悬崖上的萨福(7)

这首诗我选择了罗洛的译文,它是从玛丽·巴纳德1958年的英译本转译来的。玛丽·巴纳德的译本被评论家誉为“接近完美的英译本”,今天已经成为英语世界里的标准萨福了。It was you, Atthis, who said,这就是玛丽的译文:

It was you, Atthis, who said

Sappho, if you will not get

up and let us look at you

I shall never love you again!

Get up, unleash your suppleness,

lift off your Chian nightdress

and, like a lily leaning into

a spring, bathe in the water.

Cleis is bringing your best

pruple frock and the yellow

tunic down from the clothes chest;

you will have a cloak thrown over

you and flowers crowning your hair...

Praxinoa, my child, will you please

roast nuts for our breakfast? One

of the gods is being good to us:

today we are going at last

into Mitylene, our favorite

city, with Sappho, loveliest

of its women; she will walk

among us like a mother with

all her daughters around her

"when she comes home from exile..."

But you forget everything

(tr. Mary Barnard)

这首诗没有出神入化的奇妙修辞,也没有掷地有声的金石良言,只似闲话家常般娓娓道来,除了第一句萨福勾起回忆和末一句“但是,这一切都已被你忘记”,全是诗人追想阿狄司的种种话语。一切都是为了末句服务——做足最温馨的铺垫,只为末句最悲伤的逆转。在两千六百年前,萨福就已经悟出铺陈与逆转的诗艺了,这是多么令人惊叹啊。

就这样,萨福和阿狄司,还有许许多多的女孩子生活在天堂一般的莱斯博斯岛上,她们一同祭祀阿佛洛狄忒。萨福还教女孩子们各种美的技艺,除了诗歌、音乐和舞蹈之外,还有化妆术、美容术和……厨艺!所以,有人猜测萨福一定是办了一座女子学园,就像柏拉图的那个学园一样;还有人猜测萨福和她的女弟子们是最早的一批女同性恋者,她们构建了一处女子天堂,远离男权主宰的世界。

时至今日,英文里表示女同性恋的两个名词——Sapphism和Lesbianism,词根分别就是萨福(Sappho)和莱斯博斯(Lesbos),没人考证得清这究竟源自猜测还是误解。人们只觉得这是一些奇异的女子,她们不合常规,我行我素,像诗歌一样不可捉摸。但是,只要一个人还不曾彻底丧失诗意的话,便会觉得这些女子实在是这个世界上最不可或缺的,因为他一定会相信她们的话:

……如果没有我们的声音

就没有合唱,如果

没有歌曲,就没有开花的树林。

(罗洛译)

while no voices chanted

choruses without ours,

no woodlot bloomed in spring without song...

(tr. Mary Barnard)

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