Musee des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer&`&s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel&`&s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
美术馆
奥登
(王佐良 译)
关于痛苦他们总是很清楚的,
这些古典画家:他们深知它在
人心中的地;深知痛苦会产生,
当别人在吃,在开窗,或作着无聊的散步的时候;
深知当老年人热烈地、虔敬地等候
神异的降生时,总会有些孩子
并不特别想要它出现,而却在
树林边沿的池塘上溜着冰。
他们从不忘记:
即使悲惨的殉道也终归会完结
在一个角落,乱糟糟的地方,
在那里狗继续着狗的生涯,而迫害者的马
把无知的臀部在树上摩擦。
在勃鲁盖尔的“伊卡鲁斯”里,比如说;
一切是多么安闲地从那桩灾难转过脸:
农夫或许听到了堕水的声音和那绝望的呼喊,
但对于他,那不是了不得的失败;
太阳依旧照着白腿落进绿波里;
那华贵而精巧的船必曾看见
一件怪事,从天上掉下一个男童,
但他有某地要去,仍静静地航行。
[雪梨有话说]
这是雪梨第二次放奥登的诗。小播原本打算介绍完自己喜欢的全部诗人之后再放上每个诗人不同的作品,但前几天在社交网络读到人民日报人民时评《法律要回应“郜艳敏们”的不幸》,文章表示不希望构成“二次伤害”,应该“尊重当事人的选择”,“可以不追究刑事责任”。文中引用了奥登的这首诗。
不追究、不打扰、假装若无其事轻描淡写,这居然是“真正站在受害者角度考虑问题”,我觉得挺滑稽。更可笑的是,文中写道““正如大诗人奥登的名句:一切是多么安闲地从那桩灾难转过脸”。读到这句引用,小播实在不想白白辱了奥登的名声,忍不住放上全诗给大家,黑白分明,大家自己读诗就好。
配图是勃鲁盖尔(1525—1569,尼德兰画家)的油画《伊卡鲁斯》(Landscape with the Fall of Icarus),诗人在美术馆里看到、描述的正是这一幅画。伊卡鲁斯是希腊神话人物,巧匠代达罗斯之子。他和父亲以蜡翼粘身飞离克里特岛,因飞得太高,蜡被阳光融化,坠入爱琴海而死。图中右下角可以看到坠入的伊卡鲁斯的双足,而画面上其他人物和情景显得与他毫不相关。
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