飄塵
試著告訴讀者，生活是多樣的。每一個活著的人，在多元化的人生時空裏， 扮演著某種角色，向著不同的方向展現著自己的千姿百態，書寫著與眾不同的生 命華章。
正文
by Thomas Gray (1750)
卞之琳譯
晚鍾響起來一陣陣給白晝報喪，
牛群在草原上迂回，吼聲起落，
耕地人累了，回家走，腳步踉蹌，
把整個世界留給了黃昏與我。
蒼茫的景色逐漸從眼前消退，
一片肅穆的寂靜蓋遍了塵寰，
隻聽見嗡嗡的甲蟲轉圈子紛飛，
昏沉的鈴聲催眠著遠處的羊欄。
隻聽見常春藤披裹的塔頂底下
一隻陰鬱的柢梟向月亮訴苦，
怪人家無端走進它秘密的住家，
攪擾它這個悠久而僻靜的領土。
崢嶸的榆樹底下，扁柏的蔭裏，
草皮鼓起了許多零落的荒堆，
各自在洞窟裏永遠放下了身體，
小村裏粗鄙的父老在那裏安睡。
香氣四溢的晨風輕鬆的呼召，
燕子從茅草棚子裏吐出的呢喃，
公雞的尖喇叭，使山鳴穀應的獵號
再不能喚醒他們在地下的長眠。
在他們，熊熊的爐火不再會燃燒，
忙碌的管家婦不再會趕她的夜活；
孩子們不再會“牙牙”的報父親來到，
為一個親吻爬倒他膝上去爭奪。
往常是：他們一開鐮就所向披靡，
頑梗的泥板讓他們犁出了壟溝；
他們多麽歡欣地趕牲口下地！
他們一猛砍，樹木就一棵棵低頭！
“雄心”別嘲諷他們實用的操勞，
家常的歡樂，默默無聞的命運；
“豪華”也不用帶著輕蔑的冷笑
來聽講窮人的又短有簡的生平。
門第的炫耀，有權有勢的顯赫，
凡是美和財富所能賦予的好處，
前頭都等待著不可避免的時刻：
光榮的道路無非是引導到墳墓。
驕傲人，你也不要怪這些人不行，
“懷念”沒有給這些人建立紀念堂，
沒有讓悠長的廊道、雕花的拱頂
洋溢著洪亮的讚美歌，進行頌揚。
栩栩的半身像，銘刻了事略的甕碑，
難道能恢複斷氣，促使還魂？
“榮譽”的聲音能激發沉默的死灰？
“獻媚”能叫死神聽軟了耳根？
也許這一塊地方，盡管荒蕪，
就埋著曾經充滿過靈焰的一顆心；
一雙手，本可以執掌到帝國的王芴
或者出神入化地撥響了七弦琴。
可是“知識”從不曾對他們展開
它世代積累而琳琅滿目的書卷；
“貧寒”壓製了他們高貴的襟懷，
凍結了他們從靈府湧出的流泉。
世界上多少晶瑩皎潔的珠寶
埋在幽暗而深不可測的海底；
世界上多少花吐豔而無人知曉，
把芳香白白地散發給荒涼的空氣。
也許有鄉村漢普頓在這裏埋身，
反抗過當地的小霸王，膽大，堅決；
也許有緘口的米爾頓，從沒有名聲；
有一位克倫威爾，並不曾害國家流血。
要博得滿場的元老雷動的鼓掌，
無視威脅，全不顧存亡生死，
把富庶，豐饒遍播到四處八方，
打從全國的笑眼裏讀自己的曆史──
他們的命運可不許：既不許罪過
有所放縱，也不許發揮德行；
不許從殺戮中間涉登寶座
從此對人類關上仁慈的大門；
不許掩飾天良在內心的發作，
隱瞞天真的羞愧，恬不紅臉；
不許用詩神的金焰點燃了香火
錦上添花去塞滿“驕”“奢”的神龕。
遠離了紛紜人世的勾心鬥角，
他們有清醒願望，從不學糊塗，
順著生活的清涼僻靜的山坳，
他們堅持了不聲不響的正路。
可是叫這些屍骨免受到糟踏，
還是有脆弱的碑牌樹立在近邊，
點綴了拙劣的韻語、淩亂的刻劃，
請求過往人就便獻一聲婉歎。
無聞的野詩神注上了姓名、年份，
另外再加上地址和一篇悼詞；
她在周圍撒播了一些經文，
教訓鄉土道德家怎樣去死。
要知道誰甘願舍身啞口的“遺忘”，
坦然撇下了憂喜交織的此生，
誰離開風和日暖的明媚現場
而能不依依地回頭來顧盼一陣？
辭世的靈魂還依傍鍾情的懷抱，
臨閉的眼睛需要盡哀的珠淚，
即使墳塚裏也有“自然”的呼號
他們的舊火還點燃我們的新灰。
至於你，我關心這些默默的陳死人，
用這些詩句講他們質樸的故事，
假如在幽思的引導下， 偶然有緣分，
一位同道來問起你的身世，
也許會有白頭的鄉下人對他說，
“我們常常看見他，天還剛亮，
就用匆忙的腳步把露水碰落，
上那邊高處的草地去會晤朝陽；
“那邊有一棵婆娑的山毛櫸老樹，
樹底下隆起的老根盤錯在一起，
他常常在那裏懶躺過一個中午，
悉心看旁邊一道涓涓的小溪。
“他轉遊到林邊，有時候笑裏帶嘲，
念念有詞，發他的奇談怪議，
有時候垂頭喪氣，像無依無靠，
像憂心忡忡或者像情場失意。
“有一天早上，在他慣去的山頭，
灌木叢，他那棵愛樹下，我不見他出現；
第二天早上，盡管我走下溪流，
上草地，穿過樹林，他還是不見。
“第三天我們見到了送葬的行列，
唱著挽歌，抬著他向墳場走去──
請上前看那叢老荊棘底下的碑碣，
（你是識字的）請念念這些詩句”：
墓銘
這裏邊， 高枕地膝， 是位青年，
生平從不受之於 “富貴”和“名聲”。
“知識”可沒輕視他的微賤，
“清愁”把他標出來認作寵幸。
他生性真摯， 最樂於慷慨施惠，
上蒼也給了他同樣慷慨的報酬：
他給了“坎坷”全部的所有， 一滴淚，
從上蒼全得了所求， 一位朋友。
別再想法子表彰他的功績，
也別再把他的弱點翻出了暗喜，
(他們同樣在顫抖的希望中休息)
那就是他的天父和上帝的懷抱。
注釋
