第 8 节
作者:雨来不躲      更新:2024-04-18 10:46      字数:9320
  At intervals; in proof of whom they came。
  To strengthen our foundations is the task
  Of this tough Age; not in your beams to bask;
  Though; lighted by your beams; down mining caves
  The rock it blasts; the hoarded foulness braves。
  My sister sees no round beyond her mood;
  To hawk this Age has dressed her head in hood。
  Out of the course of ancient ruts and grooves;
  It moves:  O much for me to say it moves!
  About his AEthiop Highlands Nile is Nile;
  Though not the stream of the paternal smile:
  And where his tide of nourishment he drives;
  An Abyssinian wantonness revives。
  Calm as his lotus…leaf to…day he swims;
  He is the yellow crops; the rounded limbs;
  The Past yet flowing; the fair time that fills;
  Breath of all mouths and grist of many mills。
  To…morrow; warning none with tempest…showers;
  He is the vast Insensate who devours
  His golden promise over leagues of seed;
  Then sits in a smooth lake upon the deed。
  The races which on barbarous force begin;
  Inherit onward of their origin;
  And cancelled blessings will the current length
  Reveal till they know need of shaping strength。
  'Tis not in men to recognize the need
  Before they clash in hosts; in hosts they bleed。
  Then may sharp suffering their nature grind;
  Of rabble passions grow the chieftain Mind。
  Yet mark where still broad Nile boasts thousands fed;
  For tens up the safe mountains at his head。
  Few would be fed; not far his course prolong;
  Save for the troublous blood which makes him strong。
  … That rings of truth!  More do your people thrive;
  Your Many are more merrily alive
  Than erewhile when I gloried in the page
  Of radiant singer and anointed sage。
  Greece was my lamp:  burnt out for lack of oil;
  Rome; Python Rome; prey of its robber spoil!
  All structures built upon a narrow space
  Must fall; from having not your hosts for base。
  O thrice must one be you; to see them shift
  Along their desert flats; here dash; there drift;
  With faith; that of privations and spilt blood;
  Comes Reason armed to clear or bank the flood!
  And thrice must one be you; to wait release
  From duress in the swamp of their increase。
  At which oppressive scene; beyond arrest;
  A darkness not with stars of heaven dressed;
  Philosophers behold; desponding view。
  Your Many nourished; starved my brilliant few;
  Then flinging heels; as charioteers the reins;
  Dive down the fumy AEtna of their brains。
  Belated vessels on a rising sea;
  They seem:  they pass!
  … But not Philosophy!
  … Ay; be we faithful to ourselves:  despise
  Nought but the coward in us!  That way lies
  The wisdom making passage through our slough。
  Am I not heard; my head to Earth shall bow;
  Like her; shall wait to see; and seeing wait。
  Philosophy is Life's one match for Fate。
  That photosphere of our high fountain One;
  Our spirit's Lord and Reason's fostering sun;
  Philosophy; shall light us in the shade;
  Warm in the frost; make Good our aim and aid。
  Companioned by the sweetest; ay renewed;
  Unconquerable; whose aim for aid is Good!
  Advantage to the Many:  that we name
  God's voice; have there the surety in our aim。
  This thought unto my sister do I owe;
  And irony and satire off me throw。
  They crack a childish whip; drive puny herds;
  Where numbers crave their sustenance in words。
  Now let the perils thicken:  clearer seen;
  Your Chieftain Mind mounts over them serene。
  Who never yet of scattered lamps was born
  To speed a world; a marching world to warn;
  But sunward from the vivid Many springs;
  Counts conquest but a step; and through disaster sings。
  Fragments of the Iliad in English Hexameter Verse
  Poem: The Invective Of Achilles
  'Iliad; B。 I。 V。 149'
  〃Heigh me! brazen of front; thou glutton for plunder; how can one;
  Servant here to thy mandates; heed thee among our Achaians;
  Either the mission hie on or stoutly do fight with the foemen?
  I; not hither I fared on account of the spear…armed Trojans;
  Pledged to the combat; they unto me have in nowise a harm done;
  Never have they; of a truth; come lifting my horses or oxen;
  Never in deep…soiled Phthia; the nurser of heroes; my harvests
  Ravaged; they; for between us is numbered full many a darksome
  Mountain; ay; therewith too the stretch of the windy sea…waters。
  O hugely shameless! thee did we follow to hearten thee; justice
  Pluck from the Dardans for him; Menelaos; thee too; thou dog…eyed!
