William Butler Yeats - The Second Coming 汉译

Turning and turning in the widening gyre<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

 

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

 

基督重临

威廉·巴特勒·叶芝 

 

在向外扩张的旋体上旋转呀旋转，

猎鹰再也听不见主人的呼唤。

一切都四散了，再也保不住中心，

世界上到处弥漫着一片混乱，

血色迷糊的潮流奔腾汹涌，

到处把纯真的礼仪淹没其中；

优秀的人们信心尽失，

坏蛋们则充满了炽烈的狂热。

 

无疑神的启示就要显灵，

无疑基督就将重临。

基督重临！这几个字还未出口，

刺眼的是从大记忆来的巨兽：

荒漠中，人首狮身的形体，

如太阳般漠然而无情地相觑，

慢慢挪动腿，它的四周一圈圈，

沙漠上愤怒的鸟群阴影飞旋。

黑暗又下降了，如今我明白

二十个世纪的沉沉昏睡，

在转动的摇篮里做起了恼人的恶梦，

何种狂兽，终于等到了时辰，

懒洋洋地倒向圣地来投生？

 

（袁可嘉 译）