Prone to malaria, sweating inherent sin,
Absolved in Limacol and evening prayers,
The prodigy, dusk rouging his peaked face,
Studied the swallows stitch the opposing eaves
In repetitions of the fall from grace.
And as a gliding silence flushed the leaves,
Hills, roofs, and yards with his own temperature,
He wept again, though why, he was unsure,
At dazzling visions of reflected tin.
So heaven is revealed to fevered eyes,
So is sin born, and innocence made wise,
By intimations of hot galvanize.

This was the fever called original sin,
Such anthropomorphic love illumines hell,
A charge brought to his Heavenly Father’s face
That wept for bat-voiced orphans in the streets
And cripples limping homeward in weak light,
When the lamplighter, his head swung by it hair,
Meant the dread footfall lumping up the stair:
Maman with soup, perhaps; or it cold well
Be Chaos, genderer of Earth, called Night.

1962

七．准备流亡

为什么我会想像曼德尔施塔姆
死在渐渐发黄的椰林间，
为什么我的天赋已在不安地频频回首
想找一个影子填进门框
并将这一页交给日月的亏蚀？
为什么月亮会盈成一道弧光灯
而我手上的墨迹已经准备好
在耸肩的警官面前按下姆指？
为什么空气中会有一种新的气味，不同于
它曾经的咸涩，和破晓时的酸橙味，
而我的猫，我知道我是在想像它，在我的路前跳过，
我的孩子的眼睛早已像是远在天边，
而我的诗，即便是这一首，也想到处躲藏？

1976

阿九译 ***

Preparing for Exile

Derek Walcott

Why do I imagine the death of Mandelstam
among the yellowing coconuts,
Why does my gift already look over it shoulder
for a shadow to fill the door
and pass this very page into eclipse?
Why does the moon increase into an arc-lamp
and the inkstain on my hand prepare to press thumb-downward
before a shrugging sergeant?
What is this new odour in the air
that was once salt, that smelt like lime at daybreak,
and my cat, I know I imagine it, leap from my path,
and my children’s eyes already seem like horizons,
and all my poems, even this one, wish to hide?

1976

八．晨月

依然魅惑于月亮的轮回，
打着满帆疾行，
经过摩纳可可山蜷伏的鲸背，

我惊骇于她清醒的光辉。

那是十二月之初，
微风刷新了大地的皮肤
和水面的寒兢，

而我注意到
摩纳可可山投下的深蓝的影子，
像十二月的日晷，

我高兴的是，大地仍在变化，
满月还能用她的前额使我迷目，
在这个明亮的清晨，

还有白色的须芒从我的胡子上伸出来。

1976

阿九译 ***

The Morning Moon

Derek Walcott

Still haunted by the cycle of the moon
Racing full sail
Past the crouched whale’s back of Morne Coco Mountain,

I gasp at her sane brightness.

It’s early December,
The breeze freshens the skin of the earth,
The goose-skin of water,

And I notice the blue plunge
Of shadows down Morne Coco Mountain,
December’s sundial,

Happy that the earth is still changing,
That the full moon can blind me with her forehead
This bright foreday morning,

And that fine sprigs of white are springing from my beard.

1976

九．新世界地图之一：群岛

这个句子的尽头，雨会开始飘下。
雨的边线上，是一张帆。

慢慢的，群岛自帆的视野消失；
一个种族对港口的信仰
也驶入了迷雾。

十年的仗打完了。
海伦的头发是一片乌云，
而特洛伊已是烟雨茫茫的海边
一只盛满白灰的火坑。

细雨渐密，像竖琴的丝弦。
一个目光阴沉的男子用手指扣住雨丝，
把《奥德赛》的第一行轻轻拨响。

阿九译 *****

Map of the New World: I. Archipelagoes

Derek Walcott

At the end of this sentence, rain will begin.
At the rain's edge, a sail.

Slowly the sail will lose sight of islands;
into a mist will go the belief in harbours
of an entire race.

The ten-years war is finished.
Helen's hair, a grey cloud.
Troy, a white ashpit
by the drizzling sea.

