飘尘
试着告诉读者，生活是多样的。每一个活着的人，在多元化的人生时空里， 扮演着某种角色，向着不同的方向展现着自己的千姿百态，书写着与众不同的生 命华章。
正文
by Thomas Gray (1750)
卞之琳译
晚钟响起来一阵阵给白昼报丧，
牛群在草原上迂回，吼声起落，
耕地人累了，回家走，脚步踉跄，
把整个世界留给了黄昏与我。
苍茫的景色逐渐从眼前消退，
一片肃穆的寂静盖遍了尘寰，
只听见嗡嗡的甲虫转圈子纷飞，
昏沉的铃声催眠著远处的羊栏。
只听见常春藤披裹的塔顶底下
一只阴郁的柢枭向月亮诉苦，
怪人家无端走进它秘密的住家，
搅扰它这个悠久而僻静的领土。
峥嵘的榆树底下，扁柏的荫里，
草皮鼓起了许多零落的荒堆，
各自在洞窟里永远放下了身体，
小村里粗鄙的父老在那里安睡。
香气四溢的晨风轻松的呼召，
燕子从茅草棚子里吐出的呢喃，
公鸡的尖喇叭，使山鸣谷应的猎号
再不能唤醒他们在地下的长眠。
在他们，熊熊的炉火不再会燃烧，
忙碌的管家妇不再会赶她的夜活；
孩子们不再会“牙牙”的报父亲来到，
为一个亲吻爬倒他膝上去争夺。
往常是：他们一开镰就所向披靡，
顽梗的泥板让他们犁出了垄沟；
他们多么欢欣地赶牲口下地！
他们一猛砍，树木就一棵棵低头！
“雄心”别嘲讽他们实用的操劳，
家常的欢乐，默默无闻的命运；
“豪华”也不用带著轻蔑的冷笑
来听讲穷人的又短有简的生平。
门第的炫耀，有权有势的显赫，
凡是美和财富所能赋予的好处，
前头都等待著不可避免的时刻：
光荣的道路无非是引导到坟墓。
骄傲人，你也不要怪这些人不行，
“怀念”没有给这些人建立纪念堂，
没有让悠长的廊道、雕花的拱顶
洋溢著洪亮的赞美歌，进行颂扬。
栩栩的半身像，铭刻了事略的瓮碑，
难道能恢复断气，促使还魂？
“荣誉”的声音能激发沉默的死灰？
“献媚”能叫死神听软了耳根？
也许这一块地方，尽管荒芜，
就埋著曾经充满过灵焰的一颗心；
一双手，本可以执掌到帝国的王芴
或者出神入化地拨响了七弦琴。
可是“知识”从不曾对他们展开
它世代积累而琳琅满目的书卷；
“贫寒”压制了他们高贵的襟怀，
冻结了他们从灵府涌出的流泉。
世界上多少晶莹皎洁的珠宝
埋在幽暗而深不可测的海底；
世界上多少花吐艳而无人知晓，
把芳香白白地散发给荒凉的空气。
也许有乡村汉普顿在这里埋身，
反抗过当地的小霸王，胆大，坚决；
也许有缄口的米尔顿，从没有名声；
有一位克伦威尔，并不曾害国家流血。
要博得满场的元老雷动的鼓掌，
无视威胁，全不顾存亡生死，
把富庶，丰饶遍播到四处八方，
打从全国的笑眼里读自己的历史──
他们的命运可不许：既不许罪过
有所放纵，也不许发挥德行；
不许从杀戮中间涉登宝座
从此对人类关上仁慈的大门；
不许掩饰天良在内心的发作，
隐瞒天真的羞愧，恬不红脸；
不许用诗神的金焰点燃了香火
锦上添花去塞满“骄”“奢”的神龛。
远离了纷纭人世的勾心斗角，
他们有清醒愿望，从不学糊涂，
顺著生活的清凉僻静的山坳，
他们坚持了不声不响的正路。
可是叫这些尸骨免受到糟踏，
还是有脆弱的碑牌树立在近边，
点缀了拙劣的韵语、凌乱的刻划，
请求过往人就便献一声婉叹。
无闻的野诗神注上了姓名、年份，
另外再加上地址和一篇悼词；
她在周围撒播了一些经文，
教训乡土道德家怎样去死。
要知道谁甘愿舍身哑口的“遗忘”，
坦然撇下了忧喜交织的此生，
谁离开风和日暖的明媚现场
而能不依依地回头来顾盼一阵？
辞世的灵魂还依傍钟情的怀抱，
临闭的眼睛需要尽哀的珠泪，
即使坟冢里也有“自然”的呼号
他们的旧火还点燃我们的新灰。
至于你，我关心这些默默的陈死人，
用这些诗句讲他们质朴的故事，
假如在幽思的引导下， 偶然有缘分，
一位同道来问起你的身世，
也许会有白头的乡下人对他说，
“我们常常看见他，天还刚亮，
就用匆忙的脚步把露水碰落，
上那边高处的草地去会晤朝阳；
“那边有一棵婆娑的山毛榉老树，
树底下隆起的老根盘错在一起，
他常常在那里懒躺过一个中午，
悉心看旁边一道涓涓的小溪。
“他转游到林边，有时候笑里带嘲，
念念有词，发他的奇谈怪议，
有时候垂头丧气，像无依无靠，
像忧心忡忡或者像情场失意。
“有一天早上，在他惯去的山头，
灌木丛，他那棵爱树下，我不见他出现；
第二天早上，尽管我走下溪流，
上草地，穿过树林，他还是不见。
“第三天我们见到了送葬的行列，
唱著挽歌，抬著他向坟场走去──
请上前看那丛老荆棘底下的碑碣，
（你是识字的）请念念这些诗句”：
墓铭
这里边， 高枕地膝， 是位青年，
生平从不受之于 “富贵”和“名声”。
“知识”可没轻视他的微贱，
“清愁”把他标出来认作宠幸。
他生性真挚， 最乐于慷慨施惠，
上苍也给了他同样慷慨的报酬：
他给了“坎坷”全部的所有， 一滴泪，
从上苍全得了所求， 一位朋友。
别再想法子表彰他的功绩，
也别再把他的弱点翻出了暗喜，
(他们同样在颤抖的希望中休息)
那就是他的天父和上帝的怀抱。
注释
墓畔哀歌作于1750年。那一年，诗人才35岁。此诗流传很广，被再版过很多次，被 翻译成许多种语言。 我最欣赏的是卞之琳和王佐良的译本。读者会发现， 自始至终， 这首诗所有的诗行都是等长的，每行 (line)含五个顿步 (feet), 每个诗节(stanza)含 变韵的诗行。
1. The curfew: 这个词的意指诺尔曼人征服英英格兰时期的一种“晚钟。”用来警 示人们在夜间睡觉之前熄灯，关火。 这个词来自法文couvrir (cover, 关) 和 feu (fire, 火).
2. Incense breathing Morn. 诗人在这里把“早晨”比作人。 拟人化的手法在十 八世纪得诗歌中很常见， 尤其在这首诗里。
3. Glebe. 土壤， 大地。
4. The boast of heraldry. 炫耀出身或门第的所作所为。
