David Whyte : Mortality My Mistress

更新於 2024/11/05發佈於 2023/11/06閱讀時間約 5 分鐘

約翰．薩金特畫作 ”Madame Pierre Gautreau”, 1884

Mortality My Mistress / David Whyte
Waking at Cliveden

死亡，我的情婦
於克萊夫登莊園晨間甦醒

Silence,
the quiet of centuries
in the ancient room
and the sense of others
here before us
as if everyone now
is waking to the same morning
all the others discovered,
looking out
as they did
to the geese flying
north
or south,
the Thames below
feeling
its way to a distant sea.

寧靜，
古老房間裡
數世紀的幽靜，
此地向我們現前的
他者的存在感，
彷如此刻每個人
都甦醒於同個早晨，
都發現了其他人，
都和這些人一樣
看見窗外
野雁群飛，
向北
或向南，
底下的泰姆士河
感受著
自己的行徑
至遠方大海。

And their mortality
is like my mortality,
a hidden lover
with whom we have woken,
someone we
refuse
to acknowledge
to those outside,
looking in,
a secret
we keep
from the waking day.

而他們的必死性
一如我的必死性，
那是我們一道醒來的
隱匿情人，
是我們
拒絕
向外人
承認的那個人，
而往內看，
是我們
於清醒白晝
守護的秘密。

But today
I know
I will announce her
and walk with
her and show affection
in the public room,
and
this declaration
will be a testament
to the hidden but suspected
in others,
an example
and a surety to the unspoken
and above all
a proclamation
to the unfaithful
who carefully bide
their endless time.

但今天
我知道
我會宣揚她的存在，
我會與她同行
並於大庭廣眾之下
示愛，
這場表白
對他人內在
那隱匿卻疑似可能的
會是一項聲明，
一個示範，
確定了那未說出口的，
而最重要的是
這場宣言
是針對那些小心翼翼
居於他們無盡時間的
不忠之人。

My declaration
will be
absolute.

我的宣言
會是
絕對的。

An arrival
in the here
and the now.

是抵達
此地
和此刻。

Then
there will
be little else to do.
I will have become like
the madman running
to see the moon
in the window,
the hawk
I saw tracing the cliff edge
above the river.

然後
就沒有什麼別的
好做了。
我會像個
瘋子
奔到窗邊
望月，
像隻
我曾眼見的鷹，
依傍著河上斷崖之緣
飛越。

I will be the man
I have pursued all along
and finally caught.

我會是
我一路追尋，
終於被逮著的那個人。

I will be
all my intuitions
and all my desires
and then I will walk
slowly down the steps
as if dressed in white
and wade into
the water for
a second baptism.

我會是
我所有的直覺
和所有的渴望，
然後我會緩緩
步下階梯，
彷若一身白衣
涉足入水
接受
第二次洗禮。

I will be like
someone who cannot
hide their love
but
my joy will become ordinary
and everyday
and like a lover
I will find out
exactly what it is like
to be the happiest, the only one
in creation
to really
understand how much,
I’m just
a hair’s breadth
from dying.