“Last Letter” by Ted Hughes
What happened that night? Your final night.
Double, treble exposure
Over everything. Late afternoon, Friday,
My last sight of you alive.
Burning your letter to me, in the ashtray,
With that strange smile. Had I bungled your plan?
Had it surprised me sooner than you purposed?
Had I rushed it back to you too promptly?
One hour later—-you would have been gone
Where I could not have traced you.
I would have turned from your locked red door
That nobody would open
Still holding your letter,
A thunderbolt that could not earth itself.
That would have been electric shock treatment
For me.
Repeated over and over, all weekend,
As often as I read it, or thought of it.
That would have remade my brains, and my life.
The treatment that you planned needed some time.
I cannot imagine
How I would have got through that weekend.
I cannot imagine. Had you plotted it all?
Your note reached me too soon—-that same day,
Friday afternoon, posted in the morning.
The prevalent devils expedited it.
That was one more straw of ill-luck
Drawn against you by the Post-Office
And added to your load. I moved fast,
Through the snow-blue, February, London twilight.
Wept with relief when you opened the door.
A huddle of riddles in solution. Precocious tears
That failed to interpret to me, failed to divulge
Their real import. But what did you say
Over the smoking shards of that letter
So carefully annihilated, so calmly,
That let me release you, and leave you
To blow its ashes off your plan—-off the ashtray
Against which you would lean for me to read
The Doctor’s phone-number.
My escape
Had become such a hunted thing
Sleepless, hopeless, all its dreams exhausted,
Only wanting to be recaptured, only
Wanting to drop, out of its vacuum.
Two days of dangling nothing. Two days gratis.
Two days in no calendar, but stolen
From no world,
Beyond actuality, feeling, or name.
My love-life grabbed it. My numbed love-life
With its two mad needles,
Embroidering their rose, piercing and tugging
At their tapestry, their bloody tattoo
Somewhere behind my navel,
Treading that morass of emblazon,
Two mad needles, criss-crossing their stitches,
Selecting among my nerves
For their colours, refashioning me
Inside my own skin, each refashioning the other
With their self-caricatures,
Their obsessed in and out. Two women
Each with her needle.
That night
My dellarobbia Susan. I moved
With the circumspection
Of a flame in a fuse. My whole fury
Was an abandoned effort to blow up
The old globe where shadows bent over
My telltale track of ashes. I raced
From and from, face backwards, a film reversed,
Towards what? We went to Rugby St
Where you and I began.
Why did we go there? Of all places
Why did we go there? Perversity
In the artistry of our fate
Adjusted its refinements for you, for me
And for Susan. Solitaire
Played by the Minotaur of that maze
Even included Helen, in the ground-floor flat.
You had noted her—-a girl for a story.
You never met her. Few ever met her,
Except across the ears and raving mask
Of her Alsatian. You had not even glimpsed her.
You had only recoiled
When her demented animal crashed its weight
Against her door, as we slipped through the hallway;
And heard it choking on infinite German hatred.
That Sunday night she eased her door open
Its few permitted inches.
Susan greeted the black eyes, the unhappy
Overweight, lovely face, that peeped out
Across the little chain. The door closed.
We heard her consoling her jailor
Inside her cell, its kennel, where, days later,
She gassed her ferocious kupo, and herself.
Susan and I spent that night
In our wedding bed. I had not seen it
Since we lay there on our wedding day.
I did not take her back to my own bed.
It had occurred to me, your weekend over,
You might appear—-a surprise visitation.
Did you appear, to tap at my dark window?
So I stayed with Susan, hiding from you,
In our own wedding bed—-the same from which
Within three years she would be taken to die
In that same hospital where, within twelve hours,
I would find you dead.
Monday morning
I drove her to work, in the City,
Then parked my van North of Euston Road
And returned to where my telephone waited.
What happened that night, inside your hours,
Is as unknown as if it never happened.
What accumulation of your whole life,
Like effort unconscious, like birth
Pushing through the membrane of each slow second
Into the next, happened
Only as if it could not happen,
As if it was not happening. How often
Did the phone ring there in my empty room,
You hearing the ring in your receiver—-
At both ends the fading memory
Of a telephone ringing, in a brain
As if already dead. I count
How often you walked to the phone-booth
At the bottom of St George’s terrace.
You are there whenever I look, just turning
Out of Fitzroy Road, crossing over
Between the heaped up banks of dirty sugar.
In your long black coat,
With your plait coiled up at the back of your hair
You walk unable to move, or wake, and are
Already nobody walking
Walking by the railings under Primrose Hill
Towards the phone booth that can never be reached.
Before midnight. After midnight. Again.
Again. Again. And, near dawn, again.
