羅伯特·哈斯《羨慕別人的詩作》

羨慕別人的詩作
——羅伯特·哈斯

有傳說認為海妖並不唱歌。
說她們唱歌隻是水手編撰的故事罷了。
於是奧德修斯被綁在桅杆上，被那首
他並沒有聽見的樂曲所折磨—俯衝的海浪，
刀割般的風，還有饑餓的離岸鳥群，撲麵而來—
那些采集海藻作花園覆料的沉默無聲的女妖們，
看見他在勒緊的繩索裏掙紮，看見
他眼睛裏滿溢的渴望，在這亂石荒島上
她們被她們的想象永遠改變了，她們想象著
他想象的那首她們不曾唱過的歌。

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.