文字难度：★★★
On March 16, 2002, when daffodils were swaying in the slowly warming wind of a 1)North Carolina spring, I found myself in a 2)snug hospital room with my wife and just-born daughter, only hours old, and I thought of ice.
2002年3月16日,北卡罗来纳州的春天时节,水仙花在渐渐变暖的春风中摇曳,我与妻子以及刚刚出生才几个小时的女儿呆在一间温暖的病房里。这时,我想到了冰雪。
A poem called Frost at Midnight, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, was on my mind. In this verse, written in 1798, Coleridge sits near his infant son, Hartley, on a winter night in England. He recalls events from his troubled life, one 3)fraught with chronic miseries, ranging from melancholy to4)botched love to opium addiction to writer’s 5)block. With a 6)fervor usually reserved for prayer, the poet envisions a life for his son free of these problems—a vibrant, creative 7)existence. Coleridge then asks nature itself to nurture his parental hope, 8)invoking the 9)potency of green summer but also, and especially, the winter’s “secret 10)ministry of frost,” “quietly shining to the quiet moon.”
我想起塞缪尔·泰勒·柯勒律治的诗《霜夜》。这首诗写于1798年,在英格兰的一个冬夜,柯勒律治坐在他幼小的儿子哈特利身旁。他回忆起自己坎坷的一生——罹患忧郁症,情路失意跌撞,沉溺鸦片,写作路上又灵感枯竭——悲歌连连。带着祈祷时的那股热情,诗人寄望儿子的生活能免于这一切不幸——过上充满活力且富有创造性的生活。接着,柯勒律治请求大自然呵护成全他对儿子的希望,恳求青葱夏日,尤其是那“向着宁静的月亮静静闪光”的冬日“秘密使者严霜”赐予力量。
As a college professor, I had been teaching Frost at Midnight for years, and had decided, soon after my wife became pregnant, to read the poem to commemorate our baby’s birth. And so I did recite the poem to our girl—we named her Una—hoping, like Coleridge, that her life would be 11)perennially blessed by leaves and ice alike, by summery days but also by the chilly periods when she would most need strength.
作为一名大学教授,我曾教授《霜夜》这首诗多年,而且早在妻子怀孕后不久就决定,要读此诗来纪念我们孩子的出生。后来我的确为我们的女儿(我们给她起名叫尤纳)朗诵了这首诗,如柯勒律治一样,希望她能够永远得到绿叶和寒冰的庇佑,无论是炎炎夏日还是最需要力量的寒冷时节,福佑都不断降临于她。
What intrigued and moved me about the poem was its curious suggestion that gloom and loneliness might actually cultivate a sort of 12)luminous affection. 13)Forlorn most of his life, Coleridge was acutely aware of the 14)bliss of human connection. Had he led a life free of suffering he might have never realized the wondrous fullness that comes during a father’s watch over his child’s midnight sleep.
这首诗吸引并打动我的是其奇特的寓意——阴郁愁苦和孤独实际上可能孕育出一种光芒四射的爱意。大半生的孤凄让柯勒律治深刻意识到人际相处沟通的可贵。如果一生没经历困苦煎熬,他也许永远不会体会到一位父亲午夜看着自己孩子熟睡时那种奇妙的圆满感。
To be hollow with longing is to 15)be suffused with love. The thirsty person best knows water. Wounded hearts realize the essence of healing.
徒有热望的心灵也是最充满爱意的。口渴的人最知道水的滋味。受伤的心灵了解疗伤的真谛。
These are Coleridge’s exhilarating and strangely hopeful conclusions. They are optimistic because they envision a world in which suffering, inevitable and pervasive as gravity, is not meaningless but rather a source of wisdom. Even in the darkest hell, there persists a 16)consoling light, a light that 17)pulsates all the more forcibly against its 18)murky background. I held this hope high the day my girl was born, knowing that she, no matter how 19)adept, would necessarily undergo failure, frustration, loss, and confusion.
这些是柯勒律治的结论,它们振奋人心,新奇而满载希望。这些论调是乐观的,因为在其眼中,世上的苦难,虽然如同地心引力一般,无处不在也无从逃避,但并非毫无意义,其实在是智慧的源泉。即使在最黑暗的地狱,总尚存一缕慰藉的光芒,在阴暗背景的映衬下它跳动得愈加有力。在女儿出生那天我满怀这种希冀——知道无论她多有能耐,都必然会遭遇失败、挫折、损失和迷惘。
Maybe these challenging episodes would push her to explore her life with more honesty, to assess with more rigor her strengths and weaknesses, and thus to discover useful truths unavailable in her more contented moments.