At what position of the hands on my watch-face
Did your last attempt,
Already deeply past
My being able to hear it, shake the pillow
Of that empty bed? A last time
Lightly touch at my books, and my papers?
By the time I got there my phone was asleep.
The pillow innocent. My room slept,
Already filled with the snowlit morning light.
I lit my fire. I had got out my papers.
And I had started to write when the telephone
Jerked awake, in a jabbering alarm,
Remembering everything. It recovered in my hand.
Then a voice like a selected weapon
Or a measured injection,
Coolly delivered its four words
Deep into my ear: ‘Your wife is dead.’
最後一封信
那晚發生了什麽？ 你的最後一晚。
雙重， 三重曝光了
每一件事。 周五， 近黃昏，
最後一眼活著的你。
煙灰缸裏， 燃著你給我的信，
伴著詭秘的笑容。 我破壞了你的計劃？
是我的驚惶來得早過你的計劃？
是我太快地帶著信找到你？
一小時後-你本該已去
到了我無法找到的地方。
我願已轉身離開你緊鎖的
無人再打開的紅門。
依然攥著你的信，
像一道閃電不能落下。
那本該是我需要的電休克
治療。
一遍遍， 整個周末，
我不停地讀它， 想它。
願那重塑我的頭腦， 我的生活。
你計劃的治療還需要時間。
我無法想象
我如何熬過那周末。
我無法想象。 你謀劃了這一切？
你的信來得太快－在同一天，
那個周五下午， 雖然在早晨寄出。
無處不在的魔鬼加快了投遞。
那是又一束厄運的稻草
郵局載著它和你為敵。
給你更重的負擔。 我迅速，
穿過二月裏， 藍雪的， 倫敦夜。
直到你開門時才讓慰藉的淚水流出。
糾結的謎題等著解決。 早來的淚水
沒能讓我理解， 讓我解開
它們深藏的意義。 可是你的話
飄過那封信的燃燒的煙霧
如此小心， 冷靜地消除我的顧慮，
以致我由著你， 任著你
吹散落在你的計劃上的， 煙灰缸上的灰燼
而沒有讓你靠著我說出
醫生的電話號碼。
我的逃脫
已是如此的難纏
無眠， 無望， 出現在所有的夢裏。
隻願重被捕獲， 隻
願跌落， 跌落出它的抽吸。
兩天的無牽掛。 兩天的賞賜。
從日曆裏抹去的兩天， 但被
偷走，
偷走那個現實，感情， 和名字的世界。
我的情愛生活抓住了它。 我麻木了的情愛生活
用它的兩枚瘋狂的針，
刺穿撕扯， 繡著它們的玫瑰，
在我肚臍後麵某處， 圖案裏，
血色的紋身，
踐踏著紋章的泥沼，
兩枚瘋狂的針，針跡交叉著，
依照顏色
挑選著我的神經， 在我的皮膚裏
重塑我， 每人用自己的漫畫
重塑另一人的作品，
他們沉迷其中。 兩個女人
每人都用著自己的針。
那晚
我的雕刻家蘇珊。 我同行
謹慎得如同麵對
保險絲上的火焰。 我所有的憤怒
是無謂的努力去炸毀
這舊世界， 在那裏陰影
籠罩著泄露我的灰跡。 我飛奔
往複， 倒退著， 反過來的底片，
朝向哪裏？ 我們去了如格比街
你和我開始的地方。
你為何去那？ 所有的地方裏，
你為何去那？ 是我們命運
的藝術化的乖僻
為你， 為我， 也為為蘇珊
精密地調整。 迷宮裏的
人身牛頭怪玩的紙牌謎遊戲
甚至包括海倫， 在公寓的底層。
你提起過她－有故事的女孩。
你從未見過她。 幾乎無人見過她。
除了她的牧羊犬的耳朵
和說胡話的麵具。 你甚至沒有瞥過她。
你隻躲閃過
當發狂的狗用身體撞擊
她的門， 當我們溜過走廊；
聽到它因不停的德國腔的仇恨而哽噎。
那個周日晚上她稍稍把門開了
隻幾寸。
蘇珊問候那黑眼睛的， 不高興
超重的， 可愛的臉， 從鏈子上
窺視的臉。 門關了。
我們聽到她安慰她的看門狗
在她的小房間裏， 在狗的小屋裏， 就在那， 幾天後，
她用煤氣殺死了她的凶殘的狗， 和她自己。
在你和我的婚床上
蘇珊和我度過了那晚。 自從結婚日我們躺在那
我還沒見過那床。
我沒有帶她去我的床。
我以為， 周末結束時，
你會出現－突然造訪。
你來了嗎， 敲了我的黑暗的窗嗎？
我同著蘇珊， 躲著你，
在我們的婚床－就是那床，
三年後從那她被送到醫院
死在那裏； 就是那個醫院，
十二小時後我尋到死去的你。
星期一的早晨
我送她去上班， 在市裏，
然後在優斯頓路北停車
再回到我的電話等待的地方。
你最後的幾個小時發生的事，
就如同它從未發生過一樣無法知道。
你一生的積累，
比如無意識的努力， 比如出生時
緩慢地一秒秒的衝破每一層膜
進入到下一層， 發生過
就如同它不可能發生過，
如同它不在發生。 有多少次
我的空房裏電話會響，
你聽著聽筒裏的鈴聲－
在兩端關於電話鈴聲
的記憶在褪去， 在頭腦裏
如同它已死去。 我數著
有多少次你走到聖喬治
平台下的電話亭。
任何時候我看你都在那， 剛剛轉出
菲之羅伊路， 穿過
肮髒的凹凸的路麵。
穿著黑色長大衣，
你的辮子盤起在腦後
你走著沒有移動， 沒有醒來， 而且
無人左右
靠著扶手走在普萊羅斯山下
朝著永不會到達的電話亭。
午夜前。 午夜後。 再一次。
再一次。 再一次。 而， 拂曉， 再一次。
你最後想將我手表上的指針
停在哪裏，
已遠遠超過了
我能聽到的， 搖著空床上的
枕頭？ 最後一次
輕觸我的書， 和我的手稿？
我到時我的電話已入睡。
無辜的枕頭。 我的房間睡著了，
已充滿了映雪的晨光。
我點燃火。 取出我的手稿。
當我動筆時電話
突然響起， 急促的鈴聲，
想起每一件事。 我拿起聽筒。
然後那聲音如同精選過的武器
或計算好的注射，
冷冷的說出四個字
深深的傳到我耳裏：“你的妻子死了。”
Ted Hughes poem 'inspired by row with Sylvia Plath shortly before she died'
Edward James (Ted) Hughes was born in Mytholmroyd, in the West Riding district of Yorkshire, on August 17, 1930. His childhood was quiet and dominately rural. When he was seven years old his family moved to the small town of Mexborough in South Yorkshire, and the landscape of the moors of that area informed his poetry throughout his life.