The drizzle tightens like the strings of a harp.
A man with clouded eyes picks up the rain
and plucks the first line of the Odyssey.

From "Collected Poems, 1948-1984"

十．爱之后的爱

总有那么一天，
你会满心欢喜地
在你自己的门前，
自己的镜中，欢迎你的到来，
彼此微笑致意，
并且说：这儿请坐；请吃。

你会重新爱上这个曾经是你的陌生人。
给他酒喝，给他饭吃。把你的心
还给它自己，还给这个爱了你一生，
被你因别人而忽视
却一直用心记着你的陌生人。

把你的情书从架上拿下来，
还有那些照片、绝望的小纸条，
从镜中揭下你自己的影子。
坐下来。享用你的一生。

阿九译 ****

Love After Love

Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

十一．拳

紧握着我心脏的那只拳头
稍稍松开；我大口呼吸
这份明快轻松，但它又再次
握住。我何曾没有爱过
这爱的痛苦？但这次它超出了

爱而达到疯狂。它有着
疯子一样的钳握；这是在嚎叫着坠入
深渊前，死死扣住
非理性的悬崖。

心啊，就这样紧紧地扣住。
这样，至少你还能活着。

阿九译 ***

The Fist

Derek Walcott

The fist clenched round my heart
loosens a little, and I gasp
brightness; but it tightens
again. When have I ever not loved
the pain of love? But this has moved

past love to mania. This has the strong
clench of the madman, this is gripping the ledge of
unreason before
plunging howling into the abyss.

Hold hard then, heart.
This way at least you live.

十二．明天，明天

我记得那些我从未真切见过的
城市。有着银色静脉的威尼斯，带着
太妃般扭曲的塔尖的列宁格勒。巴黎。很快
印象派们会把阴影画成阳光。
哦！还有蛇环一样渐渐松开的海德拉巴的小巷
对爱过的人，天地就像荒岛；
它令人眼光蒙蔽，经验狭窄。
虽然精神快意，但心智却变得肮脏。
肉体在亵迹点点的衣被下浪费自己，
用杂志开阔着世界观。
门外有一个世界，但这多么让人心烦，
当你背着行囊站在冷冷的楼梯上
看黎明染红了砖墙，而在你开始后悔之前
你叫的出租车就带着一声笛响，
灵车一样缓缓停靠在你的路边，而你钻进车里。

阿九译 ***

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

Derek Walcott

I remember the cities I have never seen
exactly. Silver-veined Venice, Leningrad
with its toffee-twisted minarets. Paris. Soon
the Impressionists will be making sunshine out of shade.
Oh! and the uncoiling cobra alleys of Hyderabad.
To have loved one horizon is insularity;
it blindfolds vision, it narrows experience.
The spirit is willing, but the mind is dirty.
The flesh wastes itself under crumb-sprinkled linens,
widening the Weltanschauung with magazines.
A world's outside the door, but how upsetting
to stand by your bags on a cold step as dawn
roses the brickwork and before you start regretting,
your taxi's coming with one beep of its horn,
sidling to the curb like a hearse -- so you get in.

十三．自勉

我住在水上，
一个人，没有老婆孩子。
我仔细研究过每一种可能性，
到最后才发现：

在黑水边，有一座矮屋，
窗子永远开着，
面向陈旧的大海。我们不会去选择这样，

我们只是本来应该怎样，就是怎样。
我们历经苦难，年复一年，
我们卸得下货载，却卸不下自己

生命的重负。爱是一块石头，
栖在黑水下的
海床上。此刻，除了真情，

对诗歌我一无所求，
不要怜悯、名声、医治。沉默的妻子，
我们可以坐下来，看黯淡的海水，

并在淹没于
平庸与废品的一生中
活得像一块石头。

我要忘却情感，
忘却自己的天赋。这比生命中经历的一切
都更伟大，更艰难。

阿九译 ***

Winding Up

Derek Walcott

I live on the water,
alone. Without wife and children,
I have circled every possibility
to come to this:

a low house by grey water,
with windows always open
to the stale sea. We do not choose such things,

but we are what we have made.
We suffer, the years pass,
we shed freight but not our need

for encumbrances. Love is a stone
that settled on the sea-bed
under grey water. Now, I require nothing

from poetry but true feeling,
no pity, no fame, no healing. Silent wife,
we can sit watching grey water,

and in a life awash
with mediocrity and trash
live rock-like.

