卡瓦菲斯诗11首
I, Iasis, lie here -famous for my good looks
The wise admired me, so did common, superficial people.
I took equal pleasure in both.
But from being considered so often a Narcissus and Hermes,
excess wore me out, killed me. Traveller,
if you're an Alexandrian, you won't blame me.
You know the pace of our life -its fever, its absolute devotion to pleasure.
While looking at a half-grey opal
I remembered two lovely grey eyes;
it must be twenty years ago I saw them . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Then he went away to work, I think in Smyrna,
Those grey eyes will have lost their charm -if he's still alive;
that lovely face will have spoiled.
Memory, keep them the way they were.
And, memory, whatever you can bring back of that love,
whatever you can, bring back tonight.
My life's joy and incense: recollection of those hours
when I found and captured pleasure as I wanted it.
My life's joy and incense: that I refused
all indulgence in routine love affairs.
It wouldn't have lasted long anyway-
years of experience make that clear.
But Fate did put an end to it a bit abruptly.
It was soon over, that wonderful life.
Yet how strong the scents were,
what a magnificent bed we lay in,
what pleasures we gave our bodies.
An echo from my days of indulgence,
an echo from those days came back to me,
something from the fire of the young life we shared:
read it over and over till the light faded.
Then, sad, I went out on to the balcony,
went out to change my thoughts at least by seeing
something of this city I love,
a little movement in the streets, in the shops.
For Ammonis, who died at 29, in 610
Raphael, they're asking you to write a few lines
as an epitaph for the poet Ammonis:
something very tasteful and polished. You can do it,
you're the one to write something suitable
for the poet Ammonis, our Ammonis.
Of course you'll speak about his poems-
but say something too about his beauty,
about that subtle beauty we loved.
Your Greek is always elegant and musical.
But we want all your craftsmanship now.
Our sorrow and our love move into a foreign language.
Pour your Egyptian feeling into the Greek you use.
Raphael, your verses, you know, should be written
so they contain something of our life within them,
so the rhythm, so every phrase clearly shows
that an Alexandrian is writing about an Alexandrian.
献给阿蒙尼斯,他死于610年,29岁
拉斐尔,他们请你写上几行,
作为诗人阿蒙尼斯的墓志:
要非常别致而精练。你办得到的,
你是最适合的人选,来为诗人阿蒙尼斯、
我们的阿蒙尼斯,写点得体的东西。
当然,你会提到他的诗——
但关于他的美也要说点什么,
关于我们热爱的那妙不可言的美。
你的希腊语总是优雅而悦耳。
但是我们要你拿出全部的技艺。
我们的忧伤和我们的爱都移进了一种外国语言。
请把你的埃及情感注入你所使用的希腊语。
拉斐尔,你知道,你的诗篇应该写得
让我们生命中的某些东西也包含在它们里面,
让那韵律,让每一个短语都能清楚地表明
这是一个亚历山大人在写一个亚历山大人。
Passing Through
The things he timidly imagined as a schoolboy
are openly revealed to him now. And he walks the streets,
stays out all night, gets involved. And as is right (for our kind of art)
his blood -fresh and hot-
offers itself to pleasure. His body is overcome
by forbidden erotic ecstasy; and his young limbs
give in to it completely.
In this way a simple boy
becomes something worth our looking at, for a moment
he too passes through the exalted World of Poetry,
the young sensualist with blood fresh and hot.
整夜呆在外面,卷入其中。就像应有的那样(对我们这门艺术来说)
把自己献给了快乐。他的肉体臣服于
那违禁的情欲迷狂;而他年轻的四肢
向它彻底投降。
就这样,一个单纯的男孩
变成了某种值得一看的东西,有那么一刻,
他也穿越了那高贵的诗歌世界,
这个有着新鲜热烈血液的年轻的感官主义者。
In A Town of Osroini
Yesterday, around midnight, they brought us our friend Remon,
who'd been wounded in a taverna fight.
Through the windows we left wide open,
the moon cast light over his beautiful body as it lay on the bed.
We're a mixture here: Syrians, immigrant Greeks, Armenians, Medes.
