《受骗较少者》（The Less Deceived）原文（待更）

二十世纪后半叶的英国能与拉金该部诗集的销量相提并论的，或许只有拉金的另外二部诗集以及休斯的《生日信》。我们难以想象是一种怎样的推助力使拉金从那本平庸的《北行船》中遍布的奥登，叶芝式模仿语调中解脱，走向自己的成熟的风格。关于该诗集的篇名《拉金诗全集》已有详细说明，以下只是对原文的缓慢铺展，纷乱的杂感和对部分诗作的疑问陈列。无疑，拉金属于翻译过程中流失众多的诗人，他的诗歌译者若无韵，则显得散化，若刻意效仿韵式，则倾向于打油，个人认为舒译总体优于阿译，但阿译因其大量资料的附带，故更具价值。

拉金诗歌中不断出现“我”，显然他深谙“我是另一个”这句名言。

Lines on a Young Lady’s Photograph Album（有趣的标题，lines自然是诗行之意，但是否可看作今日“皱纹”的暗示呢，之后的《皮肤》一诗有同样用法，又或是陈旧照片上的褶痕？）

At last you yielded up the album, which, Once open, sent me distracted. All your ages Matt and glossy on the thick black pages! Too much confectionery, too rich: I choke on such nutritious images.（choke舒译为哽咽，阿译为噎死，因nutritious，我偏向后者）

My swivel eye hungers from pose to pose –（swivel，试想象一把螺丝刀或转椅） In pigtails, clutching a reluctant cat;（clutch，怀抱或搂着都稍弱，也许，紧抓？） Or furred yourself, a sweet girl-graduate; Or lifting a heavy-headed rose Beneath a trellis, or in a trilby hat

(Faintly disturbing, that, in several ways) – （此处括号中的内容是对带呢帽仪容的评论） From every side you strike at my control, Not least through these disquieting chaps who loll At ease about your earlier days: Not quite your class, I’d say, dear, on the whole.

But o, photography! as no art is, Faithful and disappointing! that records （日后评论家将这二行诗当作运动派风格的概括） Dull days as dull, and hold-it smiles as frauds, And will not censor blemishes Like washing-lines, and Hall’s-Distemper boards,（boards此处指广告牌）

But shows the cat as disinclined, and shades A chin as doubled when it is, what grace Your candour thus confers upon her face! How overwhelmingly persuades That this is a real girl in a real place,（回应“真即是美，美即是真”）

In every sense empirically true!（empirically—经验主义，实证主义） Or is it just the past? Those flowers, that gate, These misty parks and motors, lacerate Simply by being over; you Contract my heart by looking out of date.（out of date，舒译为穿过岁月，阿译为脱离时代，皆可，心为何要“收紧”，兴许因为那过时目光中的距离感吧）

Yes, true; but in the end, surely, we cry Not only at exclusion, but because It leaves us free to cry. We know what was Won’t call on us to justify Our grief, however hard we yowl across

The gap from eye to page. So I am left To mourn (without a chance of consequence) You, balanced on a bike against a fence; To wonder if you’d spot the theft（舒译有误，这里的偷更近于偷窥而非窃走） Of this one of you bathing; to condense,

In short, a past that no one now can share, No matter whose your future; calm and dry, It holds you like a heaven, and you lie （lie是否也藏了层说谎之意？） Unvariably lovely there, Smaller and clearer as the years go by.（阿译此数行有误，这里的天堂，是一个沉静的私人空间，不容外人，乃至最亲近之人的目光去穿透，尤其不为“性”穿透，它在“Dry-point”的尾段有更清晰的呈现。）

Wedding-Wind

The wind blew all my wedding-day, And my wedding-night was the night of the high wind;（不瞒各位说，我直接联想到了性爱） And a stable door was banging, again and again, That he must go and shut it, leaving me Stupid in candlelight, hearing rain, Seeing my face in the twisted candlestick,（此处于全诗中显得格外突兀，或许蕴藏了几分不安） Yet seeing nothing. When he came back He said the horses were restless, and I was sad That any man or beast that night should lack The happiness I had.