I shall unlearn feeling,
unlearn my gift. That is greater
and harder than what passes there for life.

十四．死于大火的城市

那个煽情的布道者刚刚扫荡了一切，除了教堂上的天空，
我便在油灯下记述一个城市如何死于大火；
在蜡烛被烟熏得泪水充沛的目光下，我
想用比石蜡更多的话语，讲述铅丝一样崩断的信仰。
整整一天，我在乱石般的传说间走动，
街边的每一堵墙都像骗子一样让我吃惊；
被群鸟震撼的天空如此喧闹，所有的云都像
被劫的包裹，尽管是在火中，还那样白。
在基督走过的浓烟滚滚的海面上，我问，为什么
当他木质的世界不再管用时，人会哭得像一根蜡烛？
在城里，树叶是纸，而山丘是迭起的信仰；
对一个整日闲逛的男孩来说，每一片叶子都是一次绿色的
呼吸，把我以为早就僵冷了的爱重建一次，
祝福着死亡，还有这火的洗礼。

阿九译 ***

A City's Death by Fire

Derek Walcott

After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky,
I wrote the tale by tallow of a city's death by fire;
Under a candle's eye, that smoked in tears, I
Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire.
All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales,
Shocked at each wall that stood on the street like a liar;
Loud was the bird-rocked sky, and all the clouds were bales
Torn open by looting, and white, in spite of the fire.
By the smoking sea, where Christ walked, I asked, why
Should a man wax tears, when his wooden world fails?
In town, leaves were paper, but the hills were a flock of faiths;
To a boy who walked all day, each leaf was a green breath
Rebuilding a love I thought was dead as nails,
Blessing the death and the baptism by fire.

十五．真理

分享面包
就是分享生命，
但除了真理――
你只能在夜里到床上
听真理
在你的手心
一只儿时的钟面上
挣扎：这
冰冷的屋子
是一只翻了的小船，
而几面白墙
是打湿的帆……

阿九译 ***

Truth

Derek Walcott

Sharing bread
is sharing life
but truth-
you ought to go to bed at night
to hear the truth
strike
on the childhood clock
in your arms: the
cold house
a turned-over boat,
the walls
wet canvases...

十六．名声

名声就是：星期天，
巴尔蒂斯画中的
那种虚空。

是乱石堆砌的小巷，
但被日光照得灿烂无比，
是一堵墙，一座棕色的塔楼

在街道的末了，
是一朵没有铃铛的蓝铃花
像一张毫无生气的画布

固定在百色的
画框上，还有几朵花：
几朵剑兰，生硬的

剑兰，石质的花瓣
插在一根花瓶上。唱诗班
高上云霄的赞美诗

休止了音符。一册
自己翻开的
图版。还有高跟鞋

在行道上的嘀哒声。
一座爬行的钟。
一种对上班的渴望。

阿九译 ***

Fame

Derek Walcott

This is Fame: Sundays,
an emptiness
as in Balthus,

cobbled alleys,
sunlit, aureate,
a wall, a brown tower

at the end of a street,
a blue without bells,
like a dead canvas

set in its white
frame, and flowers:
gladioli, lame

gladioli, stone petals
in a vase. The choir's
sky-high praise

turned off. A book
of prints that turns
by itself. The ticktock

of high heels on a sidewalk.
A crawling clock.
A craving for work.

