博爾赫斯《兩首英文詩》試譯

博爾赫斯《兩首英文詩》試譯

TWO ENGLISH POEMS by Jorge Luis Borges (1934)

《兩首英文詩》
作者：豪爾赫·路易斯·博爾赫斯 (1934)

1.

The useless dawn finds me in a deserted street corner; I have outlived the night.
毫無意義的黎明在空蕩的街角找到我； 我已經活過了這一夜。

Nights are proud waves: dark blue top heavy waves laden with all hues of deep spoil, laden with things unlikely and desirable.
夜晚是驕傲的海浪：深藍色的浪頭充滿了形形色色深層的毀滅，充滿了難以想象的又令人向往的事物。

Nights have a habit of mysterious gifts and refusals, of things half given away, half withheld, of joys with a dark hemisphere. Nights act that way, I tell you.
夜晚習慣分發神秘禮物和予以拒絕，習慣給一半留一半，習慣與黑暗的半球同樂。我告訴你，夜晚就是這樣。

The surge, that night, left me the customary shreds and odd ends: some hated friends to chat with, music for dreams, and the smoking of bitter ashes. The things my hungry heart has no use for.
在那天晚上，這股浪潮習慣性地讓我混亂不堪：聊天的心懷仇恨的朋友，充滿夢幻的音樂，還有苦澀的灰燼冒出的青煙。 都是些對我饑渴的心毫無用處的東西。

The big wave brought you.
大浪把你帶來。

Words, any words, your laughter; and you so lazily and incessantly beautiful. We talked and you have forgotten the words.
言語，任何言語，你的笑聲； 還有你慵懶而散發著美麗。 我們交談過，可你忘記了我們說過的話。

The shattering dawn finds me in a deserted street of my city.
散落的黎明在我城市的一條荒涼的街道上找到了我。

Your profile turned away, the sounds that go to make your name, the lilt of your laughter: these are the illustrious toys you have left me.
你轉過身去的樣子，你令人入迷的聲音，你輕快的笑聲：都是你留給我的輝煌的玩具。

I turn them over in the dawn, I lose them; I tell them to the few stray dogs and to the few stray stars of the dawn.
在黎明，我反複思索著它們，我正失去它們； 我把它們說給晨曦裏流浪的幾條狗和幾顆流浪的星星們聽。

Your dark rich life…
你隱秘富裕的生活…

I must get at you, somehow: I put away those illustrious toys you have left me, I want your hidden look, your real smile –that lonely, mocking smile your mirror knows.
我必須想辦法弄清你：我收起你留給我的那些輝煌的玩具，我想要你隱藏的表情，你真正的微笑——你的鏡子知道的充滿孤獨與嘲弄的微笑。

2.

我用什麽留住你？

我為你提供狹窄的街道，絕望的日落，鋸齒狀郊區的月亮。

我向你獻上一個久久凝望孤月的人的苦澀。

我向你獻上我的祖先，那些逝去的男人，活人用大理石紀念的幽靈們：我父親的父親在布宜諾斯艾利斯邊境被殺，兩顆子彈穿過他的肺，留著胡須，死了，被他的士兵裹在一塊牛皮革裏；我母親的祖父 - 隻有二十四歲 - 在秘魯率領三百人衝鋒，現在是消失的馬背上的鬼魂。

我向你提供我的書可能包含的任何見解。 無論我的生活是否有什麽男子氣概或幽默。

我向你獻上一個從未忠誠過的人的忠誠。

我向你獻上我努力守護的內核 - 不懂花言巧語，未被夢想所累，也未被歲月、快樂和不幸觸碰過的，我的內心。

我向你獻上在你出生前幾年在日落時分看到的一朵黃玫瑰的記憶。

我為你提供關於你自己的解釋、關於你自己的理論、關於你自己的真實而令人驚訝的消息。

我可以給你我的寂寞、我的黑暗，我內心的饑渴；我正在盡力用易變、危險和失敗來收買你。

2

What can I hold you with?

I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the moon of the jagged suburbs.

I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.

I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghosts that living men have honoured in marble: my father's father killed in the frontier of Buenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs, bearded and dead, wrapped by his soldiers in the hide of a cow; my mother's grandfather -just twenty four- heading a charge of three hundred men in Perú, now ghosts on vanished horses.

I offer you whatever insight my books may hold. whatever manliness or humour my life.

I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.

I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved somehow -the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.

I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born.

I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.