主题：Andrew Marr：我们英国人——英国诗歌文学简史 -- 万年看客

在战争时期，战前英国诗坛的两大巨人依然处于巅峰创作状态，一位是在美国写诗的英国人奥登，另一位是在英国写诗的美国人T.S.艾略特。这两人都不喜欢直接在诗歌当中描写天下大事，但是就像史蒂威.史密斯一样，这两人也都因为更广泛文化领域的动态而感到忧心忡忡。艾略特的《四个四重奏》（Four Quartets）在二战期间首次出版。因为战时一切从简，诗文的载体是粗纸小册子。艾略特在这套组诗当中思考了许多问题，从时间与记忆的本质到英语文学的优势。在笔者看来，组诗的第四首《小吉丁》（Little Gidding）——这首诗的创作一度曾被伦敦空袭打断——是艾略特笔下最杰出的作品。这首诗描写的是曾经迷住了乔治.赫伯特的北安普敦郡宗教社区。诗文当中既饱含宗教热情，也含有艾略特对于德军空袭做出的回应。此外这首诗还是一场精神之旅。眼看着英格兰到了最危险的时候，艾略特为这片土地献上了一曲赞歌：

If you came this way,

Taking the route you would be likely to take

From the place you would be likely to come from,

If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges

White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.

It would be the same at the end of the journey,

If you came at night like a broken king,

If you came by day not knowing what you came for,

It would be the same, when you leave the rough road

And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade

And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for

Is only a shell, a husk of meaning

From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled

If at all. Either you had no purpose

Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured

And is altered in fulfilment. There are other places

Which also are the world's end, some at the sea jaws,

Or over a dark lake, in a desert or a city--

But this is the nearest, in place and time,

Now and in England.

如果你到这里来，

选择你可能选择的路线

从你可能出那里来的地方来，

如果你在山楂花开的时候到这里来，

你会发现五月里，树篱又变白了，

飘散这迷人的甜香。

到旅程的终点都一样，

如果你像一位困顿的国王夤夜而来，

如果你白天来又不知道你为何而来，

那都一样，当你离开崎岖的小径

在猪栏后面拐向那阴暗的前庭和墓碑的时候。

你原先以为是你此行的目的

现在不过是意义的一层贝壳，一层荚

只要有什么目的能实现的话，目的才破壳而出。

或者是你原先根本没有目的

或者是目的在于你是想象的终点之外

而在实现的过程中已经改变。另有一些地方

也是世界的终点，有的在海的入口

或者在一片黑暗的湖上，在沙漠中

或者在一座城市里——

但是在地点和时间上，这里是最近的地方，

现在和在英格兰。

If you came this way,

Taking any route, starting from anywhere,

At any time or at any season,

It would always be the same: you would have to put off

Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,

Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity

Or carry report. You are here to kneel

Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more

Than an order of words, the conscious occupation

Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

And what the dead had no speech for, when living,

They can tell you, being dead: the communication

Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.

Here, the intersection of the timeless moment

Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

如果你到这里来，

不论走哪条路，从哪里出发，

在哪个地方或哪个季节，

那都是一样：你必须抛开

感觉和思想。你到这里来不是为了证明什么，

教诲自己，或者告诉什么新奇的事物

或者传送报告。你到这里来

是到祈祷一向是正当的地方来

俯首下跪。祈祷不只是

一种话语，祈祷者头脑的

清醒的活动，或者是祈求呼告的声音。

死者活着的时候，无法以言词表达的，

他们作为死者能告诉你：死者的交流思想

超乎生者的语言之外是用火表达的。

这里，无始无终的瞬间的交叉点是英格兰，

而不是任何其他地方。决不而且永远。【汤永宽译】

接下来艾略特转而采用了但丁描写地狱与炼狱的韵诗结构，直面了英伦空战的后果——尘土飞扬的断壁残垣。读者们要非常努力才能瞥见新生与重建的前景：

Ash on and old man's sleeve

Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.

Dust in the air suspended

Marks the place where a story ended.

Dust inbreathed was a house—

The walls, the wainscot and the mouse,

The death of hope and despair,

This is the death of air.

一个老人衣袖上的灰

是焚烧的玫瑰留下的全部尘灰。

尘灰悬在空中

标志着一个故事在这里告终。

你吸入的尘灰曾经是一座宅邸——

墙、护壁板和耗子。

希望和绝望都已经咽气，

风就这样死去。

There are flood and drouth

Over the eyes and in the mouth,

Dead water and dead sand

Contending for the upper hand.

