艾略特：不抱希望的等待

Wilhelm Leibl 畫作

Wait Without Hope / T. S. Eliot

不抱希望的等待 / 艾略特

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.

The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,

The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy

Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony

Of death and birth.

我對自己的靈魂說，安靜，不抱希望的等待。

只因希望會是期待錯誤的事 ; 不帶著愛的等待，

只因愛會是愛錯誤的事 ; 但還有信德，

然而，信德、愛和希望都在等待之中。

沒有思考的等待，只因你還沒準備好如何思考：

如此，黑暗才能成為光明，靜默成為舞蹈。

溪水的耳語，冬日的閃電，

隱沒林間的百里香和野莓，

花園的笑聲，回響著狂喜，

沒有失去，只是要求著，

指向死與生的痛楚。

You say I am repeating

Something I have said before. I shall say it again.

Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,

You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.

In order to arrive at what you do not know

You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.

In order to possess what you do not possess

You must go by the way of dispossession.

In order to arrive at what you are not

You must go through the way in which you are not.

And what you do not know is the only thing you know

And what you own is what you do not own

And where you are is where you are not.

你說我在重複

自己說過的話。我要再說一遍。

我要再說一遍嗎？為了到達，

從你不在的地方到達你在的地方，

你必須行經一個沒有狂喜的途徑。

為了到達你所未知的，

你必須行經一個無知的途徑。

為了擁有你沒有的，

你必須行經一個捨棄的途徑。

為了到達一個非你所是之處，

你必須行經一個非你所是的途徑。

你不知道的會是你唯一知道的。

你擁有的會是你沒擁有的。

你所在之處會是非你所是之處。

Excerpt from “Four Quartets” 2:III

節錄自 艾略特 「四首四重奏」第二首 第三段

(Mary May 譯）