5. Where through the long-drawn aisle,etc. 作为一种习俗， 村里的穷人死了， 埋在果园里，而富人和权贵们死了，则要在教堂里举行葬礼。
6. Storied urn. 古时铭刻事略传记的瓮碑
7. Animated. 象人一样的
8. Provoke. 召唤
9. Full many a gem, etc. 这时在英国的诗歌里最为人熟知的诗节之一。"世界上 多少晶莹皎洁的珠宝, 埋在幽暗而深不可测的海底； 世界上多少花吐艳而无人知晓， 把芳香白白地散发给荒凉的空气。”
10. Village-Hampden. John Hampden. 约翰汉普顿， 英国的一位爱国者，未经告 知议会便拒绝向国王纳税。 后来他在1643年英国解放的战斗中负伤身亡。
11. Milton. John Milton, 约翰米尔顿 (1608-1674) “失去的天堂”的作者，继 莎士比亚后，英国最伟大的诗人.
12, Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658). 克伦威尔，历史学家，英国解放的 先驱。
13. Th' unlettered Muse. 谬斯是古希腊传说中的九位神， 他们主掌科学， 音乐， 艺术和各类诗歌。真正的诗歌需要他们的激发和鼓舞。作者想象有这样的神激发作 者们去写原始的墓铭。
14. Swain. 乡下人.
Gray, Thomas (1716-1771), English poet, who was a forerunner of the romantic movement. He was born in London and educated at Eton College and the University of Cambridge. In 1750 he finished the poem for which he is best known, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," and sent it to his friend, the author Horace Walpole, at whose insistence it was published in 1751. Since that time the work has remained a favorite.
Living at Cambridge, Gray wrote The Progress of Poesy (1754). In 1757 he refused an appointment as poet laureate. He became professor of history and modern languages at Cambridge in 1768. Among his poems are "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" (1742) and "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West" (1775).In the intervals of his scholastic duties he traveled widely throughout Britain in search of picturesque scenery and ancient monuments, recording his impressions in his Journal (1775). Thomas Gray is considered a forerunner of the romantic poets.
ELEGY
WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD"
墓畔哀歌
Thomas Gray (1716-71)
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh!
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, --
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
赏析
Commentary by Ian Lancashire
Critics have spent entire books interpreting Gray's "Elegy." Is it ironic, as Cleanth Brooks would have us believe, or is it sentimental, as Samuel Johnson might say? Does it express Gray's melancholic democratic feelings about the oneness of human experience from the perspective of death, or does Gray discuss the life and death of another elegist, one who, in his youth, suffered the same obscurity as the "rude forefathers" in the country graveyard? Should Gray have added the final "Epitaph" to his work?
