情人的礼物(爱者之贻)
Lover’s Gifts(6)
泰戈尔
51
初秋的晴空万里无云,河水快要溢出堤岸,冲刷着横倒在浅滩上的一棵大树的裸露的树根。长长的小径从村庄里伸出,宛如饥渴的舌头,一头扎入小河中。
我向四周眺望。静默的天空,流动的河水,我感觉到幸福在向四方延伸,就像孩子脸上绽开纯真的笑靥。我的心是充实的。
THE early autumn day is cloudless. The river is full to the brim, washing the naked roots of the tottering tree by the ford. The long narrow path, like the thirsty tongue of the village, dips down into the stream.
My heart is full, as I look around me and see the silent sky and the flowing water, and feel that happiness is spread abroad, as simply as a smile
on a child’s face.
52
性急的花儿呀,冬天还未归去,你便倦于等待,挣脱了羁绊。等到看不见的来者匆匆瞥见你这路旁的守望者的时候,你已经匆匆地冲了出来,奔跑着,喘息着。哦,你这
情不自禁的素馨,你这喧闹的五色缤纷的玫瑰!
你绚丽的色彩,浓郁的芳香,扰动了空气。你笑着,互相推着挤着,袒露胸怀地怒放了,然后凋谢了,纷纷扬扬落满大地,最先冲向死之洞隙。
到时候,夏天自会乘着潮水般的南风来临,而你却从来不肯减缓速度,掌握它来到的准确时间。出于信心的极度的欢乐,你鲁莽地在路边消耗了自己。
你从远方听到了夏天的脚步声,便以落英铺地供它轻轻踏过。甚至解救者还未出现,你就挣脱了羁绊,开放了,在它还未到来并且承认你以前,你就把它当做自己的了。
TIRED of waiting, you burst your bonds, impatient flowers, before the winter had gone. Glimpses of the unseen comer reached your wayside watch, and you rushed out running and panting, impulsive jasmines, troops of riotous roses.
You were the first to march to the breach of death, your clamour of colour and perfume troubled the air. You laughed and pressed and pushed each other, bared your breast and dropped in heaps.
The Summer will come in its time, sailing in the flood-tide of the south wind. But you never counted slow moments to be sure of him. You recklessly spent your all in the road, in the terrible joy of faith.
You heard his footsteps from afar, and flung your mantle of death for him to tread upon. Your bonds break even before the rescuer is seen, you make him your own ere he can come and claim you.
53①
四月终于消逝,炎夏的热吻烧焦了无可奈何的大地,这时,我绽开了蓓蕾。我来了,一半儿惊惧,一半儿好奇,像个调皮的孩童向隐士的小茅屋偷偷窥视。
我听到,枝残叶枯的树林战兢兢地切切私语;我听到,杜鹃吐露夏日慵倦的歌声;透过我的花蕾外飘摇的绿叶的幔帐,我看到了世界,严酷,冷漠,形容枯槁。
我依然勇敢地开放了,带着强烈的青春的信念,畅饮着那从光彩夺目的天杯中倾出的烈酒,傲然向黎明致敬。我,心底蕴藏着骄阳的芬芳的芭兰花。
①本诗为萨特扬德拉纳特·达特所作。参见第31首注。
I OPENED my bud when April breathed her last and the summer scorched with kisses the unwilling earth. I came half afraid and half curious, like a mischievous imp peeping at a hermit’s cell.
I heard the frightened whispers of the despoiled woodland, and the Kokil gave voice to the languor of the summer ; through the fluttering leaf- curtain of my birth - chamber I saw the world grim, grey, and haggard.
Yet boldly I came out strong with the faith of youth, quaffed the fiery wine from the glowing bowl of the sky, and proudly saluted the morning,
I, the champa flower, who carry the perfume of the sun in my heart.