墓畔哀歌作於1750年。那一年，詩人才35歲。此詩流傳很廣，被再版過很多次，被 翻譯成許多種語言。 我最欣賞的是卞之琳和王佐良的譯本。讀者會發現， 自始至終， 這首詩所有的詩行都是等長的，每行 (line)含五個頓步 (feet), 每個詩節(stanza)含 變韻的詩行。
1. The curfew: 這個詞的意指諾爾曼人征服英英格蘭時期的一種“晚鍾。”用來警 示人們在夜間睡覺之前熄燈，關火。 這個詞來自法文couvrir (cover, 關) 和 feu (fire, 火).
2. Incense breathing Morn. 詩人在這裏把“早晨”比作人。 擬人化的手法在十 八世紀得詩歌中很常見， 尤其在這首詩裏。
3. Glebe. 土壤， 大地。
4. The boast of heraldry. 炫耀出身或門第的所作所為。
5. Where through the long-drawn aisle,etc. 作為一種習俗， 村裏的窮人死了， 埋在果園裏，而富人和權貴們死了，則要在教堂裏舉行葬禮。
6. Storied urn. 古時銘刻事略傳記的甕碑
7. Animated. 象人一樣的
8. Provoke. 召喚
9. Full many a gem, etc. 這時在英國的詩歌裏最為人熟知的詩節之一。"世界上 多少晶瑩皎潔的珠寶, 埋在幽暗而深不可測的海底； 世界上多少花吐豔而無人知曉， 把芳香白白地散發給荒涼的空氣。”
10. Village-Hampden. John Hampden. 約翰漢普頓， 英國的一位愛國者，未經告 知議會便拒絕向國王納稅。 後來他在1643年英國解放的戰鬥中負傷身亡。
11. Milton. John Milton, 約翰米爾頓 (1608-1674) “失去的天堂”的作者，繼 莎士比亞後，英國最偉大的詩人.
12, Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658). 克倫威爾，曆史學家，英國解放的 先驅。
13. Th' unlettered Muse. 謬斯是古希臘傳說中的九位神， 他們主掌科學， 音樂， 藝術和各類詩歌。真正的詩歌需要他們的激發和鼓舞。作者想象有這樣的神激發作 者們去寫原始的墓銘。
14. Swain. 鄉下人.
Gray, Thomas (1716-1771), English poet, who was a forerunner of the romantic movement. He was born in London and educated at Eton College and the University of Cambridge. In 1750 he finished the poem for which he is best known, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," and sent it to his friend, the author Horace Walpole, at whose insistence it was published in 1751. Since that time the work has remained a favorite.
Living at Cambridge, Gray wrote The Progress of Poesy (1754). In 1757 he refused an appointment as poet laureate. He became professor of history and modern languages at Cambridge in 1768. Among his poems are "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" (1742) and "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West" (1775).In the intervals of his scholastic duties he traveled widely throughout Britain in search of picturesque scenery and ancient monuments, recording his impressions in his Journal (1775). Thomas Gray is considered a forerunner of the romantic poets.
ELEGY
WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD"
墓畔哀歌
Thomas Gray (1716-71)
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh!
