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看到一幅画,想起一首诗

人们都在争论大事,但有谁真正关心他人真实的苦楚。

不由想起《伊卡洛斯之坠》这副画作,据说出自荷兰文艺复兴画家布鲁盖尔(Pieter Bruegel)之手,大致创作时间是1560年,也就是明朝嘉靖年间。

伊卡洛斯是希腊神话人物,其父用蜡给他做了一对翅膀,在飞离克里特岛(Crete)时,父亲告其不能飞得太高,否则翅膀会融化。然而他不听告诫,觉得高处风景优美,遂展翅高飞。因离太阳太近,双翼熔化,坠落水中丧生。埋葬之岛后被命名为伊卡利亚岛。

在这副画作中,有一种出奇的安宁。人人都在关心自己的事情,或耕地,或捕鱼,或许也会为更宏大的事情而争吵,但是没有人注意到一个落水的儿童。毕竟,在他们看来,有些事情更值得关心。

奥登(W H. Auden)根据画作写过一首诗,题为《美术馆》‘

Musee des Beaux Arts
’ ,余光中把它翻译成了中文。

Musee des Beaux Arts

W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters; how well, they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus,for instance:how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster;the ploughman may

Have heard the splash,the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure;the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water;and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing,a boy falling out of the sky,

had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

美术馆

余光中 译)

说到苦难,他们从未看错,

古代那些大师:他们深切体认

苦难在人世的地位;当苦难降临,

别人总是在进食或开窗或仅仅默然走过;

当长者正虔诚地、热烈地等,

等奇迹降临,总有孩子们

不特别期待它发生,正巧

在林边的池塘上溜冰:

大师们从不忘记

即使可怖的殉道也必须在一隅

独自进行,在杂乱的一隅

一任狗照常过狗的日子,酷吏的马匹

向一颗树干摩擦无辜的后臀。

例如布鲁果的《伊卡瑞斯》,众人

悠然不顾那劫难,那农夫可能

听见了水波溅洒,呼救无望,

但是不当它是惨重的牺牲;阳光灿照,

不会不照见白净的双腿没入碧湛

海波;那豪华优雅的海舟必然看见

一幕奇景,一童子自天而降,

却有路要赶,仍安详地向前航行。

祝朋友晚安,明天太阳照常升起。