The parched eviscerate soil

Gapes at the vanity of toil,

Laughs without mirth.

This is the death of earth.

在眼睛之上，在嘴里面

有洪水和干旱，

止水和死沙正在斗争

分不清谁占上风。

坼裂的失去元气的土地

张目结舌地望着劳动徒然无益，

放声大笑而没有欢笑。

土的死亡就这样来到。

Water and fire succeed

The town, the pasture and the weed.

Water and fire deride

The sacrifice that we denied.

Water and fire shall rot

The marred foundations we forgot,

Of sanctuary and choir.

This is the death of water and fire.

水和火取代

城镇、牧场和野草覆盖。

水和火嘲弄

我们拒绝奉献的牺牲。

水和火也必将腐蚀

我们遗忘的圣殿和唱诗席

两者的基础已经颓唐。

这就是水和火的死亡。【汤永宽译，有修改】

W.H.奥登当然从未经历过伦敦空袭，因为二战期间他一直住在纽约曼哈顿，直到五十年代才返回英国常住。尽管如此，就像史密斯与艾略特的经历一样，战争也促使奥登转向了宗教反思，并且于1941年加入了圣公会。他在这一时期的最伟大诗歌抓住了W.B.叶芝逝世的机会，反思了西方文明的崩溃，也挑战了诗歌在现代世界的立场。《悼叶芝》（In Memory of W. B. Yeats）并不是一首宽慰人心的诗歌，但是写得确实很好。下面选取了本诗开头两段：

I

He disappeared in the dead of winter:

The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,

And snow disfigured the public statues;

The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

一：

他消逝于寒冬时节：

溪流封冻，机场迹近荒芜，

积雪模糊了露天雕像的身形；

水银柱沉入了弥留之际的口唇。。

呵，我们所有的仪表都同意

他死的那天寒冷而又阴暗。

Far from his illness

The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,

The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;

By mourning tongues

The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

远离了他的疾病，

狼群继续奔行在常绿的森林，

农夫之河不曾受时髦码头的引诱；

哀悼的文辞

把诗人的死同他的诗隔开。

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,

An afternoon of nurses and rumours;

The provinces of his body revolted,

The squares of his mind were empty,

Silence invaded the suburbs,

The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

但对于他，这是他身为他自己的最后一个下午，

一个被护士和谣言包围的下午；

他的躯体的各省都已叛变，

他意识的广场空空如也，

寂静侵入了郊区，

知觉的脉流已停歇；他汇入了他的景仰者。

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities

And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,

To find his happiness in another kind of wood

And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.

The words of a dead man

Are modified in the guts of the living.

如今他被播散到一百个城市，

完全移交给陌生的爱意；

他要在另一种林中寻求快乐，

并且在迥异的良心法典下受惩处。

一个死者的言辞

将在活人的肺腑间被改写。

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow

When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the bourse,

And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed

And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom

A few thousand will think of this day

As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

但在来日的重大和喧嚣中，

当交易所的掮客像野兽一般咆哮，

当穷人对他们身受的种种苦难已习以为常

当每个身在自我牢狱中的人几乎确信他的自由，

有个千把人仍会想起这个日子，

仿佛他们在这天曾做过稍稍不寻常的事情。

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

我们所有的仪表都同意，

他死的那天寒冷而又阴暗。

II

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:

The parish of rich women, physical decay,

Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,

For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives

In the valley of its making where executives

Would never want to tamper, flows on south

From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,

Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,

A way of happening, a mouth.

二：

你像我们一样愚钝，你的天赋却超越了这一切：

贵妇人的教区，肉身的衰败，你自己。

疯狂的爱尔兰刺伤你投入诗艺。

而今爱尔兰的癫狂和天气依然如故，

因为诗无济于事：它永生于

自造的山谷里，官吏们

从未打算干预；它一路向南方流淌，

从那些隔绝、忙碌而哀伤的牧场，

从那些我们信赖并且死守的粗野之城，它存在着，

是现象的一种方式，是一个出口。【查良铮、马鸣谦、蔡海燕等译】

诗歌幸存了下来，但却被装进了胶囊，虽说依然身处社会之内，但却再也不是文明的鲜活组成部分了。对于战后一代的诗人们来说，这是一条非常悲观的信息。幸运的是，没几个人认同这一点。