2022-09-10 Mid-Autumn Festival

【Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction—It Must Give Pleasure·IV (1942)】

Wallace Stevens (1879—1955)

        We reason of these things with later reason

        And we make of what we see, what we see clearly

        And have seen, a place dependent on ourselves.

        There was a mystic marriage in Catawba,

        At noon it was on the mid-day of the year

        Between a great captain and the maiden Bawda.

        This was their ceremonial hymn: Anon

        We loved but would no marriage make. Anon

        The one refused the other one to take,

        Foreswore the sipping of the marriage wine.

        Each must the other take not for his high,

        His puissant front nor for her subtle sound,

        The shoo-shoo-shoo of secret cymbals round.

        Each must the other take as sign, short sign

        To stop the whirlwind, balk the elements.

        The great captain loved the ever-hill Catawba

        And therefore married Bawda, whom he found there,

        And Bawda loved the captain as she loved the sun.

        They married well because the marriage-place

        Was what they loved. It was neither heaven nor hell.

        They were love's characters come face to face.

—— • —— • —— • —— • —— • —— • —— • ——

【《最高虛構筆記——它必須快樂·之四》(1942年)】

威爾士人·史蒂文斯(1879生—1955卒)

【紅霞譯】

            我們找適宜的理由詮釋這些事情

            並審視所看到的，所理解的

            還有所掌握的，完全取決於自身的角度。

            河邊人有個神秘的婚姻，

            中午恰值一年的日中

            了不起的船長和名叫寧靜的少女之間。

            這是他倆的慶典讚歌：不久

            彼此陷入愛河卻沒有談婚論嫁。很快

            一方不讓另一方做出選擇，

            捨棄喜酒的淺斟低酌。

            雙方都不對戀人抱有過高的期待，

            無論他偉岸的雄姿還是她纖柔的聲音，

            奧妙的鐃鈸聲噝噝噝響起。

            彼此都把對方當成認定的標誌，即時的標誌

            無外乎防止閃戀，迴避失敗。

            了不起的船長喜歡山上的河邊人

            於是娶了寧靜，選在他邂逅的地方，

            而寧靜愛船長如同愛太陽一樣。

            他們喜結連理因為婚姻的所在

            是琴瑟合鳴。既不是天堂也不是地獄。

            相愛的情侶面對着面。

Today in History(歷史上的今天):

2022: Jersey City, America's Golden Door(新草州草城·美國金門之城)

2012: 打乒乓(Pingpong)

Crosslinks(相關博文):

Sophomore(大學二年級'2022-23)

萬花筒(Kaleidoscope)