Readers whose memories have made Gray's "Elegy" one of the most loved poems in English -- nearly three-quarters of its 128 lines appear in the Oxford Book of Quotations -- seem unfazed by these questions. What matters to readers, over time, is the power of "Elegy" to console. Its title describes its function: lamenting someone's death, and affirming the life that preceded it so that we can be comforted. One may die after decades of anonymous labour, uneducated, unknown or scarcely remembered, one's potential unrealized, Gray's poem says, but that life will have as many joys, and far fewer ill effects on others, than lives of the rich, the powerful, the famous. Also, the great memorials that money can buy do no more for the deceased than a common grave marker. In the end, what counts is friendship, being mourned, being cried for by someone who was close. "He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, / He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend" (123-24). This sentiment, found in the controversial epitaph, affirms what the graveyard' s lonely visitor says earlier: "On some fond breast the parting soul relies, / Some pious drops the closing eye requires" (89-90). Gray's restraint, his habit of speaking in universals rather than particulars, and his shifting from one speaker to another, control the powerful feelings these lines call up. They frame everything at some distance from the viewer.
The poem opens with a death-bell sounding, a knell. The lowing of cattle, the droning of a beetle in flight, the tinkling of sheep-bells, and the owl's hooting (stanzas 1-3) mourn the passing of a day, described metaphorically as if it were a person, and then suitably the narrator's eye shifts to a human graveyard. From creatures that wind, plod, wheel, and wander, he looks on still, silent "mould'ring" heaps, and on turf under a moonlit tower where "The rude forefathers" "sleep" in a "lowly bed." Gray makes his sunset a truly human death-knell. No morning bird-song, evening family life, or farming duties (stanzas 5-7) will wake, welcome, or occupy them. They have fallen literally under the sickle, the ploughshare, and the axe that they once wielded. They once tilled glebe land, fields owned by the church, but now lie under another church property, the parish graveyard.
This scene remains in memory as the narrator contrasts it with allegorical figures who represent general traits of eighteenth-century humanity: Ambition (29), Grandeur (31), Memory (38), Honour (43), Flattery and Death (44), Knowledge (49), Penury (51), Luxury and Pride (71), Forgetfulness (85), and Nature (91). In shifting from individuals to universal types that characterize the world at large, the poem exchanges country "darkness" for civic and national life. Yet, against expectations, the narrator defends the dead in his remote churchyward cemetery from the contempt of abstractions like Ambition and Grandeur. He makes four arguments. First, the goals of the great, which include aristocratic lineage, beauty, power, wealth, and glory, share the same end as the "rude forefathers," the grave. Human achievements diminish from the viewpoint of the eternal. The monuments that Memory erects for them ("storied urn or animated bust"), the church anthems sung at their funeral, and the praise of Honour or Flattery before or after death also cannot ameliorate that fate. The narrator reduces the important, living and deceased, to the level of the village dead. Secondly, he asks pointedly why, were circumstances different, were they to have been educated with Knowledge' s "roll" and released from "Chill Penury," would they not have achieved as much in poetry and politics as did figures like Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell? Thirdly, the narrator suggests that his unimportant, out-of-power country dead lived morally better lives by being untempted to commit murder or act cruelly. Last, "uncouth rhymes," "shapeless sculpture," and "many a holy text" that characterize their "frail" cemetery memorials, and even those markers with only a simple name and age at death, "spelt by th' unlettered muse" (81), serve the important universal human needs: to prompt "the passing tribute of a sigh" (80) and to "teach the rustic moralist to die" (84).
In the next three stanzas, the narrator -- the "me" who with darkness takes over the world at sunset (4) -- finally reveals why he is in the cemetery, telling the "artless tale" of the "unhonour'd Dead" (93). He is one of them. Like the "rude Forefathers" among whom he is found, the narrator ghost is "to Fortune and to Fame unknown" (118). Like anyone who "This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned," he -- in this narrative itself -- casts "one longing, ling'ring look behind" to life (86-88). As he says, "Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries" (91). He tells us the literal truth in saying, "Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires" (92). These fires appear in his ashes, which speak this elegy. He anticipates this astounding confession earlier in saying:
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.
As Nature's voice from the dead, the "living lyre," he addresses himself in the past tense as having passed on, as of course he did. Should some "kindred spirit" ask about his "fate," that of the one who describes the dead "in these lines," an old "swain" (shepherd) might describe his last days. If so, he would have seen, with "another" person, the narrator's bier carried towards the church and his epitaph "Grav'd on the stone" (116). Only a ghost would know, with certainty, that "The paths of glory lead but to the grave" (36). Little wonder that the poem ends with the swain's invitation to the "kindred spirit" to read the text of the narrator's own epitaph. The narrator ghost gave "all he had, a tear," and did get the only good he wished for, "a friend." He affirms the value of friendship above all other goods in life. His wish is granted by the kindred spirit who seeks out his lost companion.
