杰克·吉尔伯特：寻找欧律狄克

柳向阳 译


俄耳甫斯如今做这事太老了。他有名的嗓子已消失，
他的生涯已成过去。那些爱与悲伤的歌曲
再无益处。没有人听。仍然，他悄悄地
带着他残损的乐器。但不是为欧律狄克，
甚至不是为了歌唱的快乐。他歌唱，因为
这是他一直做的事。他歌唱两位年老的
炎热的萨克拉曼多*三角洲乡村的葡萄牙男人。
歌唱他们如何每年都露面，虚弱，穿着
他们的贫困所许可的好衣服。那位丈夫每次
都被惹怒：他们来看他的七十岁的
妻子，她，许多年前当他们贯通
最早的铁路时，她在所有妓女中
最漂亮。不耐烦，但一言不发，他让他们
小心翼翼地把她带到楼上，给她洗澡。他
并不明白他们溺爱的昏花老眼究竟能看到多少
她那掩藏在明亮水中的光泽闪耀的美。

*萨克拉曼多（Sacramento），美国加州首府。


FINDING EURYDICE

Orpheus is too old for it now. His famous voice is gone
and his career is past. No profit anymore from the songs
of love and grief. Nobody listens. Still, he goes on
secretly with his ruined alto. But not for Eurydice.
Not even for the pleasure of singing. He sings because
that is what he does. He sings about two elderly
Portuguese men in the hot Sacramento delta country.
How they show up every year or so, feeble and dressed
as well as their poverty allows. The husband is annoyed
each time by their coming to see his seventy-year-old
wife, who, long ago when they were putting through
the first railroads, was the most beautiful of all
the whores. Impatient, but saying nothing, he lets them
take her carefully upstairs to give her a bath. He does not see the sleek,
gleaming beauty of her hidden in the bright water.