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发表于 2007-9-24 23:09:45
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Reading and translating a poem by E. Bishop
[Nova Scotia风光]
Poem
Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
About the size of an old-style dollar bill,
American or Canadian,
mostly the same whites, gray greens, and steel grays
-this little painting (a sketch for a larger one?)
has never earned any money in its life.
Useless and free, it has spent seventy years
as a minor family relic handed along collaterally to owners
who looked at it sometimes, or didn't bother to.
It must be Nova Scotia; only there
does one see gabled wooden houses
painted that awful shade of brown.
The other houses, the bits that show, are white.
Elm trees., low hills, a thin church steeple
-that gray-blue wisp-or is it? In the foreground
a water meadow with some tiny cows,
two brushstrokes each, but confidently cows;
two minuscule white geese in the blue water,
back-to-back,, feeding, and a slanting stick.
Up closer, a wild iris, white and yellow,
fresh-squiggled from the tube.
The air is fresh and cold; cold early spring
clear as gray glass; a half inch of blue sky
below the steel-gray storm clouds.
(They were the artist's specialty.)
A specklike bird is flying to the left.
Or is it a flyspeck looking like a bird?
Heavens, I recognize the place, I know it!
It's behind-I can almost remember the farmer's name.
His barn backed on that meadow. There it is,
titanium white, one dab. The hint of steeple,
filaments of brush-hairs, barely there,
must be the Presbyterian church.
Would that be Miss Gillespie's house?
Those particular geese and cows
are naturally before my time.
A sketch done in an hour, "in one breath,"
once taken from a trunk and handed over.
Would you like this? I'll Probably never
have room to hang these things again.
Your Uncle George, no, mine, my Uncle George,
he'd be your great-uncle, left them all with Mother
when he went back to England.
You know, he was quite famous, an R.A....
I never knew him. We both knew this place,
apparently, this literal small backwater,
looked at it long enough to memorize it,
our years apart. How strange. And it's still loved,
or its memory is (it must have changed a lot).
Our visions coincided-"visions" is
too serious a word-our looks, two looks:
art "copying from life" and life itself,
life and the memory of it so compressed
they've turned into each other. Which is which?
Life and the memory of it cramped,
dim, on a piece of Bristol board,
dim, but how live, how touching in detail
-the little that we get for free,
the little of our earthly trust. Not much.
About the size of our abidance
along with theirs: the munching cows,
the iris, crisp and shivering, the water
still standing from spring freshets,
the yet-to-be-dismantled elms, the geese.
Notes:
mostly: (dialect,chiefly Scotland), almost.
Nova Scotia: Latin for “new Scotland”. A province of southeast Canada on the Atlantic Ocean, whose capital city is Halifax. It consists mainly of farmland and forests, and it also produces minerals. Almost two-thirds of the population belong to Protestant denominations, the largest being the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church, Baptists, and Presbyterians. About one-third of the population is Roman Catholic.
water meadow: a field that is near a river and that is sometimes flooded.
minuscule: very small in size or importance.
brushstroke: the configuration given to thick paint (as oil paint) by contact with the
bristles of a brush; also: the paint left on a surface by a single application of a loaded brush or palette knife.
speckfly: a speck or stain made by the excrement of a fly; broadly : any insignificant dot.
back on: to have the back in the direction of and often close to something, used with on, onto, or against.
titanium white: a white pigment consisting chiefly or wholly of titanium dioxide.
R. A.: an officer in the U.S. Navy or Coast Guard of a rank above captain, or above
commodore in the British or Canadian navies.
literal: being without exaggeration or embellishment.
Bristol board: pasteboard for drawing: fine smooth lightweight cardboard, used in design and drawing.
Abidance: abiding, dwelling, continuance.
Stand: of a liquid: to gather slowly and remain.
of water, etc. to have the surface at a specified level.
[翻译]
诗
大约一张旧式钞票大小,
美元或加元,
几乎同样的白色,青灰色,和铁灰色,
——这幅小画(是更大一幅画的素描?)
从面世起就没卖过一分钱。
无用而自在,它度过了七十年光阴
当作一件小小传家宝
往下传了几代人
他们有时看它一眼,有时根本不愿劳神。
这肯定是新苏格兰;只有那儿
才见得到三角山墙木屋,
它给涂上浓浓的褐色阴影。
别的房子是白的,斑斑点点。
榆树,连绵的小山,瘦瘦的教堂尖塔
——那条灰蓝线——是尖塔吗?前景
一片草滩上有几条小小的牛,
都是草草两笔,但看得出是牛;
一池绿水中两只极小的白鹅,
背对着背啄食,一根树枝横斜。
更近一点,用颜料管活泼地涂抹出
一丛野鸢尾花,黄白相间。
空气清冷,早春轻寒
明晰如灰色玻璃;铁灰色
雨云下,是一角蓝天。
(这些是这位画家的独特笔法。)
一只鸟,像个小斑点,往左飞去。
或是一点污迹看起来像只飞鸟?
天啊,我认得出这地方,我知道它!
它就在后面——我都能记起那农夫的名字。
他家谷仓背对那片草滩。就是这,
重重一笔,用钛白画出。那尖塔的痕迹,
轻扫几笔,几乎看不清,
肯定是长老会教堂。
那屋子是吉勒斯比小姐家的么?
自然,画上那些鹅和牛
在我出生前就有了。
用一小时画的速写。“一口气的功夫,”
有一次从箱子里拿出来递给我。
“你喜欢吗?我可能再也
没空地方挂这些个玩意儿啦。
你叔叔乔治,不,我的,我叔叔乔治,
他是你叔公了,他回英格兰之前
把这些传给妈妈。
你晓得,他可是名人,海军少将……”
我从不知道这个人。我们都知道这地方,
当然,这片小小的世外桃源,
长久看过它,足以在各自的岁月
把它记在心里。多奇怪。我们仍然爱着它,
或爱着对它的记忆(它肯定大变样了)。
我们的视野重合了——“视野”这词儿
太大——我们的目光,两道目光:
艺术复制生活,生活也如此,
生活和对它的记忆压得这么紧,
它们互相转化了。怎能分清彼此?
生活和对它的记忆,模模糊糊,
在一张布里斯托纸板上挤在一起,
模模糊糊,又这么生动,细节这么感人
???空獾愣?魑颐堑玫阶杂桑 |
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