Critics have gone to some lengths to explain the narrator's address to himself as "thee" (93). Some believe Gray slipped and meant "me" instead (despite "thy" at 96). Others argue that the dead narrator is "the' unlettered muse," the so-called "stonecutter-poet" who wrote simple epitaphs with "uncouth rhymes" (79-81), although the dead youth's knowledge of "Fair Science" (119) clearly rules that out. Still others believe that Gray himself is the narrator, but his age at the poem's completion was 35, hardly a youth. The "Elegy" is spoken, not by Gray but by a dramatic persona. The simplest explanation is that the poem is a ghost's monologue with the living about death. "Elegy" belongs to the so-called "graveyard" school of poetry. It follows Churchill's "The Ghost" and anticipates the gothic movement.
Gray adopts and refines a regular poetics typical of his period. His iambic pentameter quatrains are self-contained and end-stopped. They do not enjamb with the next stanza but close with terminal punctuation, except for two passionate sequences. Stanzas 16-18 express the narrator's crescendo of anger at the empowered proud whose virtues go hand-in-hand with crimes: slaughter, mercilessness, and lying. Stanzas 24-25 introduce the dead youth who, I suggest, narrates the poem. Quatrains also regularly consist of end-stopped lines, equally self-contained and even interchangeable. For example, in the first stanza, lines 1-3 could be in any order, and lines 2 and 4 could change places. Gray builds his lines, internally, of units just as regular. Often lines are miniature clauses with balanced subject and predicate, such as "The curfew" (subject) and "tolls the knell of parting day" (predicate; 1), or "No children" (subject) and "run to lisp their sire's return" (predicate; 23). Within both subject and predicate units, Gray inserts adjective-noun pairs like "parting day," "lowing herd," "weary way," "glimm'ring landscape," "solemn stillness," "droning flight," "drowsy tinklings," and "distant fold" (1-8). By assembling larger blocks from these smaller ones, Gray builds symmetry at all levels.
He also links sequences of these regular blocks. Alliteration, unobtrusively, ties successive lines together: for example, "herd wind" and "homeward" (2-3), "droning flight" and "distant folds" (7-8), and "mantl'd tow'r" and "moping owl" (9-10). Gray rhymes internally in "slowly o'er the lea" (2) or "And all the air ... / Save where" (6-7), or he exploits an inconspicuous initial assonance or consonance in "Beneath ... / Where heaves" (12-14), and "The cock's shrill ... / No more shall" (19-20). Parallel syntactic construction across line and stanza boundaries links sequences of such larger units. For example, twinned clauses appear with "Save" (7, 9), "How" (27-28), "Can" (41, 43), "Full many a" (53, 55), "forbade" (65, 67), and "For who" and "For thee" (85, 93), among others.
Semantically, Gray's "Elegy" reads like a collage of remembered experiences. Some are realized in both image and sound. "The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed" (18) vividly and sharply conveys one instant in the awakening process on a farm. At other times, the five senses blur, as in "the madding crowd's ignoble strife" (73), or "This pleasing anxious being" (86), but these remain snapshots, though of feelings, not images. They flow from a lived life remembering its keenest moments in tranquillity. Some of these moments are literary. In 1768, Gray added three notes to "Elegy" that identify where he adopts lines in by Dante and Petrarch. "Elegy" is rife with other, unacknowledged echoes of poems by contemporaries, famous and obscure: Robert Colvill, Paul Whitehead, Henry Needler, Richard West, Alexander Pope, Samuel Whyte, Joseph Trapp, Henry Jones, John Oldmixon, and doubtless many others contributed phrases to Gray's poem.
These formal elements in Gray's poetics beautifully strengthen the poem's content. "Elegy" gives us a ghost's perspective on his life, and ours. The old swain describes him as a melancholic loner who loved walking by hill, heath, trees, and stream. The epitaph also reveals that he was well-educated, a youth who died unknown. These are the very qualities we might predict in the writer, from the style of his verse. "Elegy" streams with memories of the countryside where the youth walked. The firm, mirrored linguistic structures with which he conveys those recalled moments belong to someone well-educated in Latin, "Fair Science," and well-read in English poetry. Gray did not just give his readers succinct aphorisms about what Isaac Watt would term, "Man Frail, God Eternal," but recreated a lost human being. In reading "Elegy," we recreate a person, only to find out that he died, too young, too kind, and too true to a melancholy so many share.