After high school, Hughes entered the Royal Air Force and served for two years as a ground wireless mechanic. He then moved to Cambridge to attend Pembroke College on an academic scholarship. While in college he published a few poems, majored in Anthropolgy and Archaeology, and studied mythologies extensively.
Hughes graduated from Cambridge in 1954. A few years later, in 1956, he cofounded the literary magazine St. Botolph’s Review with a handful of other editors. At the launch party for the magazine, he met Sylvia Plath. A few short months later, on June 16, 1956, they were married.
Plath encouraged Hughes to submit his first manuscript, The Hawk in the Rain, to The Poetry Center's First Publication book contest. The judges—Marianne Moore, W. H. Auden, and Stephen Spender—awarded the manuscript first prize, and it was published in England and America in 1957, to much critical praise.
Hughes lived in Massachusetts with Plath and taught at University of Massachusetts, Amherst. They returned to England in 1959, and their first child, Freida, was born the following year. Their second child, Nicholas, was born two years later.
In 1962, Hughes left Plath for Assia Gutmann Wevill. Less than a year later, Plath committed suicide. Hughes did not write again for years, as he focused all of his energy on editing and promoting Plath’s poems. He was also roundly lambasted by the public, who saw him as responsible for his wife’s suicide. Controversy surrounded his editorial choices regarding Plath’s poems and journals.
In 1965, Wevill gave birth to their only child, Shura. Four years later, like Plath, she also commited suicide, killing Shura as well. The following year, in 1970, Hughes married Carol Orchard, with whom he remained married until his death.
Hughes’s lengthy career included over a dozen books of poetry, translations, non-fiction and children’s books, such as the famous The Iron Man (1968). His books of poems include: Wolfwatching (1990), Flowers and Insects (1986), Selected Poems 1957–1981 (1982), Moortown (1980), Cave Birds (1979), Crow (1971), and Lupercal (1960). His final collection, The Birthday Letters (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998), published the year of his death, documented his relationship with Plath.
Hughes's work is marked by a mythical framework, using the lyric and dramatic monologue to illustrate intense subject matter. Animals appear frequently throughout his work as deity, metaphor, persona, and icon. Perhaps the most famous of his subjects is "Crow," an amalgam of god, bird and man, whose existence seems pivotal to the knowledge of good and evil.
Hughes won many of Europe’s highest literary honors, and was appointed Poet Laureate of England in 1984, a post he held until his death. He passed away in October 28, 1998, in Devonshire, England, from cancer.
