译作5 二次圣临

【英】威廉.巴特勒.叶芝

2021年11月23日

 

旋转，再旋转。在旋转中拓展、上升

猎鹰已听不到驯鹰者的呼唤

万物分崩，中心难以维系

世界混乱不堪

如血色般幽暗的浪潮四溢

各处圣洁的礼仪被淹没

好人缺失信仰

坏人狂热至极

 

无疑，某些神谕即将显灵

无疑，二次圣临即将来临

二次圣临！此言还未来得及脱口

一来自神界的巨幅影像便干扰了我的视力：

沙漠某处，一狮身人头状的怪物

目光凝视，如太阳般空洞无情

它正缓慢地移动着，而在它的周围

全是盘旋在其上空的愤怒沙漠之鸟的阴影

黑暗再次降临。但现在我明白

二十个世纪石头般的沉睡

已被摇篮里的噩梦惊醒

它的时刻终于来临，什么样的粗野巨兽

正愚笨地挪向伯利恒，以求再生？

 

注：1.二次圣临，即基督再生，再次统治世界；2.gyre:为作者特有的审美意象，呈螺旋式上升（漩涡）；2.伯利恒(Bethlehem)，巴勒斯坦中南部城市，耶稣降生地，是犹太教和基督教圣地，建有耶稣诞生教堂

 

原文

The Second Coming 

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

 

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

 

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?