两只画眉鸟（thrush）

 

我猜《Ornithology in a World of Flux》里那只不知名的鸟大概是画眉吧。

 

 

 

 

 

《Come in》by Robert Frost (罗伯特·弗罗斯特)

As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music -- hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.

Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.

The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.

Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went --
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.

But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.

 

 

《The Darkling Thrush》 by Thomas Hardy （托马斯·哈代）

I leant upon a coppice gate,
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to me
The Century's corpse outleant,
Its crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind its death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervorless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead,
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited.
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
With blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew,
And I was unaware.

 

从上两首诗可见英美诗人常以鸟自比，而鸟的鸣叫似常常意味着死亡，如诗人的绝唱。所以，当鸟叫出现在一首诗的时候，要当心了，此时的诗人估计差步多了，此时的诗则是诗人临了流连的“啾~”“啾~”两声。

 

越看这两首诗的原文，越觉得中文翻译不可看，还是固执地觉得诗不可译，一译就有被掏鸟窝的感觉，如立所说，“鸟儿在诗歌中的性隐喻问题。我们都感到这是一个相当严重的问题”，哈哈。