A double moon or more ago
- A double moon or more ago
- I writ you a long letter, lady,
- It went astray or vexed you, maybe,
- And I would know now yes or no.
- Then dying Summer on his throne
- Faded in hushed and quiet singing
- Now Winter’s arrow’s winging, winging,
- And Autumn’s yellow leaves are flown.
- Ah we poor poets in our pride
- Tread the bare song road all our summer,
- To wake on lips of some new comer
- “A poor man lived here once and died.”
- How could we trudge on mile by mile
- If from red lips like quicken berry,
- At some odd times to make us merry,
- Came nowise half of half a smile?
- And surely therefore would I know
- What manner fared my letter, lady,
- It went astray or vexed you maybe
- A double moon or more ago.
两个月以前或以前更久
- 两个月以前或以前更久
- 我写给你一封长信，淑女，
- 它走丢或者恼了您，也许，
- 现在我想要知道是与否。
- 那时王座上垂死的夏季
- 悄然寂然在歌声中枯萎；
- 现在 冬季的箭矢飞呀，飞，
- 秋季的黄叶已飘然落地。
- 风华正茂的可怜诗人啊，
- 长夏里踏着荒凉的歌路，
- 在某个新来者唇上醒寤：
- “一个可怜人曾住此，死啦。”
- 假如红唇上仿佛花楸果
- 在空闲时间令我们欣喜，
- 不挂上一丝半点的笑意，
- 那我们怎会一里里跋涉？
傅浩 译
附
落地：原文"flown"，并不能指示叶片是否落地，个人斗胆翻译「秋季的黄叶已飘然而离」。
将会：原文"would know"，个人觉得应译为「想要」。
一个月：原文"a double moon"，应该是两个月，不理解译者用意。
维护者注——
quicken berry: In his note to the poem "The Danaan Quicken Tree" (Poems, p. 535), published in The Bookman for May 1893, Yeats wrote that "It is said that an enchanted tree grew once on the little lake-island of Innisfree, and that its berries were, according to one legend, poisonous to mortals, and according to another, able to endow them with more than mortal powers. Both legends say that the berries were the food of the Tuatha de Danaan, or faeries. Quicken is the old Irish name for the mountain ash."
George Bornstein—