A soul of the fountain
- A soul of the fountain spake me a word:
- “Tell me the word of thy spirit’s pleasure
- For ever my deeds in Abeysherd
- Laughter and dust to fashion of treasure.”
- I gave to the spirit an answering word:
- “Out of an ancient book I’ve heard
- ‘Be bold’ the sage of old hath said,
- ‘Be bold, be bold, and bold be ever more
- And yet be not too bold,’ thus have I read
- Out of some famous book of ancient lore,
- This is the word of my spirit’s pleasure
- Deep in its heart there is secret treasure.”
- I cast my line in the nethermost deep
- Sounding the land where the fishes are
- In the land of the visionary soul of sleep
- Out of the ship of Azolar,
- And I heard the laughs of scaly things
- And the gleam and the flash of scaly rings.
- I sought the ore in a rocky mount
- And often I sundered the rock to find
- If hollowed it were of bubbling fount,
- And then I smote on the marbley rind,
- Of late I smote on the mountain about
- And as did the sea then answered the land:
- “Far and near my hand takes measure
- And out of the silver and gold comes earth
- And out of the dust comes plenteous treasure,
- Diaphanous gleam of Edenic birth.”
- O late I stood on the mountain’s ground,
- And as did the sea then answered the ground.
泉水中一个灵魂
- ‘要大胆，’古代的圣贤曾经说道，
- ‘要大胆，要大胆，永远都要大胆，
- 但不要太大胆，’如是我曾读到，
- 从某部记载古史的著名经典。
- 这就是我的精神乐趣的讲述，
- 其内心深处藏有秘密的财富。”
- 我曾在充满了沉睡幽灵之地，
- 从阿佐拉尔的航海大船之上
- 抛出钓线达到那极深的海底，
- 测量着鱼类所在国度的情况；
- 我听见有鳞生物大笑的声音，
- 看见鳞光闪闪一圈圈的波纹。
- 我曾在一座岩石山中找矿石；
- 我常常把岩石劈开一探究竟，
- 看其中是否中空有汩汩泉水，
- 然后再敲打大理石皮壳表层；
- 近来在山中我到处不断敲打，
- 如当时大海对陆地所作回答：
- “我的手或远或近地测量寻找，
- 从白银和黄金之中露出土地，
- 从尘土之中现出大量的财宝，
- 伊甸乐园诞生时透明的光彩。”
- 近来我伫立在山顶平地之上，
- 如当时大海对平地回答 那样。
傅浩 译
附
ever more: always.
nethermost: lowest in position.
Sounding：fathom, probe, measure the depth of water
fount：a spring or fountain.
smote：smite, strike with a firm blow.
rind：the tough outer skin of certain fruit, especially citrus fruit.
Diaphanous: (especially of fabric) light, delicate, and translucent.
维护者注——
阿贝伊舍德：也许是指最古老的苏美尔城埃里都，现名阿布沙赫赖因，在伊拉克境内。
古书：可能是指埃德蒙·斯宾塞的史诗《仙后》，其中第三卷第十一章第五十四节描写布希拉尼宅邸的门楣上镌刻有“要大胆，要大胆，处处都要大胆”和“不要太大胆”等字样。
阿佐拉尔：叶芝早期戏剧诗《摩萨达》（1886）中的一个虚构人物，“星星教导的摩尔人”。
叶芝诗集（增订本） 2018 ——
This embryonic dialogue poem blends Yeats’s interest in English poetry and in Oriental themes, with the admonition to “be bold” coming from Spenser and the diaphanous veil image perhaps from Shelley. The last stanza anticipates Yeats’s more mature vision of cycles. The poem probably dates from the early or middle 1880s.
Abeysherd: Yeats may mean Abu Shahrain, the modern Iraqi name for Eridu, the earliest known city of Sumer.
acient book: The “ancient book” is likely Spenser’s epic The Faerie Queene, where in Book III Britomart encounters the house of Busirane. In stanza liv of canto XI there she reads the inscriptions above the doors: “Be bold, be bold, and euery where Be bold” and “Be not too bold.” The passage was a favorite of Yeats, who included it in his edition of Poems of Spenser (1906).
Azolar: In Yeats’s early dramatic poem Mosada (1886), Azolar is described as “the star-taught Moor” (Poems, p. 492).
scaly rings: The last two words of the line are particularly difficult to decipher and hence partly conjectural.
George Bornstein—