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, --
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
賞析
Commentary by Ian Lancashire
Critics have spent entire books interpreting Gray's "Elegy." Is it ironic, as Cleanth Brooks would have us believe, or is it sentimental, as Samuel Johnson might say? Does it express Gray's melancholic democratic feelings about the oneness of human experience from the perspective of death, or does Gray discuss the life and death of another elegist, one who, in his youth, suffered the same obscurity as the "rude forefathers" in the country graveyard? Should Gray have added the final "Epitaph" to his work?
Readers whose memories have made Gray's "Elegy" one of the most loved poems in English -- nearly three-quarters of its 128 lines appear in the Oxford Book of Quotations -- seem unfazed by these questions. What matters to readers, over time, is the power of "Elegy" to console. Its title describes its function: lamenting someone's death, and affirming the life that preceded it so that we can be comforted. One may die after decades of anonymous labour, uneducated, unknown or scarcely remembered, one's potential unrealized, Gray's poem says, but that life will have as many joys, and far fewer ill effects on others, than lives of the rich, the powerful, the famous. Also, the great memorials that money can buy do no more for the deceased than a common grave marker. In the end, what counts is friendship, being mourned, being cried for by someone who was close. "He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, / He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend" (123-24). This sentiment, found in the controversial epitaph, affirms what the graveyard' s lonely visitor says earlier: "On some fond breast the parting soul relies, / Some pious drops the closing eye requires" (89-90). Gray's restraint, his habit of speaking in universals rather than particulars, and his shifting from one speaker to another, control the powerful feelings these lines call up. They frame everything at some distance from the viewer.
The poem opens with a death-bell sounding, a knell. The lowing of cattle, the droning of a beetle in flight, the tinkling of sheep-bells, and the owl's hooting (stanzas 1-3) mourn the passing of a day, described metaphorically as if it were a person, and then suitably the narrator's eye shifts to a human graveyard. From creatures that wind, plod, wheel, and wander, he looks on still, silent "mould'ring" heaps, and on turf under a moonlit tower where "The rude forefathers" "sleep" in a "lowly bed." Gray makes his sunset a truly human death-knell. No morning bird-song, evening family life, or farming duties (stanzas 5-7) will wake, welcome, or occupy them. They have fallen literally under the sickle, the ploughshare, and the axe that they once wielded. They once tilled glebe land, fields owned by the church, but now lie under another church property, the parish graveyard.
This scene remains in memory as the narrator contrasts it with allegorical figures who represent general traits of eighteenth-century humanity: Ambition (29), Grandeur (31), Memory (38), Honour (43), Flattery and Death (44), Knowledge (49), Penury (51), Luxury and Pride (71), Forgetfulness (85), and Nature (91). In shifting from individuals to universal types that characterize the world at large, the poem exchanges country "darkness" for civic and national life. Yet, against expectations, the narrator defends the dead in his remote churchyward cemetery from the contempt of abstractions like Ambition and Grandeur. He makes four arguments. First, the goals of the great, which include aristocratic lineage, beauty, power, wealth, and glory, share the same end as the "rude forefathers," the grave. Human achievements diminish from the viewpoint of the eternal. The monuments that Memory erects for them ("storied urn or animated bust"), the church anthems sung at their funeral, and the praise of Honour or Flattery before or after death also cannot ameliorate that fate. The narrator reduces the important, living and deceased, to the level of the village dead. Secondly, he asks pointedly why, were circumstances different, were they to have been educated with Knowledge' s "roll" and released from "Chill Penury," would they not have achieved as much in poetry and politics as did figures like Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell? Thirdly, the narrator suggests that his unimportant, out-of-power country dead lived morally better lives by being untempted to commit murder or act cruelly. Last, "uncouth rhymes," "shapeless sculpture," and "many a holy text" that characterize their "frail" cemetery memorials, and even those markers with only a simple name and age at death, "spelt by th' unlettered muse" (81), serve the important universal human needs: to prompt "the passing tribute of a sigh" (80) and to "teach the rustic moralist to die" (84).
In the next three stanzas, the narrator -- the "me" who with darkness takes over the world at sunset (4) -- finally reveals why he is in the cemetery, telling the "artless tale" of the "unhonour'd Dead" (93). He is one of them. Like the "rude Forefathers" among whom he is found, the narrator ghost is "to Fortune and to Fame unknown" (118). Like anyone who "This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned," he -- in this narrative itself -- casts "one longing, ling'ring look behind" to life (86-88). As he says, "Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries" (91). He tells us the literal truth in saying, "Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires" (92). These fires appear in his ashes, which speak this elegy. He anticipates this astounding confession earlier in saying:
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.