54
天地初分,从创世主不安的梦魂的翻腾中,升起了两个女人①。一个是天国乐园的舞女,男人热切追慕的对象。她欢笑着,从智者冷静的沉思中,从愚人空虚的蒙昧中,
攫取了他们的心,把它们像种子似地信手撒在三月豪奢的东风里,五月狂喜的花丛中。
另一个是天国的王后,是母亲,她坐在金秋丰富完美的宝座上。在收获季节,她把那些飘零的心,带到如泪水一般温柔甜蜜,像海洋一般宁静美丽的地方——带到神圣的
生与死汇合处那所冥冥未知的殿堂。
①两个女人:第一个指乌尔娃希,代表热切的欲望,永恒的青春。第二个指司幸福
的女神拉克什弥。在印度神话中她们都是在创世主搅拌乳海时从海底升出的。
IN the beginning of time, there rose from the churning of God’s dream two women. One is the dancer at the court of paradise, the desired of men, she who laughs and plucks the minds of the wise from their cold meditations and of fools from their emptiness ; and scatters them like seeds with careless hands in the extravagant winds of March, in the flowering frenzy of May.
The other is the crowned queen of heaven, the mother, throned on the fullness of golden autumn ; she who in the harvest-time brings straying hearts to the smile sweet as tears, the beauty deep as the sea of silence, brings them to the temple of the Unknown, at the holy confluence of Life and Death.
55
正午的微风,如蜻蜓薄纱似的双翼在轻轻震颤。村中家家户户的茅屋顶,像孵雏的鸟儿一般掩护着昏昏欲睡的人们,一只杜鹃躲在绿荫深处,寂寞地歌唱。
这清新流畅的曲调,滴进了人们劳苦耕作的单调的音响中,为情侣的切切私语,为母亲的热吻,为孩子的笑声增添了音乐。它掠过我们的思绪,就像溪水流过水底的卵石,
不知不觉间,使它们变得圆润精美。
THE noonday air is quivering, like the gauzy wings of a dragon-fly. Roofs of the village huts brood birdlike over the drowsy households, while a Kokil
sings unseen from its leafy loneliness.
The fresh liquid notes drop upon the tuneless toil of the human crowd, adding music to lovers’ whispers, to mothers’ kisses, to children’s laughter.
They flow over our thoughts, like a stream over pebbles, rounding them in beauty every unconscious moment.
56
对于我,夜晚是寂寞的。我在读一本书,直到感到枯燥无味,它使我觉得,美像是商贾用文字装扮起来的时髦货物。
我厌烦地掩卷熄灯。刹那间,月光涌进我的小屋。美的精灵呵,你的光辉泛溢苍穹,为什么一丝微弱的烛光竟遮蔽了你?为什么书中几句无用的空话,竟像薄雾似地掩盖了那使大地无比宁静的声音呢?
THE evening was lonely for me, and I was reading a book till my heart became dry, and it seemed to me that beauty was a thing fashioned by the traders in words. Tired I shut the book and snuffed the candle. In a moment the room was flooded with moonlight.
Spirit of Beauty, how could you, whose radiance overbrims the sky, stand hidden behind a candle’s tiny flame ? How could a few vain words from a book rise like a mist, and veil her whose voice has hushed the heart of earth into ineffable calm ?
57
秋天是属于我的,因为她时刻在我心中摆动。她那闪光的脚铃随着我的脉搏丁当作响,她那薄雾似的面纱随着我的呼吸飘动。梦中,我熟悉她那棕色长发的触抚。绿叶和
着我的生命跳动飞舞,而她就在外面颤动的叶子中。她的明眸在晴空中微笑,因为是从我这里,它们吸取了光明。
THIS autumn is mine, for she was rocked in my heart. The glistening bells of her anklets rang in my blood, and her misty veil fluttered in my breath. I know the touch of her blown hair in all my dreams. She is abroad in the trembling leaves that danced in my life-throbs, and her eyes that smile from the blue sky drank their light from me.
