博尔赫斯《两首英文诗》试译

博尔赫斯《两首英文诗》试译

TWO ENGLISH POEMS by Jorge Luis Borges (1934)

《两首英文诗》
作者：豪尔赫·路易斯·博尔赫斯 (1934)

1.

The useless dawn finds me in a deserted street corner; I have outlived the night.
毫无意义的黎明在空荡的街角找到我； 我已经活过了这一夜。

Nights are proud waves: dark blue top heavy waves laden with all hues of deep spoil, laden with things unlikely and desirable.
夜晚是骄傲的海浪：深蓝色的浪头充满了形形色色深层的毁灭，充满了难以想象的又令人向往的事物。

Nights have a habit of mysterious gifts and refusals, of things half given away, half withheld, of joys with a dark hemisphere. Nights act that way, I tell you.
夜晚习惯分发神秘礼物和予以拒绝，习惯给一半留一半，习惯与黑暗的半球同乐。我告诉你，夜晚就是这样。

The surge, that night, left me the customary shreds and odd ends: some hated friends to chat with, music for dreams, and the smoking of bitter ashes. The things my hungry heart has no use for.
在那天晚上，这股浪潮习惯性地让我混乱不堪：聊天的心怀仇恨的朋友，充满梦幻的音乐，还有苦涩的灰烬冒出的青烟。 都是些对我饥渴的心毫无用处的东西。

The big wave brought you.
大浪把你带来。

Words, any words, your laughter; and you so lazily and incessantly beautiful. We talked and you have forgotten the words.
言语，任何言语，你的笑声； 还有你慵懒而散发着美丽。 我们交谈过，可你忘记了我们说过的话。

The shattering dawn finds me in a deserted street of my city.
散落的黎明在我城市的一条荒凉的街道上找到了我。

Your profile turned away, the sounds that go to make your name, the lilt of your laughter: these are the illustrious toys you have left me.
你转过身去的样子，你令人入迷的声音，你轻快的笑声：都是你留给我的辉煌的玩具。

I turn them over in the dawn, I lose them; I tell them to the few stray dogs and to the few stray stars of the dawn.
在黎明，我反复思索着它们，我正失去它们； 我把它们说给晨曦里流浪的几条狗和几颗流浪的星星们听。

Your dark rich life…
你隐秘富裕的生活…

I must get at you, somehow: I put away those illustrious toys you have left me, I want your hidden look, your real smile –that lonely, mocking smile your mirror knows.
我必须想办法弄清你：我收起你留给我的那些辉煌的玩具，我想要你隐藏的表情，你真正的微笑——你的镜子知道的充满孤独与嘲弄的微笑。

2.

我用什么留住你？

我为你提供狭窄的街道，绝望的日落，锯齿状郊区的月亮。

我向你献上一个久久凝望孤月的人的苦涩。

我向你献上我的祖先，那些逝去的男人，活人用大理石纪念的幽灵们：我父亲的父亲在布宜诺斯艾利斯边境被杀，两颗子弹穿过他的肺，留着胡须，死了，被他的士兵裹在一块牛皮革里；我母亲的祖父 - 只有二十四岁 - 在秘鲁率领三百人冲锋，现在是消失的马背上的鬼魂。

我向你提供我的书可能包含的任何见解。 无论我的生活是否有什么男子气概或幽默。

我向你献上一个从未忠诚过的人的忠诚。

我向你献上我努力守护的内核 - 不懂花言巧语，未被梦想所累，也未被岁月、快乐和不幸触碰过的，我的内心。

我向你献上在你出生前几年在日落时分看到的一朵黄玫瑰的记忆。

我为你提供关于你自己的解释、关于你自己的理论、关于你自己的真实而令人惊讶的消息。

我可以给你我的寂寞、我的黑暗，我内心的饥渴；我正在尽力用易变、危险和失败来收买你。

2

What can I hold you with?

I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the moon of the jagged suburbs.

I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.

I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghosts that living men have honoured in marble: my father's father killed in the frontier of Buenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs, bearded and dead, wrapped by his soldiers in the hide of a cow; my mother's grandfather -just twenty four- heading a charge of three hundred men in Perú, now ghosts on vanished horses.

I offer you whatever insight my books may hold. whatever manliness or humour my life.

I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.

I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved somehow -the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.

I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born.

I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.