The Veiled Voices and the Questions of the Dark

  • As me upon my way the tram car whirled
  • On through the night, thus did I moralize:
  • Yon Pharisee who dreams how goes the world
  • And how it runs awry, what secret lies
  • Within his lonely heart? And yonder weak
  • Far burst of laughter falling on mine ears
  • Shrill voiced—The gaudy vessel of old tears
  • What is its tale?
  •       Yon wretch of whom none speak,
  • Hoarder of shame when she has lost the sun
  • And her poor tragedy is o’er and done
  • And sealed and finished her unsummered days,
  • What gossip (surely even she has one)
  • Grown moody for a little while will shun
  • The old companions, the well trodden ways?

遮面的话音与黑暗的发问

  • 我乘着有轨电车在路上疾跑
  • 穿过黑夜时，如是我得出道理：
  • 法利赛人梦想世界运行之道
  • 及偏误之故，他那寂寞的心里
  • 隐藏着什么秘密？远处有一阵
  • 微弱笑声落入我灵敏的耳底，
  • 发问——那古老泪水的俗艳容器，
  • 有什么故事？
  • 　　　　　无人议论的可怜人，
  • 耻辱的收藏者，她已失去太阳，
  • 她那可怜的悲剧也终于收场，
  • 封存结束了无夏的日子之后，
  • 什么流言（连她都肯定有一个）
  • 一时间变得精神抖擞，会避躲
  • 老伙伴，那些备受践踏的通途？

傅浩　译

附

Yon: that or those (used to refer to something situated at a distance).

灵敏: 原文没有与灵敏对应的词。

维护者注——

法利赛人：古希伯来人之一支，严守传统律法，后被目为自以为是和虚伪矫饰者。

叶芝诗集（增订本） 2018 ——

Yeats originally titled this early sonnet “A Rime Democratic” before canceling that title and replacing it with the present one. The poem is written on paper watermarked 1883 and was probably composed during 1883-84. It is one of Yeats’s few early poems set in a modern city, with the speaker in this case riding a tram car.

Pharisee: A Pharisee was a member of an ancient Jewish sect that emphasized strict observation of both written and oral Mosaic law; in derogatory Christian usage the term has overtones of hypocrisy and self-righteousness

George Bornstein—