58
蓝天下,万物熙攘,放声大笑;尘埃沙粒像顽童,旋转飞舞。喧嚣撩动了人的心,而他的思绪呀,渴望和万物一同游戏。
我们的梦随着未知的溪水漂动,伸展手臂去抓住大地,——奋斗变成了砖石,建成了人居住的城市。
呼声从往日涌来,向今天寻求答案。它们的双翼扇动,空中布满了浮动的阴云;我们心中不肯平静的思想,离开栖身的巢,飞过幽冥的荒野,去追求形体。思想就像黑暗
中摸索的香客,寻求光明之岸似的,在实物中找到了归宿;它们将被诱入诗人的诗句中,它们将被留宿在未来的城市的塔楼中,它们将听到来自明天的战场上的呼唤,去拿起武器,携手加入战斗,去争取那即将来临的和平。
THINGS throng and laugh loud in the sky ; the sands and dust dance and whirl like children. Man’s mind is aroused by their shouts ; his thoughts long to be the playmates of things.
Our dreams, drifting in the stream of the vague, stretch their arms to clutch the earth, their efforts stiffen into bricks and stones, and thus the city of man is built.
Voices come swarming from the past, seeking answers from the living moments. Beats of their wings fill the air with tremulous shadows, and sleepless thoughts in our minds leave their nests to take flight across the desert of dimness, in the passionate thirst for forms. They are lampless pilgrims, seeking the shore of light, to find themselves in things. They will be lured into poet’s rhymes, they will be housed in the towers of the town not yet planned, they have their call to arms from the battlefields of the future, they are bidden to join hands in the strifes of peace yet to come.
59
在万有无缺的国度里,人们不修建高楼大厦。大路边是绿茵茵的草地,湍急的河水从旁流过。男人晨出耕作,脸上笑容可掬;傍晚归来,口里哼着小曲,他们不为金钱忙
碌奔波,在这万有无缺的国度里。
正午,妇女们坐在凉爽宜人的庭院里,低声唱着歌纺棉纱。稻浪滚滚的田野上,飘来牧童的短笛声。笛声使路上的行人衷心喜悦,他高歌着穿过光影斑驳的芳香的树荫,在这万有无缺的国度里。
商人乘着载满货物的船儿顺流而下,没有在这国土上收帆停泊。武士们擎着飞舞的旌旗列队而过,但是国王却从未在这国土上停下他的战车。远方来的旅客曾在这里歇脚,
离开时却不知道在这万有无缺的国度都有些什么。
在这块国土上,路上的人群熙攘,却从不你推我搡。诗人呵,在这里安家吧。濯去长途跋涉沾在脚上的尘土,调好琵琶,日暮时,在这万有无缺的国度里,躺在星光照耀下的清凉的草地上吧。
THEY do not build high towers in the Land of All-I-Have-Found. A grassy lawn runs by the road, with a stream of fugitive water at its side. The bees
haunt the cottage porches abloom with passion flowers. The men set out on their errands with a smile, and in the evening they come home with a song, with no wages, in the Land of All-I-Have-Found.
In the midday, sitting in the cool of their courtyards, the women hum and spin at their wheels, while over the waving harvest comes wafted the
music of shepherds’ flutes. It rejoices the wayfarers’ hearts who walk singing through the shimmering shadows of the fragrant forest in the Land of All-I-Have-Found.
The traders sail with their mer- chandise down the river, but they do not moor their boats in this land; soldiers march with banners flying, but the king never stops his chariot. Travellers who come from afar to rest here awhile, go away without knowing what there is in the Land of All-I-
Have-Found.
Here crowds do not jostle each other in the roads. O poet, set up your house in this land. Wash from your feet the dust of distant wanderings, tune your lute, and at the day’s end stretch yourself on the cool grass under the evening star in the Land of All-I-Have-Found.
