對他人詩歌的嫉妒 哈斯 林木譯
在一個版本的傳說裏，海妖不會歌唱。
隻在水手的故事裏她們才會。
於是，被綁在桅杆上的奧德修斯，被一首
他未曾聽過的音樂折磨——海浪的衝擊，
風的切割，離岸鳥的饑餓——
而靜默的女子，采集海藻用作花園覆蓋物，
看見他掙紮著拉扯繩索，看見
他眼中那可怖的渴望，被他想象的
她們未曾唱出的歌徹底改變了
在她們荒涼的岩島上。
Envy of Other People’s Poems
Robert Hass
In one version of the legend the sirens couldn’t sing.
It was only a sailor’s story that they could.
So Odysseus, lashed to the mast, was harrowed
By a music that he didn’t hear–plungings of sea,
Wind-shear, the off-shore hunger of the birds–
And the mute women gathering kelp for garden mulch,
Seeing him strain against the cordage, seeing
The awful longing in his eyes, are changed forever
On their rocky waste of island by their imagination
Of his imagination of the song they didn’t sing.
