先讀課文﹕
Ode to a Nightingale 夜鶯頌
by John Keats
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards [1] had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, -
That thou, light-winged Dryad [2] of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora [3] and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene [4],
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus [5] and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays [6];
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -
To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth [7], when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?
1) 生詞自查。
2) 詩人介紹﹕John Keats (31 October 1795 -- 23 February 1821) was an English
Romantic poet. Along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, he was one
of the key figures in the second generation of the Romantic movement, despite
the fact that his work had been in publication for only four years before
his death.
3) 寫作背景﹕“In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near
my house. Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one
morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass plot under
a plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the
house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he
was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found these scraps,
four or five in number, contained his poetic feeling on the song of our
nightingale.”以上介紹是詩人朋友Charles Brown所寫。This ode was written
in May 1819 and first published in the Annals of the Fine Arts in July 1819.
Critics generally agree that Nightingale was the second of the five 'great
odes' of 1819.
4) 註解﹕[1] In Greek mythology, Lethe was one of the five rivers of Hades.
Also known as the Ameles potamos (river of unmindfulness), the Lethe flowed
around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld, where all those who
drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. [2] Dryads are tree nymphs
in Greek mythology. [3] Flora is the goddess of flower in Greek mythology.
[4] In Greek mythology, Hippocrene was the name of a fountain on Mt. Helicon.
It was sacred to the Muses and was formed by the hooves of Pegasus. Its
name literally translates as "Horse's Fountain" and the water was supposed
to bring forth poetic inspiration when imbibed. [5] Bacchus is the god of
wine in Roman mythology, corresponding to Dionysus in Greek mythology. [6]
Fay: fairy, elf. [7] In the Bible, a Moabite widow who left home with her
mother-in-law and went to Bethlehem, where she later married Boaz.
5) John Keats的“夜鶯頌”也是英詩中的名篇。每小節十行﹐五音步抑揚格。押韻
模式是 ABABCDECDE。
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