卞之琳译
晚钟响起来一阵阵给白昼报丧，
牛群在草原上迂回，吼声起落，
耕地人累了，回家走，脚步踉跄，
把整个世界留给了黄昏与我。
苍茫的景色逐渐从眼前消退，
一片肃穆的寂静盖遍了尘寰，
只听见嗡嗡的甲虫转圈子纷飞，
昏沉的铃声催眠著远处的羊栏。
只听见常春藤披裹的塔顶底下
一只阴郁的柢枭向月亮诉苦，
怪人家无端走进它秘密的住家，
搅扰它这个悠久而僻静的领土。
峥嵘的榆树底下，扁柏的荫里，
草皮鼓起了许多零落的荒堆，
各自在洞窟里永远放下了身体，
小村里粗鄙的父老在那里安睡。
香气四溢的晨风轻松的呼召，
燕子从茅草棚子里吐出的呢喃，
公鸡的尖喇叭，使山鸣谷应的猎号
再不能唤醒他们在地下的长眠。
在他们，熊熊的炉火不再会燃烧，
忙碌的管家妇不再会赶她的夜活；
孩子们不再会“牙牙”的报父亲来到，
为一个亲吻爬倒他膝上去争夺。
往常是：他们一开镰就所向披靡，
顽梗的泥板让他们犁出了垄沟；
他们多么欢欣地赶牲口下地！
他们一猛砍，树木就一棵棵低头！
“雄心”别嘲讽他们实用的操劳，
家常的欢乐，默默无闻的命运；
“豪华”也不用带著轻蔑的冷笑
来听讲穷人的又短有简的生平。
门第的炫耀，有权有势的显赫，
凡是美和财富所能赋予的好处，
前头都等待著不可避免的时刻：
光荣的道路无非是引导到坟墓。
骄傲人，你也不要怪这些人不行，
“怀念”没有给这些人建立纪念堂，
没有让悠长的廊道、雕花的拱顶
洋溢著洪亮的赞美歌，进行颂扬。
栩栩的半身像，铭刻了事略的瓮碑，
难道能恢复断气，促使还魂？
“荣誉”的声音能激发沉默的死灰？
“献媚”能叫死神听软了耳根？
也许这一块地方，尽管荒芜，
就埋著曾经充满过灵焰的一颗心；
一双手，本可以执掌到帝国的王芴
或者出神入化地拨响了七弦琴。
可是“知识”从不曾对他们展开
它世代积累而琳琅满目的书卷；
“贫寒”压制了他们高贵的襟怀，
冻结了他们从灵府涌出的流泉。
世界上多少晶莹皎洁的珠宝
埋在幽暗而深不可测的海底；
世界上多少花吐艳而无人知晓，
把芳香白白地散发给荒凉的空气。
也许有乡村汉普顿在这里埋身，
反抗过当地的小霸王，胆大，坚决；
也许有缄口的米尔顿，从没有名声；
有一位克伦威尔，并不曾害国家流血。
要博得满场的元老雷动的鼓掌，
无视威胁，全不顾存亡生死，
把富庶，丰饶遍播到四处八方，
打从全国的笑眼里读自己的历史──
他们的命运可不许：既不许罪过
有所放纵，也不许发挥德行；
不许从杀戮中间涉登宝座
从此对人类关上仁慈的大门；
不许掩饰天良在内心的发作，
隐瞒天真的羞愧，恬不红脸；
不许用诗神的金焰点燃了香火
锦上添花去塞满“骄”“奢”的神龛。
远离了纷纭人世的勾心斗角，
他们有清醒愿望，从不学糊涂，
顺著生活的清凉僻静的山坳，
他们坚持了不声不响的正路。
可是叫这些尸骨免受到糟踏，
还是有脆弱的碑牌树立在近边，
点缀了拙劣的韵语、凌乱的刻划，
请求过往人就便献一声婉叹。
无闻的野诗神注上了姓名、年份，
另外再加上地址和一篇悼词；
她在周围撒播了一些经文，
教训乡土道德家怎样去死。
要知道谁甘愿舍身哑口的“遗忘”，
坦然撇下了忧喜交织的此生，
谁离开风和日暖的明媚现场
而能不依依地回头来顾盼一阵？
辞世的灵魂还依傍钟情的怀抱，
临闭的眼睛需要尽哀的珠泪，
即使坟冢里也有“自然”的呼号
他们的旧火还点燃我们的新灰。
至于你，我关心这些默默的陈死人，
用这些诗句讲他们质朴的故事，
假如在幽思的引导下， 偶然有缘分，
一位同道来问起你的身世，
也许会有白头的乡下人对他说，
“我们常常看见他，天还刚亮，
就用匆忙的脚步把露水碰落，
上那边高处的草地去会晤朝阳；
“那边有一棵婆娑的山毛榉老树，
树底下隆起的老根盘错在一起，
他常常在那里懒躺过一个中午，
悉心看旁边一道涓涓的小溪。
“他转游到林边，有时候笑里带嘲，
念念有词，发他的奇谈怪议，
有时候垂头丧气，像无依无靠，
像忧心忡忡或者像情场失意。
“有一天早上，在他惯去的山头，
灌木丛，他那棵爱树下，我不见他出现；
第二天早上，尽管我走下溪流，
上草地，穿过树林，他还是不见。
“第三天我们见到了送葬的行列，
唱著挽歌，抬著他向坟场走去──
请上前看那丛老荆棘底下的碑碣，
（你是识字的）请念念这些诗句”：
墓铭
这里边， 高枕地膝， 是位青年，
生平从不受之于 “富贵”和“名声”。
“知识”可没轻视他的微贱，
“清愁”把他标出来认作宠幸。
他生性真挚， 最乐于慷慨施惠，
上苍也给了他同样慷慨的报酬：
他给了“坎坷”全部的所有， 一滴泪，
从上苍全得了所求， 一位朋友。
别再想法子表彰他的功绩，
也别再把他的弱点翻出了暗喜，
(他们同样在颤抖的希望中休息)
那就是他的天父和上帝的怀抱。
注释
墓畔哀歌作于1750年。那一年，诗人才35岁。此诗流传很广，被再版过很多次，被 翻译成许多种语言。 我最欣赏的是卞之琳和王佐良的译本。读者会发现， 自始至终， 这首诗所有的诗行都是等长的，每行 (line)含五个顿步 (feet), 每个诗节(stanza)含 变韵的诗行。
1. The curfew: 这个词的意指诺尔曼人征服英英格兰时期的一种“晚钟。”用来警 示人们在夜间睡觉之前熄灯，关火。 这个词来自法文couvrir (cover, 关) 和 feu (fire, 火).
2. Incense breathing Morn. 诗人在这里把“早晨”比作人。 拟人化的手法在十 八世纪得诗歌中很常见， 尤其在这首诗里。
3. Glebe. 土壤， 大地。
4. The boast of heraldry. 炫耀出身或门第的所作所为。
5. Where through the long-drawn aisle,etc. 作为一种习俗， 村里的穷人死了， 埋在果园里，而富人和权贵们死了，则要在教堂里举行葬礼。
6. Storied urn. 古时铭刻事略传记的瓮碑
7. Animated. 象人一样的
8. Provoke. 召唤
9. Full many a gem, etc. 这时在英国的诗歌里最为人熟知的诗节之一。"世界上 多少晶莹皎洁的珠宝, 埋在幽暗而深不可测的海底； 世界上多少花吐艳而无人知晓， 把芳香白白地散发给荒凉的空气。”
10. Village-Hampden. John Hampden. 约翰汉普顿， 英国的一位爱国者，未经告 知议会便拒绝向国王纳税。 后来他在1643年英国解放的战斗中负伤身亡。
11. Milton. John Milton, 约翰米尔顿 (1608-1674) “失去的天堂”的作者，继 莎士比亚后，英国最伟大的诗人.
12, Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658). 克伦威尔，历史学家，英国解放的 先驱。
13. Th' unlettered Muse. 谬斯是古希腊传说中的九位神， 他们主掌科学， 音乐， 艺术和各类诗歌。真正的诗歌需要他们的激发和鼓舞。作者想象有这样的神激发作 者们去写原始的墓铭。
14. Swain. 乡下人.
