For clapping hands

  • For clapping hands of all men’s love
  • Oh poet still the fire of longing,
  • They pass and where you live above
  • In golden freedom there come thronging
  • The foolish wisemen with their words.
  • Live thou in calmness though cold herds
  • Shall fling ephemeral laughter round
  • Thy throne where wrapt in dreams profound
  • There forms the fruitage of thy days,
  • Inborn is its own melodious praise.
  • Ye censorious man thou art
  • In thou thyself the judge of judges,
  • Hath e’r contentment, let thy heart
  • Bid the mad mob that neath thee trudges
  • If thou hast known contentment mock
  • Thy labour, aye, and bid them rock
  • The altar from its place and spit,
  • Hid where the sacred fire was lit
  • With offices of reverend hands,
  • Aye aye, and where the sacred tripod stands.

鼓掌

  • 勿求所有人喜爱而鼓掌，
  • 诗人哟，平息渴望之火吧；
  • 掌声消歇，你高高在上
  • 享黄金自由之处就涌来
  • 喋喋不休的愚蠢的智者。
  • 你平静生活吧，尽管冷漠
  • 群氓会抛掷短暂的笑声
  • 在你宝座前，深沉的梦境
  • 才孕育你的时日的成果，
  • 天生有自身悠扬的赞歌。
  • 你是个吹毛求疵的男人，
  • 裁判的裁判，总是对自身
  • 抱有满足感，就让你的心
  • 命在你之下蹒跚的暴民——
  • 若你已尝到满足感——嘲弄
  • 你的辛劳，对，命他们摇动
  • 圣坛，把圣坛挪走并隐匿
  • 在曾经由祭司亲手主持
  • 点燃过圣火之处，对对对，
  • 神圣三足鼎站立处唾啐。

傅浩　译

附

  • thou: singular informal, subject (Thou art here. = You are here.)
  • thee: singular informal, object (He gave it to thee.)
  • ye: plural or formal, subject
  • you: plural or formal, object
  • thy/thine: possessive form (your)

Bid: from Old English biddan "to ask, entreat, beg, pray, beseech; order". 故傅浩译文「命」意为“命令”。

维护者注——

This lyric sounds an early instance of the typical Yeatsian romantic theme of the poet standing apart from social applause or appreciation. It is written on paper watermarked 1884 and was probably composed that year or the next. The draft appears on one side of a single leaf of paper, with an earlier version of the opening lines on the back, and it is possible that the poem continued on another, now lost leaf.

thou: in the manuscript the second word of this line reads “though,” presumably in error for “thou.”

wrapt: Yeats presumably intended “wrapt” as “wrapped,” but in his wayward orthography may have meant “rapt.”

Ye censorious man thou art: this line of the manuscript is heavily revised and the resultant reading necessarily tentative.

George Bornstein—