  Whereof little thy thought is; nought whatever thou reckest。
  Worse; it is thou whose threat 'tis to ravish my prize from me;
  portion
  Won with much labour; the which my gift from the sons of Achaia。
  Never; in sooth; have I known my prize equal thine when Achaians
  Gave some flourishing populous Trojan town up to pillage。
  Nay; sure; mine were the hands did most in the storm of the combat;
  Yet when came peradventure share of the booty amongst us;
  Bigger to thee went the prize; while I some small blessed thing
  bore
  Off to the ships; my share of reward for my toil in the bloodshed!
  So now go I to Phthia; for better by much it beseems me
  Homeward go with my beaked ships now; and I hold not in prospect;
  I being outraged; thou mayst gather here plunder and wealth…store。〃
  Poem: The Invective of Achilles … V。 225。
  〃Bibber besotted; with scowl of a cur; having heart of a deer;
  thou!
  Never to join to thy warriors armed for the press of the conflict;
  Never for ambush forth with the princeliest sons of Achaia
  Dared thy soul; for to thee that thing would have looked as a
  death…stroke。
  Sooth; more easy it seems; down the lengthened array of Achaians;
  Snatch at the prize of the one whose voice has been lifted against
  thee。
  Ravening king of the folk; for that thou hast thy rule over
  abjects;
  Else; son of Atreus; now were this outrage on me thy last one。
  Nay; but I tell thee; and I do swear a big oath on it likewise:
  Yea; by the sceptre here; and it surely bears branches and leaf…
  buds
  Never again; since first it was lopped from its trunk on the
  mountains;
  No more sprouting; for round it all clean has the sharp metal
  clipped off
  Leaves and the bark; ay; verify now do the sons of Achaia;
  Guardian hands of the counsels of Zeus; pronouncing the judgement;
  Hold it aloft; so now unto thee shall the oath have its portent;
  Loud will the cry for Achilles burst from the sons of Achaia
  Throughout the army; and thou chafe powerless; though in an
  anguish;
  How to give succour when vast crops down under man…slaying Hector
  Tumble expiring; and thou deep in thee shalt tear at thy heart…
  strings;
  Rage…wrung; thou; that in nought thou didst honour the flower of
  Achaians。〃
  Poem: Marshalling Of The Achaians
  'Iliad; B。 II V。 455'
  Like as a terrible fire feeds fast on a forest enormous;
  Up on a mountain height; and the blaze of it radiates round far;
  So on the bright blest arms of the host in their march did the
  splendour
  Gleam wide round through the circle of air right up to the sky…
  vault。
  They; now; as when swarm thick in the air multitudinous winged
  flocks;
  Be it of geese or of cranes or the long…necked troops of the wild…
  swans;
  Off that Asian mead; by the flow of the waters of Kaistros;
  Hither and yon fly they; and rejoicing in pride of their pinions;
  Clamour; shaped to their ranks; and the mead all about them
  resoundeth;
  So those numerous tribes from their ships and their shelterings
  poured forth
  On that plain of Scamander; and horrible rumbled beneath them
  Earth to the quick…paced feet of the men and the tramp of the
  horse…hooves。
  Stopped they then on the fair…flower'd field of Scamander; their
  thousands
  Many as leaves and the blossoms born of the flowerful season。
  Even as countless hot…pressed flies in their multitudes traverse;
  Clouds of them; under some herdsman's wonning; where then are the
  milk…pails
  Also; full of their milk; in the bountiful season of spring…time;
  Even so thickly the long…haired sons of Achaia the plain held;
  Prompt for the dash at the Trojan host; with the passion to crush
  them。
  Those; likewise; as the goatherds; eyeing their vast flocks of
  goats; know
  Easily one from the other when all get mixed o'er the pasture;
  So did the chieftains rank them here there in their places for
  onslaught;
  Hard on the push of the fray; and among them King Agamemnon;
  He; for his eyes and his head; as when Zeus glows glad in his
  thunder;
  He with the girdle of Ares; he with the breast of Poseidon。
  Poem: Agamemnon In The Fight
  'Iliad; B。 XI。 V。 148'
  These; then; he left; and away where ranks were now clashing the
  thickest;
  Onward rushed; and with him rushed all of the bright…greaved
  Achaians。
  Foot then footmen slew; that were flying from direful compulsion;
  Horse at the horsemen (up from off under them mounted the dust…
  cloud;
  Up off the plain; raised up cloud…thick by the thundering horse…