也许这些具有挑战性的“插曲”会推动她抱着一颗更赤诚的心去探索自己的人生,更加严格地评估自己的长处和弱点,从而发掘到一些在更为顺心满意时所无法获得的有用真理。
Only months after that March day in the hospital, I sat in my study preparing for a class on Coleridge’s20)Kubla Khan and heard Una in another room gurgle and 21)coo and then cry. I thought about how she would soon grow too old to play with me and then become too22)jaded to care about me and then leave home for somewhere else and only very seldom come back. I suddenly felt sadder than I ever had before. I felt the pain of losing her and the wonder of loving her. I adored her more for her 23)imminent going. This wasn’t happiness, and it wasn’t pleasure. It was a more profound and durable experience, a moment24)encompassing both tragedy and 25)euphoria, a child lost and a child found.
那个三月里在医院度过那天后,才过了几个月,我坐在书房里为一堂有关柯勒律治的《忽必烈汗》的课做准备,听到尤纳在另外一个房间里格格傻笑,咿呀乱语,又大声哭喊。我想到她很快就会长大,不再与我玩耍;接着会忙碌得无暇关心我,并离家去往异乡,几乎很少回来,我突然感到一种从未有过的悲哀。我感到失去她的痛苦,也感受到对她的奇妙爱意。因为她很快就会离开我身边,我更爱她了。这不是喜悦,也不是快乐。这是一种更加深刻和持久的感受,孩子失去后又寻回那种悲喜交集的瞬间。
26)C. S. Lewis once claimed that the opening lines of Kubla Khan filled him with an 27)unquenchable but 28)rapturous yearning. He believed that such 29)exultant aching is nothing other than joy: “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.”
C·S·刘易斯曾经声称,《忽必烈汗》一诗的首行字句曾经给予他一种难以抑制而又欣喜异常的渴望。他认为,这种欢欣鼓舞的痛苦就是喜悦:“未得到满足的欲望比任何满足感更令人心驰神往。”
The German term for this experience is, as Lewis tells us, 30)Sehnsucht, and it describes precisely those 31)instants when we are most alive: so sad we want to cry, so overjoyed that we weep. These 32)antagonistic 33)epiphanies, the inspirations of Coleridge’s genius, mark the transformative 34)epochs of our lives.
正如刘易斯所告诉我们的,描述这种体验的德语单词是“Sehnsucht”,它恰恰是描述了我们生活的大部分瞬间:悲伤得想哭,狂喜得落泪。这些截然相反的感受——来源于柯勒律治的天才灵感——记录着我们人生每个重要的转变时刻。
I have been blessed by at least one such revelation, a 35)marriage of 36)verdure and frost. It keeps my fatherly affections as fresh as the spring, even though I know snow is never far. It holds me close to my girl as she walks into the cold distance. She is now seven years old and growing fast. She laughs as much as she cries.
我也有幸至少悟到这么一种启示,一种青葱美好和霜寒阴郁相生相融的感悟。这使我能把父爱保持得如春天般生机勃勃,即使我知道雪从不遥远。在女儿走向冰冷的远方时,这份感悟能使我与她保持亲密。我的女儿现在已经7岁,正在快速成长。她经常笑,也经常哭。
Samuel Taylor Coleridge 塞缪尔·泰勒·柯勒律治
英国诗人、文学评论家，英国浪漫主义文学的奠基人之一。1772年，柯勒律治生于英格兰西南部德文郡一个乡镇牧师的家庭。9岁时，父亲去世，母亲把他送到了一所荒凉的男子学校，使他几乎变成了一个孤儿。19岁，他进入剑桥大学攻读古典文学。在被剑桥录取之前，他一直忧虑不安，脾气古怪，并以酗酒和赌博来减轻内心的痛苦。由于长期心烦意乱，他未获得学位就辍学了。不久，因为孤独和绝望而渴望亲密关系，他与一位不相爱的女子结婚。他们的结合被证明是一场折磨。虽然随后儿子哈特利的出生燃起了他的乐观情绪，但好景不长。灾难接踵而至，他心力交瘁，一系列可怕的身体疾病也随之而来。柯勒律治年青时代就患有风湿痛等多种疾病，为求镇痛，他长期服食鸦片，最后竟上瘾，健康因而大受损害。这些心理和生理上的折磨使他陷入绝望。晚年，他贫病交加，于1834年逝世。
柯勒律治和威廉·华兹华斯、罗伯特·骚塞三人并称为“湖畔派诗人”。他的诗虽然数量不多，但脍炙人口的《古舟子咏》和《忽必烈汗》等都是英国诗歌中的瑰宝。这些诗显示了柯勒律治创作的原则和特色——以自然、逼真的形象和环境描写表现超自然的、神圣的、浪漫的内容，使读者在阅读时“自动摒弃其不信任感”而感到真实可信。其他优秀诗篇如《寂寞中的恐惧》、 《霜夜》等，则大多伤感、阴郁，表现了作者不幸的生活遭遇和抑郁的心情。除此之外，文学、哲学、神学论文在其全部著作中占有很大比例。其中包含了他的评论精华的《文学传记》-书浸润着浓厚的浪漫色彩，受到现代文学批评界的高度赞扬。