Now in the day All’s ravelled under the sun by the wind’s blowing. He has gone to look at the floods, and I Carry a chipped pail to the chicken-run, Set it down, and stare. All is the wind Hunting through clouds and forests, thrashing My apron and the hanging cloths on the line. Can it be borne, this bodying-forth by wind Of joy my actions turn on, like a thread Carrying beads? Shall I be let to sleep（加黑处中译不易，但并非难懂） Now this perpetual morning shares my bed? Can even death dry up These new delighted lakes, conclude Our kneeling as cattle by all-generous waters?（人与自然合一，劳伦斯《虹》）

Places, Loved Ones

No, I have never found The place where I could say This is my proper ground, Here I shall stay; Nor met that special one Who has an instant claim On everything I own Down to my name;

To find such seems to prove You want no choice in where To build, or whom to love; You ask them to bear You off irrevocably,（译为无可挽回似有些变扭，此处指一种无选择可言的命定） So that it’s not your fault Should the town turn dreary, The girl a dolt.

Yet, having missed them, you’re Bound, none the less, to act As if what you settled for Mashed you, in fact;（关于mash一词，全集已有解释，指情欲撩拨） And wiser to keep away From thinking you still might trace Uncalled-for to this day Your person, your place.

Coming

On longer evenings, Light, chill and yellow, Bathes the serene Foreheads of houses. A thrush sings,（这里的thrush，或来自哈代“The Darkling Thrush”） Laurel-surrounded（阿译似有误，但却是颇有趣的理解） In the deep bare garden, Its fresh-peeled voice Astonishing the brickwork. It will be spring soon, It will be spring soon –（拉金朗读时二句音调完全一致，几可称呆板） And I, whose childhood Is a forgotten boredom, Feel like a child Who comes on a scene Of adult reconciling, And can understand nothing But the unusual laughter, And starts to be happy.（我偏向于认为此处为反话，开心的是隐喻中的孩子，而非“我”）

Reasons for Attendance

The trumpet’s voice, loud and authoritative,（小号是诗的中心，“我”为其吸引而来，舞者依凭其节奏） Draws me a moment to the lighted glass To watch the dancers – all under twenty-five – Shifting intently, face to flushed face, Solemnly on the beat of happiness.（intently，solemnly，自有一种仪式感）

– Or so I fancy, sensing the smoke and sweat,（此行可见“我”并非禁欲，他同样为其所吸引） The wonderful feel of girls. Why be out here? But then, why be in there? Sex, yes, but what Is sex? Surely, to think the lion’s share（lion也是男性生殖器的俚语） Of happiness is found by couples – sheer（sheer一词颇重，之后又有所缓和，可见心理）

Inaccuracy, as far as I’m concerned. What calls me is that lifted, rough-tongued bell (Art, if you like) whose individual sound（用了括号，进一步缓和语气） Insists I too am individual.（此处individual的所有义项都可说通） It speaks; I hear; others may hear as well,

But not for me, nor I for them; and so With happiness. Therefore I stay outside, Believing this; and they maul to and fro, Believing that; and both are satisfied,（社群文化与私人审美对立？） If no one has misjudged himself. Or lied.（我偏向认为此处是“我”的自嘲，是为自己感到不安，而非隐隐然的讥讽。毕竟生活的完美与作品的完美不可兼容，而这有天才色彩的“individual”也有着幻觉的可能。）

Dry-Point （舒译铜版画可能更为合适，因为该诗原本为《性爱两幅肖像》中的一首，另一首题为《油画》，表现性爱的狂喜，该诗则为其否定，欲望在这首诗中表现的，是其干冷的实质。）

Endlessly, time-honoured irritant, A bubble is restively forming at your tip. Burst it as fast as we can – It will grow again, until we begin dying.

Silently it inflates, till we’re enclosed （阿译此句为“我们被包裹其中”，似较舒译准确） And forced to start the struggle to get out: Bestial, intent, real. The wet spark comes, the bright blown walls collapse, （此行及以下数行暗示性极强）

But what sad scapes we cannot turn from then: What ashen hills! what salted, shrunken lakes! How leaden the ring looks, Birmingham magic all discredited, （伯明翰珠宝，假货代表）

And how remote that bare and sunscrubbed room, Intensely far, that padlocked cube of light We neither define nor prove, Where you, we dream, obtain no right of entry.（此处的you，是性欲本身，甚至是所有欲望，而这光的立方体，真是一种拉金式的无欲天堂）

Next, Please

Always too eager for the future, we Pick up bad habits of expectancy. Something is always approaching; every day Till then we say,

Watching from a bluff the tiny, clear, Sparkling armada of promises draw near. How slow they are! And how much time they waste, Refusing to make haste!

