譯作5 二次聖臨

【英】威廉.巴特勒.葉芝

2021年11月23日

 

旋轉，再旋轉。在旋轉中拓展、上升

獵鷹已聽不到馴鷹者的呼喚

萬物分崩，中心難以維係

世界混亂不堪

如血色般幽暗的浪潮四溢

各處聖潔的禮儀被淹沒

好人缺失信仰

壞人狂熱至極

 

無疑，某些神諭即將顯靈

無疑，二次聖臨即將來臨

二次聖臨！此言還未來得及脫口

一來自神界的巨幅影像便幹擾了我的視力：

沙漠某處，一獅身人頭狀的怪物

目光凝視，如太陽般空洞無情

它正緩慢地移動著，而在它的周圍

全是盤旋在其上空的憤怒沙漠之鳥的陰影

黑暗再次降臨。但現在我明白

二十個世紀石頭般的沉睡

已被搖籃裏的噩夢驚醒

它的時刻終於來臨，什麽樣的粗野巨獸

正愚笨地挪向伯利恒，以求再生？

 

注：1.二次聖臨，即基督再生，再次統治世界；2.gyre:為作者特有的審美意象，呈螺旋式上升（漩渦）；2.伯利恒(Bethlehem)，巴勒斯坦中南部城市，耶穌降生地，是猶太教和基督教聖地，建有耶穌誕生教堂

 

原文

The Second Coming 

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

 

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?