Gray, Thomas (1716-1771), English poet, who was a forerunner of the romantic movement. He was born in London and educated at Eton College and the University of Cambridge. In 1750 he finished the poem for which he is best known, "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard," and sent it to his friend, the author Horace Walpole, at whose insistence it was published in 1751. Since that time the work has remained a favorite.
Living at Cambridge, Gray wrote The Progress of Poesy (1754). In 1757 he refused an appointment as poet laureate. He became professor of history and modern languages at Cambridge in 1768. Among his poems are "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" (1742) and "Sonnet on the Death of Richard West" (1775).In the intervals of his scholastic duties he traveled widely throughout Britain in search of picturesque scenery and ancient monuments, recording his impressions in his Journal (1775). Thomas Gray is considered a forerunner of the romantic poets.
ELEGY
WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCH-YARD"
墓畔哀歌
Thomas Gray (1716-71)
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:
Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.
Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.
For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,
Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!
Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:
But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.
Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.
Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,
Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.
Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.
Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh!
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.
Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?
On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.
For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, --
Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;
"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.
"One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;
"The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."
The Epitaph
Here rests his head upon the lap of Earth
A youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown.
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melacholy marked him for her own.
Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send:
He gave to Misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend.
No farther seek his merits to disclose,
Or draw his frailties from their dread abode
(There they alike in trembling hope repose),
The bosom of his Father and his God.
赏析
Commentary by Ian Lancashire
Critics have spent entire books interpreting Gray's "Elegy." Is it ironic, as Cleanth Brooks would have us believe, or is it sentimental, as Samuel Johnson might say? Does it express Gray's melancholic democratic feelings about the oneness of human experience from the perspective of death, or does Gray discuss the life and death of another elegist, one who, in his youth, suffered the same obscurity as the "rude forefathers" in the country graveyard? Should Gray have added the final "Epitaph" to his work?