十七．波兰骑士

侧影画中，青灰马“死神”驮着少年提多，
沿着寸寸燃烬的白昼走进黑森林；
目力不再的父亲心中的爱子
正像丢勒的骑士跨着罗辛南特战马；
但少年愉人的英姿无法掩饰马蹄的失步。
勇士转过身去，朝着父亲
再次投去确信而坚定的目光，
这匹继承来的驽马准确无误地
驰向充满象征的森林，它时刻呼唤着
猛龙扈从的骑士赶赴那里长眠。
但骑术在暗暗嘉许着骑手，
这青灰而面无血色的战马虽然早已通体僵绝，
却仍以不死的姿态托起自己的凶手，
它清澈的目光静待着下一时代的解读。

阿九译 ****

The Polish Rider

Derek Walcott

The grey horse, Death, in profile bears the young Titus
To dark woods by the dying coal of day;
The father with worn vision portrays the son
Like Dürer's knight astride a Rosinante;
The horse disturbs more than the youth delights us.
The warrior turns his sure gaze for a second,
Assurance looks its father in the eye,
The inherited, bony hack heads accurately
Towards the symbolic forests that have beckoned
Such knights, squired by the scyther, where to lie.
But skill dispassionately praises the rider,
Despair details the grey, cadaverous steed,
The immortal image holds its murderer
In a clear gaze for the next age to read.

十八．仲夏，多巴哥

宽阔的，太阳石的海滩。

白炽的热力。
碧蓝的河流。

一座小桥，
烤焦的棕榈的黄叶子

自夏日困倦的房屋边伸出，
整个八月都在瞌睡。

我所拥有的日子，
以及失去的日子，

日子就像女儿渐渐长大，
不再守着我的臂弯。

阿九译 ****

Midsummer, Tobago

Derek Walcott

Broad sun-stoned beaches.

White heat.
A green river.

A bridge,
scorched yellow palms

from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.

Days I have held,
days I have lost,

days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms.

十九．遗嘱附言

精神分裂，被两种风格拷打，
一种是雇佣文人帮闲的散文，我用它
来流亡。跋涉在月光下弯刀一样延伸数里的海滩，
我晒着月亮，让它烤着，
直到蜕去了
自爱这大海般的生命。
要改变你的语言，先得改变你的生命。
我无法纠正过去的错误。
浪花厌倦了天涯，自远方归来。
海鸥用生硬的舌头在搁浅的
渐渐腐烂的独木舟上方尖叫。
它们是夏洛特维尔的一片带有毒喙的云。
从前我以为，只要爱国就行，
但现在即使想这样，食槽里也没有我的位子。
我看到最聪明的人在腐朽成走狗，
仅仅为了一点残羹。
我已快到中年，
烤焦的皮肤
纸屑一样从手臂上脱落，薄得跟葱皮一样，
像皮尔·君特的谜语。
心里空无一物，甚至没有
对死的厌恶。我认识很多死者，
跟他们都很熟悉，性格也都相投，
连他们怎么死的我都了如指掌。当身上着火了，
肉体也就不怕地下的炉门，
不怕太阳留下的那个炼狱或者火坑了，
更不怕这个在云中出没的弯刀一样的月亮
把这片海滩烤成一页白纸。
它全部的冷漠不过是另一种狂怒。

阿九译 ****

Codicil

Derek Walcott

Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles,
one a hack's hired prose, I earn
me exile. I trudge this sickle, moonlit beach for miles,
tan, burn
to slough off
this live of ocean that's self-love.
To change your language you must change your life.
I cannot right old wrongs.
Waves tire of horizon and return.
Gulls screech with rusty tongues
Above the beached, rotting pirogues,
they were a venomous beaked cloud at Charlotteville.
Once I thought love of country was enough,
now, even if I chose, there is no room at the trough.
I watch the best minds rot like dogs
for scraps of flavour.
I am nearing middle
age, burnt skin
peels from my hand like paper, onion-thin,
like Peer Gynt's riddle.
At heart there is nothing, not the dread
of death. I know too many dead.
They're all familiar, all in character,
even how they died. On fire,
the flesh no longer fears that furnace mouth
of earth,
that kiln or ashpit of the sun,
nor this clouding, unclouding sickle moon
withering this beach again like a blank page.
All its indifference is a different rage.

注：
[1] 这个版本是最近校对过的。如与网上我本人译文的其他版本有异，以此版本为准。
[2] 每首译文下标注的星号是我自己对译文的打分。三星（***）代表我自认为合格，四星是比较满意，五星是我觉得很得意。请多拍砖指教。