博尔赫斯:英文诗两首

Two English Poems IThe useless dawn finds me in a deserted street-
corner; I have outlived the night.

Nights are proud waves; darkblue topheavy waves
laden with all the hues of deep spoil, laden with
things unlikely and desirable.

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.
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.

The big wave brought you.
Words, any words, your laughter; and you so lazily
and incessantly beautiful.

We talked and you
have forgotten the words.
The shattering dawn finds me in a deserted street
of my city.

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.

I turn them over in the dawn, I lose them, I find
them; I tell them to the few stray dogs and
to the few stray stars of the dawn.

Your dark rich life ...
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 cool mirror knows.

II
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 bronze:
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 twentyfour-- heading a charge of
three hundred men in Peru, 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.

- Jorge Luis Borges (1934)
英文诗两首
给碧翠丝•比比罗尼•韦伯斯特•德•布尔里奇
Ⅰ
软弱的晨曦照着我在空巷里;我活过了一夜。

黑夜是骄傲的水波:深蓝的,头重脚轻的,载着各种色调的泥石,载着不大可能而引起热望的东西。
黑夜重复着神秘的许诺和拒绝。给予一些拿出了却不放手的东西以及带着黑色半球的欢乐。黑夜是那样的,我告诉你。

那个夜晚,浪带给我日常的琐碎,留下一些可憎的朋友跟我交谈,留下做梦的音乐和苦味的灰冒起的烟。都不是我饥饿的心所需要的。
一个大浪带来了你。
言语,我的言语,你的笑声;而你是那么懒洋洋而持续地美丽着。我们交谈,而你忘记了那些言语。
破晓,我在我的城市的一条空巷里。
你别转头的侧面,构成你的名字的声音,你跌宕有致的笑声,是你留给我的显赫玩具。

我把它们交给晨曦,我失去它们,又找到它们;我给几头流浪狗和几颗流浪的晨星叙述它们。
你黑色而丰饶的生命……
我必须想办法接近你:我收起你留下的显赫玩具,我要你隐蔽的眼色,你真正的微笑——只有你清凉的镜子见过的那种寂寞的、嘲讽的微笑。

Ⅱ
我能用什么留住你呢?
我向你献上瘦小的街道、绝望的日落、荒凉的月亮。
我向你献上一个久久凝视过孤独的月亮的人所感受的凄苦。

我向你献上我的祖先、我死去的人、被后人用大理石纪念的鬼魂:在布宜诺斯艾利斯前你带着两颗贯穿胸膛的子弹死去、由部下的士兵用牛皮包裹、蓄胡子的、父亲的父亲;在秘鲁率领三百人冲锋——才二十四岁——的、母亲的父亲,两个没有坐骑的亡魂。

我向你献上我的书所蕴藏的全部智慧,以及我生命中所有的男子气概或者幽默气质。
我向你献上辛苦保存下来的、我自己的核心——那颗不用语词作交易、不贩卖梦想、未曾被时间和欢乐和困厄影响过的、不偏不倚的心。

我向你献出远在你出生之前的夕阳下见过的、一朵黄玫瑰的记忆。
我向你献出对于你的诠释、与你有关的一切理论以及关于你的真实而奇异的消息。
我可以向你献出我的寂寞、我的黑暗、我的饥饿的心;我想用无常、用危险、用失败贿赂你。
1934年
(陈 实 译)