Readers whose memories have made Gray's "Elegy" one of the most loved poems in English -- nearly three-quarters of its 128 lines appear in the Oxford Book of Quotations -- seem unfazed by these questions. What matters to readers, over time, is the power of "Elegy" to console. Its title describes its function: lamenting someone's death, and affirming the life that preceded it so that we can be comforted. One may die after decades of anonymous labour, uneducated, unknown or scarcely remembered, one's potential unrealized, Gray's poem says, but that life will have as many joys, and far fewer ill effects on others, than lives of the rich, the powerful, the famous. Also, the great memorials that money can buy do no more for the deceased than a common grave marker. In the end, what counts is friendship, being mourned, being cried for by someone who was close. "He gave to Mis'ry all he had, a tear, / He gain'd from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend" (123-24). This sentiment, found in the controversial epitaph, affirms what the graveyard' s lonely visitor says earlier: "On some fond breast the parting soul relies, / Some pious drops the closing eye requires" (89-90). Gray's restraint, his habit of speaking in universals rather than particulars, and his shifting from one speaker to another, control the powerful feelings these lines call up. They frame everything at some distance from the viewer.
The poem opens with a death-bell sounding, a knell. The lowing of cattle, the droning of a beetle in flight, the tinkling of sheep-bells, and the owl's hooting (stanzas 1-3) mourn the passing of a day, described metaphorically as if it were a person, and then suitably the narrator's eye shifts to a human graveyard. From creatures that wind, plod, wheel, and wander, he looks on still, silent "mould'ring" heaps, and on turf under a moonlit tower where "The rude forefathers" "sleep" in a "lowly bed." Gray makes his sunset a truly human death-knell. No morning bird-song, evening family life, or farming duties (stanzas 5-7) will wake, welcome, or occupy them. They have fallen literally under the sickle, the ploughshare, and the axe that they once wielded. They once tilled glebe land, fields owned by the church, but now lie under another church property, the parish graveyard.
This scene remains in memory as the narrator contrasts it with allegorical figures who represent general traits of eighteenth-century humanity: Ambition (29), Grandeur (31), Memory (38), Honour (43), Flattery and Death (44), Knowledge (49), Penury (51), Luxury and Pride (71), Forgetfulness (85), and Nature (91). In shifting from individuals to universal types that characterize the world at large, the poem exchanges country "darkness" for civic and national life. Yet, against expectations, the narrator defends the dead in his remote churchyward cemetery from the contempt of abstractions like Ambition and Grandeur. He makes four arguments. First, the goals of the great, which include aristocratic lineage, beauty, power, wealth, and glory, share the same end as the "rude forefathers," the grave. Human achievements diminish from the viewpoint of the eternal. The monuments that Memory erects for them ("storied urn or animated bust"), the church anthems sung at their funeral, and the praise of Honour or Flattery before or after death also cannot ameliorate that fate. The narrator reduces the important, living and deceased, to the level of the village dead. Secondly, he asks pointedly why, were circumstances different, were they to have been educated with Knowledge' s "roll" and released from "Chill Penury," would they not have achieved as much in poetry and politics as did figures like Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell? Thirdly, the narrator suggests that his unimportant, out-of-power country dead lived morally better lives by being untempted to commit murder or act cruelly. Last, "uncouth rhymes," "shapeless sculpture," and "many a holy text" that characterize their "frail" cemetery memorials, and even those markers with only a simple name and age at death, "spelt by th' unlettered muse" (81), serve the important universal human needs: to prompt "the passing tribute of a sigh" (80) and to "teach the rustic moralist to die" (84).
In the next three stanzas, the narrator -- the "me" who with darkness takes over the world at sunset (4) -- finally reveals why he is in the cemetery, telling the "artless tale" of the "unhonour'd Dead" (93). He is one of them. Like the "rude Forefathers" among whom he is found, the narrator ghost is "to Fortune and to Fame unknown" (118). Like anyone who "This pleasing anxious being e'er resigned," he -- in this narrative itself -- casts "one longing, ling'ring look behind" to life (86-88). As he says, "Ev'n from the tomb the voice of Nature cries" (91). He tells us the literal truth in saying, "Ev'n in our ashes live their wonted fires" (92). These fires appear in his ashes, which speak this elegy. He anticipates this astounding confession earlier in saying:
Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.