Yet still they leave us holding wretched stalks Of disappointment, for, though nothing balks Each big approach, leaning with brasswork prinked, Each rope distinct, （舒译的处理似有误，我不认为船会把旗挂缆绳上，flagged该是修饰船本身）

Flagged, and the figurehead with golden tits Arching our way, it never anchors; it’s No sooner present than it turns to past. Right to the last

We think each one will heave to and unload All good into our lives, all we are owed For waiting so devoutly and so long. （阿译将devoutly译为尽心，或不及舒译虔诚） But we are wrong:

Only one ship is seeking us, a black- Sailed unfamiliar, towing at her back A huge and birdless silence. In her wake （舒译有误，wake指船的尾迹） No waters breed or break.

Going

There is an evening coming in Across the fields, one never seen before, That lights no lamps.

Silken it seems at a distance, yet When it is drawn up over the knees and breast It brings no comfort.

Where has the tree gone, that locked Earth to the sky? What is under my hands, That I cannot feel?

What loads my hands down?（私以为，此处所言与下一首有关）

Wants

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone: However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards However we follow the printed directions of sex However the family is photographed under the flagstaff – Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs: Despite the artful tensions of the calendar, （artful，一种文饰，日历本身的年月日也是人生造的划分）The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites, （此处所言仪式，或是在嘲弄婚礼，毕竟拉金一生未婚） The costly aversion of the eyes from death – Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.

Maiden Name（该诗与诗集开篇之作紧密相关，曾有研究者将此诗读作对语言哲学的嘲讽）

Marrying left your maiden name disused. Its five light sounds no longer mean your face, Your voice, and all your variants of grace; For since you were so thankfully confused By law with someone else, you cannot be（婚姻带来的身份威胁） Semantically the same as that young beauty: It was of her that these two words were used.

Now it’s a phrase applicable to no one, Lying just where you left it, scattered through Old lists, old programmes, a school prize or two, Packets of letters tied with tartan ribbon – Then is it scentless, weightless, strengthless, wholly Untruthful? Try whispering it slowly. No, it means you. Or, since you’re past and gone,（or看似转折，实为强化前句判断，我们可以看出闺名并未失去意义，反而于不再使用之后，为“我”带来了更多的‘陈旧的浪漫’意义）

It means what we feel now about you then: How beautiful you were, and near, and young, So vivid, you might still be there among Those first few days, unfingermarked again. So your old name shelters our faithfulness, Instead of losing shape and meaning less With your depreciating luggage laden.

Born Yesterday

for Sally Amis

Tightly-folded bud, I have wished you something None of the others would: Not the usual stuff About being beautiful, Or running off a spring Of innocence and love – They will all wish you that, And should it prove possible, Well, you’re a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn’t, then May you be ordinary; Have, like other women, An average of talents: Not ugly, not good-looking, Nothing uncustomary To pull you off your balance, That, unworkable itself, Stops all the rest from working. In fact, may you be dull – If that is what a skilled, Vigilant, flexible, Unemphasised, enthralled Catching of happiness is called.（此四行颇难译，catching一词的动名词形式暗示一个终生持续的过程）

（看似轻松幽默，实则苦涩，整首诗中获得幸福的代价，是要承受平凡）

Whatever Happened?

At once whatever happened starts receding. Panting, and back on board, we line the rail With trousers ripped, light wallets, and lips bleeding.（全集中提及，拉金有意使措辞模糊，以使其可涉及暴力，也涉及性。我觉得甚至可以指代“海难”）

Yes, gone, thank God! Remembering each detail We toss for half the night, but find next day All’s kodak-distant. Easily, then (though pale),（阿译为“话虽很苍白”，似更准确）

‘Perspective brings significance,’ we say,（此处阿译为：视角产生意义，舒译为：审视带来意义） Unhooding our photometers, and, snap! What can’t be printed can be thrown away.

Later, it’s just a latitude: the map Points out how unavoidable it was: ‘Such coastal bedding always means mishap.’（阿译：临海铺位总会有灾，但这里的coastal bedding似乎可以解释为近海处的礁石，易引发船的“颠簸”）

Curses? The dark? Struggling? Where’s the source Of these yarns now (except in nightmares, of course)?

No Road （阿译：此路不通，更接近标题之意，毕竟no road长出现在交通告示牌上）

Since we agreed to let the road between us Fall to disuse, And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us, And turned all time’s eroding agents loose, Silence, and space, and strangers – our neglect Has not had much effect.

Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown; No other change. So clear it stands, so little overgrown, Walking that way tonight would not seem strange, And still would be allowed. A little longer, And time will be the stronger,

Drafting a world where no such road will run From you to me; To watch that world come up like a cold sun, Rewarding others, is my liberty. Not to prevent it is my will’s fulfilment. Willing it, my ailment.（此三行亦难译，舒译将willing解为渴望，似乎用词稍重，不若阿译：愿意如此，同样，阿译将ailment译为心痛，也似不及舒译的“烦忧”）

Wires（abba的韵式强化了一种禁锢感）

The widest prairies have electric fences, For though old cattle know they must not stray Young steers are always scenting purer water Not here but anywhere. Beyond the wires

Leads them to blunder up against the wires Whose muscle-shredding violence gives no quarter. Young steers become old cattle from that day, Electric limits to their widest senses.

Church Going（标题颇为含糊，自然第一眼会理解为“去教堂”，但也可以当成“去教会”，“去做礼拜”，甚至更极端些——教堂，离去）

Once I am sure there’s nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense, musty, unignorable silence, Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence,（不知为何，阿译为“单车头盔”）

Move forward, run my hand around the font. From where I stand, the roof looks almost new – Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don’t. Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce ‘Here endeth’ much more loudly than I’d meant. The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,（为何是爱尔兰便士，是否算嘲讽呢？） Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do, And always end much at a loss like this, Wondering what to look for; wondering, too, When churches fall completely out of use What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show, Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases, And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep. Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come To make their children touch a particular stone; Pick simples for a cancer; or on some Advised night see walking a dead one? Power of some sort or other will go on In games, in riddles, seemingly at random; But superstition, like belief, must die, And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week, A purpose more obscure. I wonder who Will be the last, the very last, to seek This place for what it was; one of the crew That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were? Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique, Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh? Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation – marriage, and birth,（此处稍有几分难解，或许暗示了教堂是唯一一个将出生，婚姻，和死亡连成一体的地点） And death, and thoughts of these – for which was built This special shell? For, though I’ve no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognised, and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round.（死者一如前文的闺名，自有其记忆的承载，且范围更广，而维护这样的过去，便是对一种文化价值的捍卫。）

Age

My age fallen away like white swaddling Floats in the middle distance, becomes An inhabited cloud. I bend closer, discern A lighted tenement scuttling with voices.（此处之意熔铸在日后的“The Old Fools”中） O you tall game I tired myself with joining! Now I wade through you like knee-level weeds,

And they attend me, dear translucent bergs: Silence and space. By now so much has flown From the nest here of my head that I needs must turn To know what prints I leave, whether of feet, Or spoor of pads, or a bird’s adept splay.

Myxomatosis （拉金喜欢兔子，一如贝杰曼爱他的泰德熊）

Caught in the centre of a soundless field While hot inexplicable hours go by What trap is this? Where were its teeth concealed? You seem to ask. I make a sharp reply, Then clean my stick. I’m glad I can’t explain Just in what jaws you were to suppurate: You may have thought things would come right again If you could only keep quite still and wait.

Toads（问：你怎么想到把工作转化为癞蛤蟆这个意象的？答：纯属天才！）

Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off?（brute也有暴君之意）

Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poison – Just for paying a few bills! That’s out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits: Lecturers, lispers, Losels, loblolly-men, louts – They don’t end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanes With fires in a bucket, Eat windfalls and tinned sardines – They seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet, Their unspeakable wives Are skinny as whippets – and yet No one actually starves.

Ah, were I courageous enough To shout Stuff your pension! But I know, all too well, that’s the stuff That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like Squats in me, too; Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck, And cold as snow,（此处我们可以体会到拉金俚语和风雅间的迅速转换）

And will never allow me to blarney My way to getting The fame and the girl and the money All at one sitting.

I don’t say, one bodies the other One’s spiritual truth; But I do say it’s hard to lose either, When you have both.

Poetry of Departures （紧连上一首）

Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand, As epitaph: He chucked up everything And just cleared off, And always the voice will sound Certain you approve This audacious, purifying, Elemental move. （阿译有误，舒译准确，此处的elemental形容人身上有一种大自然般的力量）

And they are right, I think. We all hate home And having to be there: I detest my room, （舒译显然粗心了，阿译“讨厌”则力度有限，毕竟detest力度比hate更强） Its specially-chosen junk, The good books, the good bed, And my life, in perfect order: So to hear it said

He walked out on the whole crowd Leaves me flushed and stirred, Like Then she undid her dress Or Take that you bastard; Surely I can, if he did? And that helps me stay Sober and industrious. But I’d go today,

Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads, Crouch in the fo’c’sle Stubbly with goodness, if （stubbly阿译为“满脸胡茬”，似较舒译合适） It weren’t so artificial, Such a deliberate step backwards To create an object: Books; china; a life Reprehensibly perfect.