As Nature's voice from the dead, the "living lyre," he addresses himself in the past tense as having passed on, as of course he did. Should some "kindred spirit" ask about his "fate," that of the one who describes the dead "in these lines," an old "swain" (shepherd) might describe his last days. If so, he would have seen, with "another" person, the narrator's bier carried towards the church and his epitaph "Grav'd on the stone" (116). Only a ghost would know, with certainty, that "The paths of glory lead but to the grave" (36). Little wonder that the poem ends with the swain's invitation to the "kindred spirit" to read the text of the narrator's own epitaph. The narrator ghost gave "all he had, a tear," and did get the only good he wished for, "a friend." He affirms the value of friendship above all other goods in life. His wish is granted by the kindred spirit who seeks out his lost companion.
Critics have gone to some lengths to explain the narrator's address to himself as "thee" (93). Some believe Gray slipped and meant "me" instead (despite "thy" at 96). Others argue that the dead narrator is "the' unlettered muse," the so-called "stonecutter-poet" who wrote simple epitaphs with "uncouth rhymes" (79-81), although the dead youth's knowledge of "Fair Science" (119) clearly rules that out. Still others believe that Gray himself is the narrator, but his age at the poem's completion was 35, hardly a youth. The "Elegy" is spoken, not by Gray but by a dramatic persona. The simplest explanation is that the poem is a ghost's monologue with the living about death. "Elegy" belongs to the so-called "graveyard" school of poetry. It follows Churchill's "The Ghost" and anticipates the gothic movement.
Gray adopts and refines a regular poetics typical of his period. His iambic pentameter quatrains are self-contained and end-stopped. They do not enjamb with the next stanza but close with terminal punctuation, except for two passionate sequences. Stanzas 16-18 express the narrator's crescendo of anger at the empowered proud whose virtues go hand-in-hand with crimes: slaughter, mercilessness, and lying. Stanzas 24-25 introduce the dead youth who, I suggest, narrates the poem. Quatrains also regularly consist of end-stopped lines, equally self-contained and even interchangeable. For example, in the first stanza, lines 1-3 could be in any order, and lines 2 and 4 could change places. Gray builds his lines, internally, of units just as regular. Often lines are miniature clauses with balanced subject and predicate, such as "The curfew" (subject) and "tolls the knell of parting day" (predicate; 1), or "No children" (subject) and "run to lisp their sire's return" (predicate; 23). Within both subject and predicate units, Gray inserts adjective-noun pairs like "parting day," "lowing herd," "weary way," "glimm'ring landscape," "solemn stillness," "droning flight," "drowsy tinklings," and "distant fold" (1-8). By assembling larger blocks from these smaller ones, Gray builds symmetry at all levels.
He also links sequences of these regular blocks. Alliteration, unobtrusively, ties successive lines together: for example, "herd wind" and "homeward" (2-3), "droning flight" and "distant folds" (7-8), and "mantl'd tow'r" and "moping owl" (9-10). Gray rhymes internally in "slowly o'er the lea" (2) or "And all the air ... / Save where" (6-7), or he exploits an inconspicuous initial assonance or consonance in "Beneath ... / Where heaves" (12-14), and "The cock's shrill ... / No more shall" (19-20). Parallel syntactic construction across line and stanza boundaries links sequences of such larger units. For example, twinned clauses appear with "Save" (7, 9), "How" (27-28), "Can" (41, 43), "Full many a" (53, 55), "forbade" (65, 67), and "For who" and "For thee" (85, 93), among others.
Semantically, Gray's "Elegy" reads like a collage of remembered experiences. Some are realized in both image and sound. "The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed" (18) vividly and sharply conveys one instant in the awakening process on a farm. At other times, the five senses blur, as in "the madding crowd's ignoble strife" (73), or "This pleasing anxious being" (86), but these remain snapshots, though of feelings, not images. They flow from a lived life remembering its keenest moments in tranquillity. Some of these moments are literary. In 1768, Gray added three notes to "Elegy" that identify where he adopts lines in by Dante and Petrarch. "Elegy" is rife with other, unacknowledged echoes of poems by contemporaries, famous and obscure: Robert Colvill, Paul Whitehead, Henry Needler, Richard West, Alexander Pope, Samuel Whyte, Joseph Trapp, Henry Jones, John Oldmixon, and doubtless many others contributed phrases to Gray's poem.
These formal elements in Gray's poetics beautifully strengthen the poem's content. "Elegy" gives us a ghost's perspective on his life, and ours. The old swain describes him as a melancholic loner who loved walking by hill, heath, trees, and stream. The epitaph also reveals that he was well-educated, a youth who died unknown. These are the very qualities we might predict in the writer, from the style of his verse. "Elegy" streams with memories of the countryside where the youth walked. The firm, mirrored linguistic structures with which he conveys those recalled moments belong to someone well-educated in Latin, "Fair Science," and well-read in English poetry. Gray did not just give his readers succinct aphorisms about what Isaac Watt would term, "Man Frail, God Eternal," but recreated a lost human being. In reading "Elegy," we recreate a person, only to find out that he died, too young, too kind, and too true to a melancholy so many share.
