献给贝阿特丽斯·比维洛尼·韦伯斯特·德布尔里奇

- Jorge Luis Borges (1934)

- 豪尔赫•路易斯•博尔赫斯 (1934)

I

The useless dawn finds me in a deserted streetcorner; I have outlived the night.

无力的黎明穿过荒芜的街角

落在了我的身旁

我得以从深夜中逃亡

Nights are proud waves; darkblue topheavy waves laden with all the hues of deep soil, laden with things unlikely and desirable.

夜晚是骄傲的狂狼

她那深蓝色的浪尖上

承载着难以负荷的重量

那里包裹着斑斓的土壤

那里满盈着绝望和希望

Nights have a habit of mysterious gifts and refusals, of things half given away, half withheld, of joys with a dark hemisphere. Nights act that way, I tell you.

夜晚习惯神秘地赠予与回绝

她善于浅尝辄止 善于中途阻滞

她乐于将快乐藏在陷入黑暗的那半球之中

我告诉你 她总是这样

The surge, that night, left me the customary shreds and odd ends: some hated friends to chat with, music for dreams, and the smoking of bitter ashes. The things my hungry heart has no use for.

在那深夜里

夜晚的波涛留给我的 依然是残破的片段和零乱的结局：

所讨厌的闲谈之友 有关梦想的旋律 还有烟熏痛苦的灰烬

这些 丝毫无用于我饥渴的心

The big wave brought you.

而那巨浪带来了你

Words, any words, your laughter; and you so lazily and incessantly beautiful. We talked and you have forgotten the words.

语言 任何的语言

你的笑意

还有你慵懒的细水长流般的美丽

我们交谈

你忘却言语

The shattering dawn finds me in a deserted street of my city.

疲累的黎明穿过我的城市

发现我在荒凉的街道之上

Your profile turned away, the sounds that go to make your name, the lilt of your laughter: these are the illustrious toys you have left me.

你的音容笑貌已经消逝

留给我的是最伟大的游戏：

那声音唤出你的名

轻快的曲调谱你的笑泠

I turn them over in the dawn, I lose them, I find them; I tell them to the few stray dogs and to the few stray stars of the dawn.

我在破晓时回阅一切

丢弃

寻找

向寥寥的那漂泊的犬倾诉

对无几的那流浪的星讲述

Your dark rich life … I must get at you, somehow; I put away those illustrious toys you have left me, I want your hidden look, your real smile – that lonely, mocking smile your cool mirror knows.

你那黑暗而富饶的生命…

我一定要领会你，以某种方式

我将你留给我的伟大游戏妥善的安置

我想要你不易觉察的一瞥

我想要你触手可得的微笑

——你冰冷的铜镜所知道的

那寂寞而愚弄性的微笑

II

What can I hold you with?

我用什么才能留住你?

I offer you lean streets, desperate sunsets, the moon of the jagged suburbs.

我给你瘦弱的街道 绝望的日落 荒郊野岭的月光

I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.

我给你那遥望孤月已久之人的悲伤

I offer you my ancestors, my dead men, the ghosts that living men have honoured in bronze: my father’s father killed in the frontier of Buenos Aires, two bullets through his lungs, bearded and dead, wrapped by his soldiers in the hide of a cow; my mother’s grandfather –just twentyfour– heading a charge of three hundred men in Peru, now ghosts on vanished horses.

我给你我已死去的先辈

他们的亡灵被后人用青铜殉葬:

我的祖父在布宜诺斯艾利斯边境阵亡

两颗子弹射穿了他的胸膛

浓密的胡须陪伴他的遗容

战友用牛皮将他的尸体裹藏

我母亲那二十四岁的的祖父

率领三百名士兵在秘鲁驰行

如今也成了随战马消散的幽灵

I offer you whatever insight my books may hold, whatever manliness or humour my life.

我给你我书中所含的一切洞明

我给你我命中的一切气概或幽默

I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.

我给你一个从未忠贞过的人的至死不渝

I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow –the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams, and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.

我给你我设法留存的魂灵

——不用辞藻应付的内心 不靠出卖梦想而交易

而这绝不会被时间 被喜悦 被逆境触及

I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born.

我给你有关在你出生前几年的黄昏中看到的那朵黄玫瑰的记忆

I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself.

我给你你对自己的解释 涉及你自己的理论 和有关你自己的令人意外的真相

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

我亦能给你我的寂寞 我的黑暗 我心的饥渴;我正试图用未知 用危险 用失败来打动你