Triple Time（阿译：三重时间，舒译：三拍子，拉金原文当同时具有这两层意思）

This empty street, this sky to blandness scoured, This air, a little indistinct with autumn Like a reflection, constitute the present –（“现在”自身的不存在，因它只是过去或未来的倒影） A time traditionally soured, A time unrecommended by event.

But equally they make up something else: This is the future furthest childhood saw Between long houses, under travelling skies, Heard in contending bells – An air lambent with adult enterprise,（译为“成年的企图”当优于“大人们的野心”）

And on another day will be the past, A valley cropped by fat neglected chances That we insensately forbore to fleece. On this we blame our last Threadbare perspectives, seasonal decrease.

（阿译：陈旧的观念，舒译：凋敝的景色，似以舒译为优）

Spring

Green-shadowed people sit, or walk in rings, Their children finger the awakened grass, Calmly a cloud stands, calmly a bird sings, And, flashing like a dangled looking-glass, Sun lights the balls that bounce, the dogs that bark, The branch-arrested mist of leaf, and me, Threading my pursed-up way across the park, An indigestible sterility.

Spring, of all seasons most gratuitous, Is fold of untaught flower, is race of water, Is earth’s most multiple, excited daughter;

And those she has least use for see her best, Their paths grown craven and circuitous, Their visions mountain-clear, their needs immodest.

Deceptions

‘Of course I was drugged, and so heavily I did not regain my consciousness till the next morning. I was horrified to discover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable, and cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my aunt.’ Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor

Even so distant, I can taste the grief, Bitter and sharp with stalks, he made you gulp. The sun’s occasional print, the brisk brief Worry of wheels along the street outside Where bridal London bows the other way, And light, unanswerable and tall and wide, Forbids the scar to heal, and drives Shame out of hiding. All the unhurried day Your mind lay open like a drawer of knives.

Slums, years, have buried you. I would not dare Console you if I could. What can be said, Except that suffering is exact, but where Desire takes charge, readings will grow erratic? For you would hardly care That you were less deceived, out on that bed, Than he was, stumbling up the breathless stair To burst into fulfilment’s desolate attic.

（该诗因这最后数行备受争议，显然舒译有误，尾二行的主语不是受害者“你”而是男性施暴者，拉金于此处似将同情心划分了一部分给那恶棍，因为他是受骗更多的那个，在拉金看来，行动者比受苦之人受骗更多，因为他们的行动为那虚假的欲望驱动，相反，痛苦则是不会骗人的，故受害者也即受骗较少者。）

I Remember, I Remember

Coming up England by a different line For once, early in the cold new year, We stopped, and, watching men with number-plates（全集已有阐明，number-plates是车牌） Sprint down the platform to familiar gates, ‘Why, Coventry!’ I exclaimed. ‘I was born here.’

I leant far out, and squinnied for a sign That this was still the town that had been ‘mine’ So long, but found I wasn’t even clear Which side was which. From where those cycle-crates Were standing, had we annually departed

For all those family hols? … A whistle went: Things moved. I sat back, staring at my boots. ‘Was that,’ my friend smiled, ‘where you “have your roots”?’ No, only where my childhood was unspent, I wanted to retort, just where I started:

By now I’ve got the whole place clearly charted. Our garden, first: where I did not invent Blinding theologies of flowers and fruits, And wasn’t spoken to by an old hat. And here we have that splendid family

I never ran to when I got depressed, The boys all biceps and the girls all chest, Their comic Ford, their farm where I could be ‘Really myself’. I’ll show you, come to that, The bracken where I never trembling sat,

Determined to go through with it; where she Lay back, and ‘all became a burning mist’. And, in those offices, my doggerel Was not set up in blunt ten-point, nor read By a distinguished cousin of the mayor,

Who didn’t call and tell my father There Before us, had we the gift to see ahead – ‘You look as if you wished the place in Hell,’ My friend said, ‘judging from your face.’ ‘Oh well, I suppose it’s not the place’s fault,’ I said. ‘Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.’