火與冰

試譯 斯賓塞(Edmund Spenser) 的 Fire and Ice

    
我的愛像塊冰，而我像團火啊：          a
怎麽會這樣，她如此的冰冷                b
不被我熾熱的欲望融化，                     a
而我越是求她，她的冷酷越堅硬？        b
   
又怎麽會這樣，我極度的狂熱               c
不被她的足以凍僵心的冷酷減少，        d
我卻 愈發熱汗蒸騰了，                         c
感到越來越旺的火焰 在灼燒？               d
        
還能說有什麽更神奇的事，                   e
那火，熔化一切，卻讓冰變堅，             f
而冰，與麻木的冷酷凝在一起，             e
是用了什麽奇妙的技巧 將火點燃？      f
    
那是 來自溫柔心靈 愛的力量，           g
它可以更改自然規律的運行方向。          g

 

Sonnet 30 by Edmund Spenser

   

My Love is like to ice, and I to fire: 
How comes it then that this her cold so great 
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire, 
But harder grows the more I her entreat? 
    
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat 
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold, 
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat, 
And feel my flames augmented manifold? 
    
What more miraculous thing may be told, 
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice, 
And ice, which is congeal’d with senseless cold, 
Should kindle fire by wonderful device? 
    
Such is the power of love in gentle mind, 
That it can alter all the course of kind.