Remon is one of these too. But last night,
when the moon shone on his sensual face,
our thoughts went back to Plato's Charmidis.
在奥斯罗尼的一个镇上
昨天,午夜前后,他们带来了我们的朋友雷蒙,
他在一次小酒馆的打斗中受了伤。
透过我们任其敞开的窗户,
月亮把光洒向他那躺在床上的美丽身体。
我们在这里混为一体:叙利亚人、希腊移民、亚美尼亚人、米提亚人。
雷蒙也是其中的一员。但是昨夜,
当月亮照耀着他那性感的面孔,
我们缅想起了柏拉图的查米迪斯。
Before The Statue of Endymion
I've come from Miletos to Latmos
on a white chariot drawn by four snow-white mules,
all their trappings silver.
I sailed from Alexandria in a purple trireme
to perform secret rites-
sacrifices and libations- in honour of Endymion.
And here is the statue. I now stare
at Endymion's famous beauty in wonder.
My slaves empty baskets of jasmine
and auspicious tributes revive the pleasure of ancient days.
我乘着一艘紫色的大船从亚历山大驶来,
去举行秘密的仪式——
献牲,祭酒——以纪念恩底弥翁。
这里就是那座雕像。现在,我惊奇地
凝视着恩底弥翁那著名的美貌。
我的奴隶们倒空了篮里的茉莉,
吉祥的贡品恢复了古老时日里的欢乐。
In The Street
His attractive face a bit pale,
his brown eyes looking tired, dazed,
twenty-five years old but could be taken for twenty,
with something of the artist in the way he dresses
-the colour of his tie, shape of his collar-
he drifts aimlessly down the street,
as though still hypnotized by the illicit pleasure,
the very illicit pleasure he's just experienced.
——他领带的颜色;他衣领的形状——
他漫无目的地在街上逛着,
仿佛还沉迷于那不正当的快乐,
他刚刚体验过的非常不正当的快乐。
The First Step
The young poet Evmenis
complained one day to Theocritos:
"I've been writing for two years now
and I've composed only one idyll.
It's my single completed work.
I see, sadly, that the ladder
of Poetry is tall, extremely tall;
and from this first step I'm standing on now
I'll never climb any higher."
Theocritos retorted: "Words like that
are improper, blasphemous.
Just to be on the first step
should make you happy and proud.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you've done already is a wonderful thing.
Even this first step
is a long way above the ordinary world.
To stand on this step
you must be in your own right
a member of the city of ideas.
And it's a hard, unusual thing
to be enrolled as a citizen of that city.
Its councils are full of Legislators
no charlatan can fool.
To have reached this point is no small achievement:
what you've done already is a wonderful thing."
梯子很高,太高了;
从我现在站着的第一级
我再也无法爬得更高。”
忒奥克里斯托斯驳斥说:“这种话
不太像样,亵渎神明。
能够站在第一级
应该让你觉得快乐而骄傲。
能够到达这个点,已是不小的成就:
你所做到的,已经是件了不起的事情。
即使是这第一级,
也远远高于那凡俗的世界。
能够站在这一级,
你一定靠着自己的资格
成了理想城中的一员。
但是,登记成为那座城中的一个公民,
是件困难而不同寻常的事情。
它的议会里充满了立法者,
江湖骗子愚弄不了他们。
能够到达这个点,已是不小的成就:
你所做到的,已经是件了不起的事情。”
An Old Man
At the noisy end of the café, head bent
over the table, an old man sits alone,
a newspaper in front of him.
And in the miserable banality of old age
he thinks how little he enjoyed the years
when he had strentgh, and wit, and looks.
He knows he's very old now: sees it, feels it.
Yet it seems he was young just yesterday.
The time's gone by so quickly, gone by so quickly.
And he thinks how Discretion fooled him,
how he always believed, so stupidly
that cheat who said: "Tomorrow. You have plenty of time."
He remembers impulses bridled, the joy
he sacrificed. Every chance he lost
now mocks his brainless prudence.
But so much thinking, so much remembering
makes the old man dizzy. He falls asleep,
his head resting on the café table.
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