As Nature's voice from the dead, the "living lyre," he addresses himself in the past tense as having passed on, as of course he did. Should some "kindred spirit" ask about his "fate," that of the one who describes the dead "in these lines," an old "swain" (shepherd) might describe his last days. If so, he would have seen, with "another" person, the narrator's bier carried towards the church and his epitaph "Grav'd on the stone" (116). Only a ghost would know, with certainty, that "The paths of glory lead but to the grave" (36). Little wonder that the poem ends with the swain's invitation to the "kindred spirit" to read the text of the narrator's own epitaph. The narrator ghost gave "all he had, a tear," and did get the only good he wished for, "a friend." He affirms the value of friendship above all other goods in life. His wish is granted by the kindred spirit who seeks out his lost companion.
Critics have gone to some lengths to explain the narrator's address to himself as "thee" (93). Some believe Gray slipped and meant "me" instead (despite "thy" at 96). Others argue that the dead narrator is "the' unlettered muse," the so-called "stonecutter-poet" who wrote simple epitaphs with "uncouth rhymes" (79-81), although the dead youth's knowledge of "Fair Science" (119) clearly rules that out. Still others believe that Gray himself is the narrator, but his age at the poem's completion was 35, hardly a youth. The "Elegy" is spoken, not by Gray but by a dramatic persona. The simplest explanation is that the poem is a ghost's monologue with the living about death. "Elegy" belongs to the so-called "graveyard" school of poetry. It follows Churchill's "The Ghost" and anticipates the gothic movement.
Gray adopts and refines a regular poetics typical of his period. His iambic pentameter quatrains are self-contained and end-stopped. They do not enjamb with the next stanza but close with terminal punctuation, except for two passionate sequences. Stanzas 16-18 express the narrator's crescendo of anger at the empowered proud whose virtues go hand-in-hand with crimes: slaughter, mercilessness, and lying. Stanzas 24-25 introduce the dead youth who, I suggest, narrates the poem. Quatrains also regularly consist of end-stopped lines, equally self-contained and even interchangeable. For example, in the first stanza, lines 1-3 could be in any order, and lines 2 and 4 could change places. Gray builds his lines, internally, of units just as regular. Often lines are miniature clauses with balanced subject and predicate, such as "The curfew" (subject) and "tolls the knell of parting day" (predicate; 1), or "No children" (subject) and "run to lisp their sire's return" (predicate; 23). Within both subject and predicate units, Gray inserts adjective-noun pairs like "parting day," "lowing herd," "weary way," "glimm'ring landscape," "solemn stillness," "droning flight," "drowsy tinklings," and "distant fold" (1-8). By assembling larger blocks from these smaller ones, Gray builds symmetry at all levels.
He also links sequences of these regular blocks. Alliteration, unobtrusively, ties successive lines together: for example, "herd wind" and "homeward" (2-3), "droning flight" and "distant folds" (7-8), and "mantl'd tow'r" and "moping owl" (9-10). Gray rhymes internally in "slowly o'er the lea" (2) or "And all the air ... / Save where" (6-7), or he exploits an inconspicuous initial assonance or consonance in "Beneath ... / Where heaves" (12-14), and "The cock's shrill ... / No more shall" (19-20). Parallel syntactic construction across line and stanza boundaries links sequences of such larger units. For example, twinned clauses appear with "Save" (7, 9), "How" (27-28), "Can" (41, 43), "Full many a" (53, 55), "forbade" (65, 67), and "For who" and "For thee" (85, 93), among others.
Semantically, Gray's "Elegy" reads like a collage of remembered experiences. Some are realized in both image and sound. "The swallow twitt'ring from the straw-built shed" (18) vividly and sharply conveys one instant in the awakening process on a farm. At other times, the five senses blur, as in "the madding crowd's ignoble strife" (73), or "This pleasing anxious being" (86), but these remain snapshots, though of feelings, not images. They flow from a lived life remembering its keenest moments in tranquillity. Some of these moments are literary. In 1768, Gray added three notes to "Elegy" that identify where he adopts lines in by Dante and Petrarch. "Elegy" is rife with other, unacknowledged echoes of poems by contemporaries, famous and obscure: Robert Colvill, Paul Whitehead, Henry Needler, Richard West, Alexander Pope, Samuel Whyte, Joseph Trapp, Henry Jones, John Oldmixon, and doubtless many others contributed phrases to Gray's poem.
These formal elements in Gray's poetics beautifully strengthen the poem's content. "Elegy" gives us a ghost's perspective on his life, and ours. The old swain describes him as a melancholic loner who loved walking by hill, heath, trees, and stream. The epitaph also reveals that he was well-educated, a youth who died unknown. These are the very qualities we might predict in the writer, from the style of his verse. "Elegy" streams with memories of the countryside where the youth walked. The firm, mirrored linguistic structures with which he conveys those recalled moments belong to someone well-educated in Latin, "Fair Science," and well-read in English poetry. Gray did not just give his readers succinct aphorisms about what Isaac Watt would term, "Man Frail, God Eternal," but recreated a lost human being. In reading "Elegy," we recreate a person, only to find out that he died, too young, too kind, and too true to a melancholy so many share.
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