西尔维娅·普拉斯：榆树——给茹丝·芬莱特

得一忘二　译


我了解那底部，她说。我用粗大的直根了解它：
它，是你所恐惧的。
我不怕它：我已去过。

你在我深处听到的可是大海，
以及它的不满？
或是虚空之声，是你的疯狂？

爱是一个影子。
你撒着谎，哭喊着穷追不舍。
听啊：它的蹄声。它已经跑开，像一匹马。

我也将彻夜这样奔腾，狂野地，
直到你的头化为石头，枕头化为一方小小的赛马场，
回响，回响。

或者，我应给你带来毒药的声音？
它现在化作雨了，这巨大的静寂。
这就是它的果实：锡白色，像砒霜。

我已饱经日落的暴行。
我红色的丝
烤焦到根部，燃烧，竖起，一只铁丝的手。

现在，我断成碎片，棍棒似地飞散出去。
如此暴力的风
不会容忍旁观：我必须尖叫。

月亮也绝不仁慈：她会拖住我，
残酷地，因为她不育。
她的辐射灼伤了我。或许，是我不放过她。

我放她走了。我放走了她，
萎缩了，干瘪了，像经过了彻底的手术。
你的恶梦占有了我，也馈赠我。

我被一种啼哭附了身。
它夜夜扑闪而出，
以它的钩爪，寻找值得一爱的东西。

这黑暗的东西睡在我的体内，
吓得我魂不附体；
我整天都感到它轻柔的羽毛似的转动，它的恶毒。

云朵飘过，云朵疏散。
那些一去不回的苍白，都是爱的面孔吗？
我心神不宁，是否因为这一切？

我无力承受更多知识。
这是什么，这张充满杀机
被树枝掐住的脸，是什么？——

它毒蛇的酸液嘶嘶响。
它僵化着意志。这些孤立的、迟缓的缺陷
能够致命，致命，致命。
　　　　　　　　　
1962年4月19日


译按：茹丝·芬莱特（1931-）出生于美国、主要居住在英国的女诗人、翻译家。她是英国小说家艾伦·斯里托的妻子，普拉斯生前最后一年多的好友。中译文好像很少有人翻译这个题献，而网上有一个流传甚广的非常好笑的翻译，将这个人的名字连同前面的for翻译成“作为悔悟的幻想之光”。现在市面上见到出版物中，该诗最后一节第一行是Its snaky acids kiss，但现代学者参看她的手稿，已达成共识，kiss应该是hiss，我的译文也依此改动。

Elm
　　For Ruth Fainlight

Sylvia Plath

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root;
It is what you fear.
I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,
Its dissatisfactions?
Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?

Love is a shadow.
How you lie and cry after it.
Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallup thus, impetuously,
Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,
Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?
This is rain now, the big hush.
And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.
Scorched to the root
My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.
A wind of such violence
Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me
Cruelly, being barren.
Her radience scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go
Diminshed and flat, as after radical surgery.
How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches?--

Its snaky acids kiss.　(hiss)
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.