介绍:
大象
如何解释我英雄式的谦卑？我觉得
我的身体肿得就像被一个淘气的男孩吹胀。
我曾经像猎鹰一样大，像狮子一样大，
我曾经不是现在自己看到的这头大象。
我的毛皮耷拉着，我的主人因为一个搞砸的小把戏
责骂我。我曾经在帐篷里练习了一晚上，现在
我已经昏昏欲睡。人们看到我总是想起“悲伤”，
还时常觉得我“理性”。兰德尔·贾雷尔
把我比作华莱士·史蒂文斯，那个美国诗人。看看
我那笨拙的三拍节奏，他说得或许在理；但我觉得
我更像艾略特，一个欧洲人，一个
受过文明教化的人。任何这么讲究斯文的人
都会时时崩溃。我不喜欢铺张的
平衡实验，不喜欢高空走钢丝和冰激淋圆筒。
我们大象是谦卑的象征，尤其
当我们踏上前往自己坟场的悲怆征途。
但你知道吗，活着的大象会被教授
用蹄子写出希腊字母表？
被痛苦折磨得筋疲力尽，我们躺在自己巨大的背上，
把草抛向天堂——只是为了分散注意力，并不是一种祈祷。
所以我们前往坟场的过程中并未表现谦卑：
它只是一种拖延。如此沉重的身躯躺在地上，实在太痛。
作者 / [美国] 丹·亚松
翻译 / 光诸
The Elephant
How to explain my heroic courtesy? I feel
that my body was inflated by a mischievous boy.
Once I was the size of a falcon, the size of a lion,
once I was not the elephant I find I am.
My pelt sags, and my master scolds me for a botched
trick. I practiced it all night in my tent, so I was
somewhat sleepy. People connect me with sadness
and, often, rationality. Randall Jarrell compared me
to Wallace Stevens, the American poet. I can see it
in the lumbering tercets, but in my mind
I am more like Eliot, a man of Europe, a man
of cultivation. Anyone so ceremonious suffers
breakdowns. I do not like the spectacular experiments
with balance, the high-wire act and cones.
We elephants are images of humility, as when we
undertake our melancholy migrations to die.
Did you know, though, that elephants were taught
to write the Greek alphabet with their hooves?
Worn out by suffering, we lie on our great backs,
tossing grass up to heaven—as a distraction, not a prayer.
That’s not humility you see on our long final journeys:
it’s procrastination. It hurts my heavy body to lie down.
DAN CHIASSON
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