60
收回你的金币吧,国王的使者。你派我们到林中神庙去诱惑那位年轻的苦行者。尽管他平生未曾见过一位姑娘,我也没能完成你的使命。破晓时,那修行的少年披着淡淡的曙光,到小溪边沐浴。褐色的鬈发披在双肩,像是一簇朝霞,四肢如同太阳一般闪闪发光。我们唱着,笑着,划着小船,狂热地嬉闹着跳进溪水,围着他翩翩起舞。这时,太阳升起,从水边瞪视我们,愤怒得涨红了脸。
那天使般的少年睁开双眼,望着我们的舞姿;深深的惊诧使他的眼睛闪亮如同晨星。他举起合掌的双手,唱起赞美诗,歌声像小鸟婉转鸣啼,森林里的每一片叶子,都在飒
飒地应和。我,肉胎凡身的女人,从未听到过这样的歌声,它宛若晨曦从寂静的群山升起时那无声的晨曲。姑娘们用手掩住绛唇,笑着摆动身躯,少年的脸上掠过一片疑云。
我快步跑到他身边,痛苦地伏在他的足前说:“主人呵,我愿听您驱使。”
我领着他来到绿草覆盖的河岸,用丝绸的衣襟为他擦拭身体;我跪在地上,用我的长发为他拭干双脚;当我抬起头,凝视他眼睛,我似乎尝到了混沌初开时的世界献给第
一个女人的第一次亲吻——我是有福的,赞美上天吧,因为他使我成为一个女人。我听见他在说:“你是哪位无名的神祗?你的抚摸是永恒之神的抚摩,你的眼中藏着午夜的
秘密。”
不,不要那样微笑,国王的使者——尘世的智慧蒙蔽了你的眼睛,老人家。那少年的纯真却刺破迷雾,看到了闪光的真理——女人是神圣的。
啊,在那第一次表示爱慕的可怕的光芒中,女人的神性终于在我心底觉醒。我泪水盈眶,晨光像姐姐似地温柔地抚摩我的长发,树林里的微风吻着我的前额,就像吻着百花。
姑娘们拍着手,放荡地笑着,面纱拖在地上,头发蓬松着,她们开始向少年投掷鲜花。
啊,纯洁无瑕的太阳呵,难道不能用我的羞赧织成浓雾,遮过你的视线吗?我扑倒在少年的足前,大喊道:“原谅我!”像受惊的小鹿,在树荫和阳光下飞跑,边逃边喊:“原谅我!”姑娘们猥亵的笑声像噼啪燃烧的烈火烧灼着我,但是,我的耳畔始终回响着那句话——“你是哪一位无名神祗?”
TAKE back your coins, King’s Coun- cillor. I am of those women you sent to the forest shrine to decoy the young ascetic who had never seen a woman.
I failed in your bidding. Dimly day was breaking when the hermit boy came to bathe in the stream, his tawny locks crowded on his shoulders, like a cluster of morning clouds, and his limbs shining like a streak of sunbeam. We laughed and sang as we rowed in our boat ; we jumped into the river in a mad frolic, and danced around him, when the sun rose staring at us from the water’s edge in a flush of divine anger.
Like a child-god, the boy opened his eyes and watched our movements, the wonder deepening till his eyes shone like morning stars. He lifted his clasped hands and chanted a hymn of praise in his bird-like young voice, thrilling every leaf of the forest.
Never such words were sung to a mortal woman before ; they were like the silent hymn to the dawn which rises from the hushed hills.
The women hid their mouths with their hands, their bodies swaying with laughter, and a spasm of doubt ran across his face. Quickly came I to his side, sorely pained, and, bowing to his feet, I said, " Lord, accept my service."
I led him to the grassy bank, wiped his body with the end of my silken mantle, and, kneeling on the ground, I dried his feet with my trailing hair.
When I raised my face and looked into his eyes, I thought I felt the world’s first kiss to the first woman, Blessed am I, blessed is God, who made me a woman. I heard him say to me, " What God unknown are you ? Your touch is the touch of the Im- mortal, your eyes have the mystery
of the midnight." Ah, no, not that smile, King’s Councillor, the dust of worldly wisdom has covered your sight, old man.
But this boy’s innocence pierced the mist and saw the shining truth, the woman divine.
Ah, how the goddess wakened in me, at the awful light of that first adoration. Tears filled my eyes, the morning ray caressed my hair like a sister, and the woodland breeze kissed my forehead as it kisses the flowers.
The women clapped their hands, and laughed their obscene laugh, and with veils dragging on the dust and hair hanging loose they began to pelt him
with flowers.
Alas, my spotless sun, could not my shame weave fiery mist to cover you in its folds ? I fell at his feet and cried, " Forgive me." I fled like a stricken deer through shade and sun, and cried as I fled, " Forgive me." The women’s foul laughter pressed me like a crackling fire, but the words ever rang in my ears, " What God unknown are you ? "