卞之琳譯
晚鍾響起來一陣陣給白晝報喪，
牛群在草原上迂回，吼聲起落，
耕地人累了，回家走，腳步踉蹌，
把整個世界留給了黃昏與我。
蒼茫的景色逐漸從眼前消退，
一片肅穆的寂靜蓋遍了塵寰，
隻聽見嗡嗡的甲蟲轉圈子紛飛，
昏沉的鈴聲催眠著遠處的羊欄。
隻聽見常春藤披裹的塔頂底下
一隻陰鬱的柢梟向月亮訴苦，
怪人家無端走進它秘密的住家，
攪擾它這個悠久而僻靜的領土。
崢嶸的榆樹底下，扁柏的蔭裏，
草皮鼓起了許多零落的荒堆，
各自在洞窟裏永遠放下了身體，
小村裏粗鄙的父老在那裏安睡。
香氣四溢的晨風輕鬆的呼召，
燕子從茅草棚子裏吐出的呢喃，
公雞的尖喇叭，使山鳴穀應的獵號
再不能喚醒他們在地下的長眠。
在他們，熊熊的爐火不再會燃燒，
忙碌的管家婦不再會趕她的夜活；
孩子們不再會“牙牙”的報父親來到，
為一個親吻爬倒他膝上去爭奪。
往常是：他們一開鐮就所向披靡，
頑梗的泥板讓他們犁出了壟溝；
他們多麽歡欣地趕牲口下地！
他們一猛砍，樹木就一棵棵低頭！
“雄心”別嘲諷他們實用的操勞，
家常的歡樂，默默無聞的命運；
“豪華”也不用帶著輕蔑的冷笑
來聽講窮人的又短有簡的生平。
門第的炫耀，有權有勢的顯赫，
凡是美和財富所能賦予的好處，
前頭都等待著不可避免的時刻：
光榮的道路無非是引導到墳墓。
驕傲人，你也不要怪這些人不行，
“懷念”沒有給這些人建立紀念堂，
沒有讓悠長的廊道、雕花的拱頂
洋溢著洪亮的讚美歌，進行頌揚。
栩栩的半身像，銘刻了事略的甕碑，
難道能恢複斷氣，促使還魂？
“榮譽”的聲音能激發沉默的死灰？
“獻媚”能叫死神聽軟了耳根？
也許這一塊地方，盡管荒蕪，
就埋著曾經充滿過靈焰的一顆心；
一雙手，本可以執掌到帝國的王芴
或者出神入化地撥響了七弦琴。
可是“知識”從不曾對他們展開
它世代積累而琳琅滿目的書卷；
“貧寒”壓製了他們高貴的襟懷，
凍結了他們從靈府湧出的流泉。
世界上多少晶瑩皎潔的珠寶
埋在幽暗而深不可測的海底；
世界上多少花吐豔而無人知曉，
把芳香白白地散發給荒涼的空氣。
也許有鄉村漢普頓在這裏埋身，
反抗過當地的小霸王，膽大，堅決；
也許有緘口的米爾頓，從沒有名聲；
有一位克倫威爾，並不曾害國家流血。
要博得滿場的元老雷動的鼓掌，
無視威脅，全不顧存亡生死，
把富庶，豐饒遍播到四處八方，
打從全國的笑眼裏讀自己的曆史──
他們的命運可不許：既不許罪過
有所放縱，也不許發揮德行；
不許從殺戮中間涉登寶座
從此對人類關上仁慈的大門；
不許掩飾天良在內心的發作，
隱瞞天真的羞愧，恬不紅臉；
不許用詩神的金焰點燃了香火
錦上添花去塞滿“驕”“奢”的神龕。
遠離了紛紜人世的勾心鬥角，
他們有清醒願望，從不學糊塗，
順著生活的清涼僻靜的山坳，
他們堅持了不聲不響的正路。
可是叫這些屍骨免受到糟踏，
還是有脆弱的碑牌樹立在近邊，
點綴了拙劣的韻語、淩亂的刻劃，
請求過往人就便獻一聲婉歎。
無聞的野詩神注上了姓名、年份，
另外再加上地址和一篇悼詞；
她在周圍撒播了一些經文，
教訓鄉土道德家怎樣去死。
要知道誰甘願舍身啞口的“遺忘”，
坦然撇下了憂喜交織的此生，
誰離開風和日暖的明媚現場
而能不依依地回頭來顧盼一陣？
辭世的靈魂還依傍鍾情的懷抱，
臨閉的眼睛需要盡哀的珠淚，
即使墳塚裏也有“自然”的呼號
他們的舊火還點燃我們的新灰。
至於你，我關心這些默默的陳死人，
用這些詩句講他們質樸的故事，
假如在幽思的引導下， 偶然有緣分，
一位同道來問起你的身世，
也許會有白頭的鄉下人對他說，
“我們常常看見他，天還剛亮，
就用匆忙的腳步把露水碰落，
上那邊高處的草地去會晤朝陽；
“那邊有一棵婆娑的山毛櫸老樹，
樹底下隆起的老根盤錯在一起，
他常常在那裏懶躺過一個中午，
悉心看旁邊一道涓涓的小溪。
“他轉遊到林邊，有時候笑裏帶嘲，
念念有詞，發他的奇談怪議，
有時候垂頭喪氣，像無依無靠，
像憂心忡忡或者像情場失意。
“有一天早上，在他慣去的山頭，
灌木叢，他那棵愛樹下，我不見他出現；
第二天早上，盡管我走下溪流，
上草地，穿過樹林，他還是不見。
“第三天我們見到了送葬的行列，
唱著挽歌，抬著他向墳場走去──
請上前看那叢老荊棘底下的碑碣，
（你是識字的）請念念這些詩句”：
墓銘
這裏邊， 高枕地膝， 是位青年，
生平從不受之於 “富貴”和“名聲”。
“知識”可沒輕視他的微賤，
“清愁”把他標出來認作寵幸。
他生性真摯， 最樂於慷慨施惠，
上蒼也給了他同樣慷慨的報酬：
他給了“坎坷”全部的所有， 一滴淚，
從上蒼全得了所求， 一位朋友。
別再想法子表彰他的功績，
也別再把他的弱點翻出了暗喜，
(他們同樣在顫抖的希望中休息)
那就是他的天父和上帝的懷抱。
注釋
墓畔哀歌作於1750年。那一年，詩人才35歲。此詩流傳很廣，被再版過很多次，被 翻譯成許多種語言。 我最欣賞的是卞之琳和王佐良的譯本。讀者會發現， 自始至終， 這首詩所有的詩行都是等長的，每行 (line)含五個頓步 (feet), 每個詩節(stanza)含 變韻的詩行。
