A Dream of a Life Before This One

The cries of the curlew and peewit, the honey-pale orb of the moon,
The dew-covered grass of the valley, our mother the sea with her croon,
The leaping green leaves of the woodland, the flame of the stars in the skies
Were dearer than long white fingers, and more than your soft dark eyes;

You came and moved near me a little, with tender, remembering grace,
The sad rose colours of autumn with weariness mixed in your face,
My world was fallen and over, for soft dark eyes on it shone;
A thousand years it had waited, and now it is over and gone!

“You were more to me than a brother of old in the desert land.”
How softly you spake it, how softly—“I give but a friendly hand:
They sold us in slavery together, before this life had begun,
But Love bides nobody’s bidding, being older than moon or sun.”

Nine ages ago did I meet you, and mingle my gaze with your gaze;
They mingled a moment and parted, and weariness fell on our days,
And we went alone on our journey, and envied the grass-covered dead,
For Love had gone by us unheeding, a crown of stars on his head.

有关前世的梦

麻鹬和田凫的叫声、月亮的蜜白色光晕、
山谷中带露的青草、那低吼的大海母亲、
林地里跳跃的绿叶、天空中星星的光焰
比细长的白指可亲，胜过你柔和的黑眼；

你前来靠近我一点，仪态又动人又温和，
脸上混合着倦意和秋天悲伤的玫瑰色；
在柔和的黑眼照耀下，我的世界毁灭了，
它已经等待了一千年，现在消逝终结了！

“你对我比往昔荒漠里的一位兄长更亲。”
你说得多温柔，多温柔——“我只拉手做友人：
在此生开始前，他们把我们一起卖为奴，
但爱神比日月更古老，不听任何人吩咐。”

九个世纪前我与你相遇，彼此目光交织，
一瞬间又分离，沮丧就降临我们的日子；
我们走各自的旅程，竟羡慕草盖的死人，
因爱神头戴繁星冠，掠过了没注意我们。

傅浩　译

附

光晕：原文orb，现形容三维球体，傅浩采用了它的原始含义

维护者注——

1891年8月，茉德·冈写信给叶芝说，她梦见他俩前世是阿拉伯沙漠边缘的一对兄妹，一同被鬻卖为奴。叶芝错会了意，立即兴冲冲赶去向她求婚。她拒绝了他，说她不能结婚，但希望保持两人之间的友谊（参见叶芝《回忆录》，德尼斯·多诺休编，伦敦：麦克米伦，1972年，页46）。此诗原题《数世轮回之前：记七月某夜你的梦》，后改题《纪念》，拟收入第二本诗集《女伯爵凯瑟琳及各种传说和抒情诗》（1892）时又改为现题。也许过于直涉隐私，叶芝在审读诗集校样时从中删除了此诗。

九: 九为神秘数字，非确指。

叶芝诗集（增订本） 2018 ——

This poem got as far as being set in page proof for The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1892) before Yeats canceled it, possibly because of its overly explicit reference to a dream of Gonne’s. As Yeats wrote in the draft version of his autobiography,

I was not, it seems—not altogether—captive; but presently came from her a letter touching a little upon her sadness, and telling of a dream of some past life. She and I had been brother and sister somewhere on the edge of the Arabian desert, and sold together into slavery. She had an impression of some long journey and of miles upon miles of the desert sand. I returned to Dublin at once, and that evening, but a few minutes after we had met, asked her to marry me. I remember a curious thing. I had come into the room with that purpose in my mind, and hardly looked at her or thought of her beauty. I sat there holding her hand and speaking vehemently. She did not take away her hand for a while. I ceased to speak, and presently as I sat in silence I felt her nearness to me and her beauty. At once I knew that my confidence had gone, and an instant later she drew her hand away. No, she could not marry—there were reasons—she would never marry; but in words that had no conventional ring she asked for my friendship. (Memoirs, ed. Denis Donoghue, London: Macmillan, 1972, p. 46)

On the Yale proofs, Yeats changed the title from “Remembrance” to “A Dream of a Life Before This One.” An earlier version of the poem appears in The Flame of the Spirit album, where it is titled “Cycles Ago” and subtitled “In memory of your dream one July night.” Yeats would have found the idea of cycles and ages in Classical, English poetic, and esoteric traditions, including Virgil, Blake and Shelley, and Madam Blavatsky.

and now it is over and gone: Yeats’s correction of the proofs would have resulted in the unlikely phrase “and now it is over gone” at the end of the line; I have inserted “and” for the sake of sense and meter.

Nine: Nine is a recurrent number in esoteric lore. Yeats knew about historical cycles from many sources and eventually produced his own conception of historical ages in the “Dove or Swan” section of his book A Vision.

George Bornstein—