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.
(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
都悠然不顾那劫难,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
的海波;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。
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