1. The curfew: 這個詞的意指諾爾曼人征服英英格蘭時期的一種“晚鍾。”用來警 示人們在夜間睡覺之前熄燈，關火。 這個詞來自法文couvrir (cover, 關) 和 feu (fire, 火).
2. Incense breathing Morn. 詩人在這裏把“早晨”比作人。 擬人化的手法在十 八世紀得詩歌中很常見， 尤其在這首詩裏。
3. Glebe. 土壤， 大地。
4. The boast of heraldry. 炫耀出身或門第的所作所為。
5. Where through the long-drawn aisle,etc. 作為一種習俗， 村裏的窮人死了， 埋在果園裏，而富人和權貴們死了，則要在教堂裏舉行葬禮。
6. Storied urn. 古時銘刻事略傳記的甕碑
7. Animated. 象人一樣的
8. Provoke. 召喚
9. Full many a gem, etc. 這時在英國的詩歌裏最為人熟知的詩節之一。"世界上 多少晶瑩皎潔的珠寶, 埋在幽暗而深不可測的海底； 世界上多少花吐豔而無人知曉， 把芳香白白地散發給荒涼的空氣。”
10. Village-Hampden. John Hampden. 約翰漢普頓， 英國的一位愛國者，未經告 知議會便拒絕向國王納稅。 後來他在1643年英國解放的戰鬥中負傷身亡。
11. Milton. John Milton, 約翰米爾頓 (1608-1674) “失去的天堂”的作者，繼 莎士比亞後，英國最偉大的詩人.
12, Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658). 克倫威爾，曆史學家，英國解放的 先驅。
13. Th' unlettered Muse. 謬斯是古希臘傳說中的九位神， 他們主掌科學， 音樂， 藝術和各類詩歌。真正的詩歌需要他們的激發和鼓舞。作者想象有這樣的神激發作 者們去寫原始的墓銘。
14. Swain. 鄉下人.
Gray, Thomas (1716-1771), English poet, who was a forerunner of the romantic movement. He was born in London and educated at Eton College and the University of Cambridge. In 1750 he finished the poem for which he is best known, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," and sent it to his friend, the author Horace Walpole, at whose insistence it was published in 1751. Since that time the work has remained a favorite.
Living at Cambridge, Gray wrote The Progress of Poesy (1754). In 1757 he refused an appointment as poet laureate. He became professor of history and modern languages at Cambridge in 1768. Among his poems are "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" (1742) and "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West" (1775).In the intervals of his scholastic duties he traveled widely throughout Britain in search of picturesque scenery and ancient monuments, recording his impressions in his Journal (1775). Thomas Gray is considered a forerunner of the romantic poets.
ELEGY
WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD"
墓畔哀歌
Thomas Gray (1716-71)
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh!
