著名詩人、翻譯家余光中先生于2017年12月14日上午在臺灣高雄醫(yī)院病逝，享年89歲。
再品他的譯作或許是最好的紀(jì)念方式——
選詩一，美國女詩人狄金森的 I Died for Beauty；選詩二，英國詩人雪萊的 England in 1819。
余先生的譯文既具西文的骨感，又有漢語之精髓，既遵循原文，又有所創(chuàng)作，值得一品再品。
【文末圖片鏈接通往公號“理想國imaginist”昨日紀(jì)念推文，含作家張昌華撰文《詩壇翹楚余光中》，對余先生有較為完整的介紹。】
I Died for Beauty
By Emily Dickinson
I died for beauty, but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.
He questioned softly why I failed?
'For beauty,' I replied.
'And I for truth, --the two are one;
We brethren are,' he said.
And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms.
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.
殉美
文/艾米莉·狄金森
譯/余光中
我為美死去，但是還不曾
安息在我的墓里，
又有個為真理而死去的人
來躺在我的隔壁。
他悄悄地問我為何以身殉?
為了美，我說。
而我為真理，兩者不分家；
我們是兄弟兩個。
于是像親戚在夜間相遇，
我們便隔墻談天，
直到青苔爬到了唇際，
將我們的名字遮掩
England in 1819
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,—
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,—mud from a muddy spring,—
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,—
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,—
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay;
Religion Christless, Godless—a book sealed;
A Senate,—Time’s worst statute unrepealed,—
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestous day.
英倫：一八一九年
文/珀西·比希·雪萊
譯/余光中
又狂又盲，眾所鄙視的垂死老王——
王子王孫，愚蠢世系的剩渣殘滓，
在國人騰笑下流過——污源的濁漿；
當(dāng)朝當(dāng)政，都無視，無情，更無知，
像水蛭一般吸牢在衰世的身上，
終會矇矇然帶血落下，無須鞭笞；
百姓在荒地廢田上被餓死，殺死——
摧殘自由，且強擄橫掠的軍隊
已淪為一把雙刃劍，任揮者是誰；
法律則拜金而嗜血，誘民以死罪；
宗教無基督也無神——閉上了圣經(jīng)；
更有上議院——不廢千古的惡律——
從這些墓里，終會有光輝的巨靈
一躍而出，來照明這滿天風(fēng)雨。
（中文整理自公號“滬江英語”）
