西尔维娅·普拉斯(Sylvia Plath, 1932–1963)20世纪50年代末开始的自白诗运动中,不仅有罗伯特·罗厄尔和约翰·贝里曼这样的诗坛老将,而且也卷入了不少青年诗人,其中女诗人普拉斯的成就特别耀眼。虽然她在30来岁时自杀,但她几本薄薄的诗集至今仍得到人们的赞赏。普拉斯的诗醉心于在自我与客观世间的关系中发掘混乱,几乎把自白诗那种悲剧式的自我揭露推到了极端,她的某些诗使人感到如在梦魇中喊叫,在她眼中,自我和世界靠痛苦而结合。
普拉斯的父亲是归化美国的德国人,她在英国剑桥大学毕业后,嫁给英国颇负盛名的诗人泰德·休斯,他们定居在英国,生了一女一子。1960年她出版了第一本诗集《巨大的雕像》,反响不大。休斯在20世纪60年代初另有新欢,使普拉斯十分痛苦。1962年冬天,普拉斯单独带两个孩子寓居伦敦。1963年2月11日,她吸煤气自杀。据她的传记作家写道,她以前已经有过几次未遂的自杀尝试。
她的遗稿陆续编成《爱丽尔》(1965年)、《渡湖》(1971年)和《冬树》(1971年)出版,在美国诗坛上激起了热烈的反应,成为自白诗运动的又一个高潮。近几十年来,普拉斯在诗歌史上的地位似乎越来越高。但也有人有不同意见,例如自白派的领袖罗伯特·罗厄尔就说她把自己的痛苦写得“太过分”。
但普拉斯也有诗写生活的快乐,也有诗讽刺西方的社会现实,她的早逝使美国诗坛损失了一位大有前途的女诗人。
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cryTook its place among the elements.Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.In a drafty museum, your nakednessShadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slowEffacement at the wind's hand.All night your moth-breathFlickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:A far sea moves in my ear.One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floralIn my Victorian nightgown.Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window squareWhitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you tryThe clear vowels rise like balloons.First, are you our sort of a person?A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? ThenHow can we give you a thing?Empty? Empty. Here is a handTo bring teacups and roll away headachesAnd do whatever you tell it.To thumb shut your eyes at the endWe make new stock from the salt.I notice you are stark naked.Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.It is waterproof, shatterproof, proofAgainst fire and bombs through the roof.Believe me, they'll bury you in it.Now your head, excuse me, is empty.I have the ticket for that.Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.Well, what do you think of that ?But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,A living doll, everywhere you look.It works, there is nothing wrong with it.You have a hole, it's a poultice.You have an eye, it's an image.My boy, it's your last resort.Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.Nor the woman in the ambulanceWhose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly—Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyesDulled to a halt under bowlers.That these late mouths should cry openIn a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.After whose stroke the wood rings,Off from the center like horses.Wells like tears, like theTo re-establish its mirrorEncounter them on the road—The indefatigable hoof-taps.From the bottom of the pool, fixed starsYou do not do, you do not doIn which I have lived like a footFor thirty years, poor and white,Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.Daddy, I have had to kill you.You died before I had time—Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,Ghastly statue with one gray toeAnd a head in the freakish AtlanticWhere it pours bean green over blueIn the waters off beautiful Nauset.I used to pray to recover you.In the German tongue, in the Polish townScraped flat by the rollerBut the name of the town is common.Says there are a dozen or two.So I never could tell where youPut your foot, your root,I never could talk to you.The tongue stuck in my jaw.It stuck in a barb wire snare.I thought every German was you.Chuffing me off like a Jew.A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.I began to talk like a Jew.I think I may well be a Jew.The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of ViennaAre not very pure or true.With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luckAnd my Taroc pack and my Taroc packI have always been scared of you ,With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.And your Aryan eye, bright blue.Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You—So black no sky could squeak through.Every woman adores a Fascist,The boot in the face, the bruteBrute heart of a brute like you.You stand at the blackboard, daddy,In the picture I have of you,A cleft in your chin instead of your footBut no less a devil for that, no notAny less the black man whoBit my pretty red heart in two.I was ten when they buried you.And get back, back, back to you.I thought even the bones would do.But they pulled me out of the sack,And they stuck me together with glue.And then I knew what to do.A man in black with a Meinkampf lookAnd a love of the rack and the screw.So daddy, I'm finally through.The black telephone's off at the root,The voices just can't worm through.If I've killed one man, I've killed two—The vampire who said he was youAnd drank my blood for a year,Seven years, if you want to know.Daddy, you can lie back now.There's a stake in your fat black heartAnd the villagers never liked you.They are dancing and stamping on you.They always knew it was you.Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.The word of a snail on the plate of a leaf?It is not mine. Do not accept it.Acetic acid in a sealed tin?Do not accept it. It is not genuine.A ring of gold with the sun in it?Frost on a leaf, the immaculateCauldron, talking and cracklingAll to itself on top of eachA disturbance in mirrors,The sea shattering its grey one—Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.Where do the black trees go that drink here?Their shadows must cover Canada.A little light is filtering from the water flowers.Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:They are round and flat and full of dark advice.Cold worlds shake from the oar.The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;Stars open among the lilies.Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?This is the silence of astounded souls.赵 毅 衡 译
奥西里斯是死亡与复活之神,大自然一年一度伟大变化的化身。古埃及人每年都要以悲哀和欢乐相交替的心情纪念这位大神。据说奥西里斯在世上称王治国时,曾开化了野蛮状态的埃及人,给他们法律,教他们种植小麦、葡萄,并使他们学会了榨酒和供奉诸神。由于他给人类带来了福祉,人们一致把他当作神来崇拜。但他的弟弟塞特设计将他骗进银柜谋杀了他,又将银柜扔进了尼罗河。奥西里斯的妹妹,也是他的妻子伊希思历尽千辛万苦找到了银柜。但塞特又想办法把银柜里的尸体剁成14块,四处抛散。后来伊希思和她的妹妹终于搜全了尸块,哀哭了一阵。她们的眼泪造成了尼罗河的泛滥。太阳神喇派豹头神阿奴比斯把奥西里斯破碎的身体拼拢,用麻布包好,举行了入殓仪式。伊希思用自己的翅膀扇着坟墓冷湿的泥土,终于使奥西里斯复活了,此后他就在阴间做了国王。古埃及人把奥西里斯的复活看作是他们自己在坟墓以外永生的保证。他们相信人死后灵魂还在阴间游荡,只要把尸体保存好,像诸神保管奥西里斯的身体那样,每个人都有可能在另一世界永生。从这个观念中,产生了著名的木乃伊制作、金字塔建造和《亡灵书》。富贵者用香料对尸体作防腐处理,以防止受潮、腐烂或被虫蛀。法老预先为自己建造了巨大的金字塔,以便死后将木乃伊放入其中,等待再生日子的来临。每一个虔诚的埃及人都希望自己的肉身死去后,亡灵能进入奥西里斯的灵魂之国。但这是一条异常艰险的道路,亡灵必须经过图阿特(太阳西沉后夜间经过的地方)的12个国家,沿途经受种种磨难,才能到达真理的殿堂(公平殿),接受奥西里斯的审判。埃及人相信,冥王高坐在殿堂正中,他面前放着一架天平。天平一端放着象征公平的羽毛,另一端放着死者的心脏。两侧有42位陪审官轮流发问——这些问题基本上属于亡灵生前的善恶行为,最后决定亡灵的命运,或判其升天国,或判其喂鳄鱼之类的怪兽。为了帮助亡灵通过这种种磨难和审问,法老的祭司和神职人员给亡灵写了一本下界的旅行指南,记载种种相关知识,包括对神的颂歌、对神鬼的各种应答、护身咒语等,供其应用。由此产生了世界上最古老的文学作品之一——《亡灵书》。埃及学学者相信,《亡灵书》(又名《死者之书》、《白昼通行书》)中的许多内容早在公元前3700年左右即被广泛应用,直到公元1世纪仍享有很高的声誉。它们不断地被缩写,转抄,再转抄,至今前后历经5000年之久。虔诚的埃及人,无论是法老还是农夫,是王后还是女佣,都是读着这本书长大的。他们在学校里阅读,在临死时参阅,他们相信幸福和永生来自于那些赞歌、祷文和咒语。对他们来说,这本书不是枯燥的教材,而是通向奥西里斯王国,通向永生的最美好的向导。古埃及人用象形文字将它抄写在纸草卷上,或镌刻在金字塔内壁上供死者(一般是法老之类的大人物)阅读。穷人没有能力购置《亡灵书》,只好托人抄一些片段或要点带给死者,以应付冥路上的磨难和冥王的审判。需要说明的是,《亡灵书》这个名称是19世纪的埃及学学者在金字塔内发现了许多抄有祭文的纸草卷后赋予的,实际上,这些经文、颂诗和咒语并非写于同一时代,其风格和特征也千差万别。现藏于大英博物馆中的《亡灵书》善本《阿尼的纸草》据信成书于公元前1450—前1400年间,是一位名叫阿尼的王室抄录员用黑色墨水抄写在纸草上的,书法精美并附有彩色插图。从文学角度来看,《亡灵书》是一部巨大的宗教性诗歌总集,内容驳杂,种类繁多,汇集了大量的经文、颂神诗、歌谣和咒语等,反映了古埃及人的宗教信仰和价值观。如《阿吞太阳神颂诗》表现了对太阳神的无限崇拜。诗篇赞美太阳神为埃及两地带来光明,把大地照得一片金光,并从努圣水中创造了人类始祖,让所有的大地、岛屿和城镇充满生机。《献给奥西里斯的赞美诗》把奥西里斯说成是“王中之王,主中之主”,祈祷者希望“以神灵的名义航向图阿特河,像柏努鸟那样飞向阿比多斯河,不再有什么事情能阻止我,进入图阿特之门”。
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