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, --
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
賞析
Commentary by Ian Lancashire
Critics have spent entire books interpreting Gray's "Elegy." Is it ironic, as Cleanth Brooks would have us believe, or is it sentimental, as Samuel Johnson might say? Does it express Gray's melancholic democratic feelings about the oneness of human experience from the perspective of death, or does Gray discuss the life and death of another elegist, one who, in his youth, suffered the same obscurity as the "rude forefathers" in the country graveyard? Should Gray have added the final "Epitaph" to his work?
Readers whose memories have made Gray's "Elegy" one of the most loved poems in English -- nearly three-quarters of its 128 lines appear in the Oxford Book of Quotations -- seem unfazed by these questions. What matters to readers, over time, is the power of "Elegy" to console. Its title describes its function: lamenting someone's death, and affirming the life that preceded it so that we can be comforted. One may die after decades of anonymous labour, uneducated, unknown or scarcely remembered, one's potential unrealized, Gray's poem says, but that life will have as many joys, and far fewer ill effects on others, than lives of the rich, the powerful, the famous. Also, the great memorials that money can buy do no more for the deceased than a common grave marker. In the end, what counts is friendship, being mourned, being cried for by someone who was close. "He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, / He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend" (123-24). This sentiment, found in the controversial epitaph, affirms what the graveyard' s lonely visitor says earlier: "On some fond breast the parting soul relies, / Some pious drops the closing eye requires" (89-90). Gray's restraint, his habit of speaking in universals rather than particulars, and his shifting from one speaker to another, control the powerful feelings these lines call up. They frame everything at some distance from the viewer.
The poem opens with a death-bell sounding, a knell. The lowing of cattle, the droning of a beetle in flight, the tinkling of sheep-bells, and the owl's hooting (stanzas 1-3) mourn the passing of a day, described metaphorically as if it were a person, and then suitably the narrator's eye shifts to a human graveyard. From creatures that wind, plod, wheel, and wander, he looks on still, silent "mould'ring" heaps, and on turf under a moonlit tower where "The rude forefathers" "sleep" in a "lowly bed." Gray makes his sunset a truly human death-knell. No morning bird-song, evening family life, or farming duties (stanzas 5-7) will wake, welcome, or occupy them. They have fallen literally under the sickle, the ploughshare, and the axe that they once wielded. They once tilled glebe land, fields owned by the church, but now lie under another church property, the parish graveyard.
This scene remains in memory as the narrator contrasts it with allegorical figures who represent general traits of eighteenth-century humanity: Ambition (29), Grandeur (31), Memory (38), Honour (43), Flattery and Death (44), Knowledge (49), Penury (51), Luxury and Pride (71), Forgetfulness (85), and Nature (91). In shifting from individuals to universal types that characterize the world at large, the poem exchanges country "darkness" for civic and national life. Yet, against expectations, the narrator defends the dead in his remote churchyward cemetery from the contempt of abstractions like Ambition and Grandeur. He makes four arguments. First, the goals of the great, which include aristocratic lineage, beauty, power, wealth, and glory, share the same end as the "rude forefathers," the grave. Human achievements diminish from the viewpoint of the eternal. The monuments that Memory erects for them ("storied urn or animated bust"), the church anthems sung at their funeral, and the praise of Honour or Flattery before or after death also cannot ameliorate that fate. The narrator reduces the important, living and deceased, to the level of the village dead. Secondly, he asks pointedly why, were circumstances different, were they to have been educated with Knowledge' s "roll" and released from "Chill Penury," would they not have achieved as much in poetry and politics as did figures like Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell? Thirdly, the narrator suggests that his unimportant, out-of-power country dead lived morally better lives by being untempted to commit murder or act cruelly. Last, "uncouth rhymes," "shapeless sculpture," and "many a holy text" that characterize their "frail" cemetery memorials, and even those markers with only a simple name and age at death, "spelt by th' unlettered muse" (81), serve the important universal human needs: to prompt "the passing tribute of a sigh" (80) and to "teach the rustic moralist to die" (84).
In the next three stanzas, the narrator -- the "me" who with darkness takes over the world at sunset (4) -- finally reveals why he is in the cemetery, telling the "artless tale" of the "unhonour'd Dead" (93). He is one of them. Like the "rude Forefathers" among whom he is found, the narrator ghost is "to Fortune and to Fame unknown" (118). Like anyone who "This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned," he -- in this narrative itself -- casts "one longing, ling'ring look behind" to life (86-88). As he says, "Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries" (91). He tells us the literal truth in saying, "Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires" (92). These fires appear in his ashes, which speak this elegy. He anticipates this astounding confession earlier in saying:
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.
As Nature's voice from the dead, the "living lyre," he addresses himself in the past tense as having passed on, as of course he did. Should some "kindred spirit" ask about his "fate," that of the one who describes the dead "in these lines," an old "swain" (shepherd) might describe his last days. If so, he would have seen, with "another" person, the narrator's bier carried towards the church and his epitaph "Grav'd on the stone" (116). Only a ghost would know, with certainty, that "The paths of glory lead but to the grave" (36). Little wonder that the poem ends with the swain's invitation to the "kindred spirit" to read the text of the narrator's own epitaph. The narrator ghost gave "all he had, a tear," and did get the only good he wished for, "a friend." He affirms the value of friendship above all other goods in life. His wish is granted by the kindred spirit who seeks out his lost companion.
Critics have gone to some lengths to explain the narrator's address to himself as "thee" (93). Some believe Gray slipped and meant "me" instead (despite "thy" at 96). Others argue that the dead narrator is "the' unlettered muse," the so-called "stonecutter-poet" who wrote simple epitaphs with "uncouth rhymes" (79-81), although the dead youth's knowledge of "Fair Science" (119) clearly rules that out. Still others believe that Gray himself is the narrator, but his age at the poem's completion was 35, hardly a youth. The "Elegy" is spoken, not by Gray but by a dramatic persona. The simplest explanation is that the poem is a ghost's monologue with the living about death. "Elegy" belongs to the so-called "graveyard" school of poetry. It follows Churchill's "The Ghost" and anticipates the gothic movement.
Gray adopts and refines a regular poetics typical of his period. His iambic pentameter quatrains are self-contained and end-stopped. They do not enjamb with the next stanza but close with terminal punctuation, except for two passionate sequences. Stanzas 16-18 express the narrator's crescendo of anger at the empowered proud whose virtues go hand-in-hand with crimes: slaughter, mercilessness, and lying. Stanzas 24-25 introduce the dead youth who, I suggest, narrates the poem. Quatrains also regularly consist of end-stopped lines, equally self-contained and even interchangeable. For example, in the first stanza, lines 1-3 could be in any order, and lines 2 and 4 could change places. Gray builds his lines, internally, of units just as regular. Often lines are miniature clauses with balanced subject and predicate, such as "The curfew" (subject) and "tolls the knell of parting day" (predicate; 1), or "No children" (subject) and "run to lisp their sire's return" (predicate; 23). Within both subject and predicate units, Gray inserts adjective-noun pairs like "parting day," "lowing herd," "weary way," "glimm'ring landscape," "solemn stillness," "droning flight," "drowsy tinklings," and "distant fold" (1-8). By assembling larger blocks from these smaller ones, Gray builds symmetry at all levels.
He also links sequences of these regular blocks. Alliteration, unobtrusively, ties successive lines together: for example, "herd wind" and "homeward" (2-3), "droning flight" and "distant folds" (7-8), and "mantl'd tow'r" and "moping owl" (9-10). Gray rhymes internally in "slowly o'er the lea" (2) or "And all the air ... / Save where" (6-7), or he exploits an inconspicuous initial assonance or consonance in "Beneath ... / Where heaves" (12-14), and "The cock's shrill ... / No more shall" (19-20). Parallel syntactic construction across line and stanza boundaries links sequences of such larger units. For example, twinned clauses appear with "Save" (7, 9), "How" (27-28), "Can" (41, 43), "Full many a" (53, 55), "forbade" (65, 67), and "For who" and "For thee" (85, 93), among others.
Semantically, Gray's "Elegy" reads like a collage of remembered experiences. Some are realized in both image and sound. "The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed" (18) vividly and sharply conveys one instant in the awakening process on a farm. At other times, the five senses blur, as in "the madding crowd's ignoble strife" (73), or "This pleasing anxious being" (86), but these remain snapshots, though of feelings, not images. They flow from a lived life remembering its keenest moments in tranquillity. Some of these moments are literary. In 1768, Gray added three notes to "Elegy" that identify where he adopts lines in by Dante and Petrarch. "Elegy" is rife with other, unacknowledged echoes of poems by contemporaries, famous and obscure: Robert Colvill, Paul Whitehead, Henry Needler, Richard West, Alexander Pope, Samuel Whyte, Joseph Trapp, Henry Jones, John Oldmixon, and doubtless many others contributed phrases to Gray's poem.
These formal elements in Gray's poetics beautifully strengthen the poem's content. "Elegy" gives us a ghost's perspective on his life, and ours. The old swain describes him as a melancholic loner who loved walking by hill, heath, trees, and stream. The epitaph also reveals that he was well-educated, a youth who died unknown. These are the very qualities we might predict in the writer, from the style of his verse. "Elegy" streams with memories of the countryside where the youth walked. The firm, mirrored linguistic structures with which he conveys those recalled moments belong to someone well-educated in Latin, "Fair Science," and well-read in English poetry. Gray did not just give his readers succinct aphorisms about what Isaac Watt would term, "Man Frail, God Eternal," but recreated a lost human being. In reading "Elegy," we recreate a person, only to find out that he died, too young, too kind, and too true to a melancholy so many share.
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