14 Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden
2013-03-02 16:15阅读：
解读W. H.
Auden（奥登）的Funeral
Blues（葬礼蓝调）这首诗，首先要回答几个问题：诗中以主人公身份说话的“我”是男的还是女的？为什么“他”（He
is
dead）要大写？诗歌表达的是男女之恋还是同性恋？主人公悲恸欲绝的心情是如何表现出来的？尝试回答这些问题，或许可以加深对这首名诗的理解。
一、原诗与译稿
Funeral
Blues*
By W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Pu |
t crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton
gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was
wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
葬礼蓝调
——奥登
把钟表全部停掉，切断电话，
给小狗一块肥骨头，免得它汪汪叫，
别奏钢琴葬礼曲，请随着低沉的鼓声
抬出棺材，让送葬的人们都过来。
让飞机在上方哀鸣盘旋
在空中涂写“他已谢世”的讣告，
给信鸽的白颈项系上素纱蝴蝶结，
让执勤的交警们戴上黑色棉手套。
他本是我的北与南，我的西和东，
我的工作周和礼拜日的安宁，
我的正午，我的子夜，我的话语，我的歌；
原以为可以相爱白头，无奈竟是一厢痴情。
现在星星已然无用：把它们逐颗熄掉，
月亮打包，太阳拆除，
海水泼干，森林铲平，
因为万物于今已毫无用处。
|
* American Heritage
Dictionary对blues给出的释义：A
style of music evolved from southern Black American secular songs
and usually distinguished by slow tempo and flatted thirds and
sevenths.（蓝调音乐，音译布鲁斯，是一种源于美国南部黑人通俗歌曲的音乐，风格通常表现为音速低缓，演奏第三和第七音节的降音调）
二、原诗词汇与句型难点解析以及翻译理据
1、
第一段的四行全部都是祈使句，请求别人完成主人公的要求，译文对此要表述清晰。
2、
第一段第三行the
pianos是复数，在此不宜作钢琴解。根据American
Heritage
Dictionary给出的释义pl.
A passage to be played softly or
quietly，此处pianos应理解为钢琴曲。
3、
第二段第二行的message一词根据上下文意译为“讣闻”。
4、
第二段第二行的He
is
dead用了大写的He，在英文中有特定的文化含义，令读者联想起宗教中的主或神，未能在译文中表现出来。
5、
第三段原文用了过去时态，
所以译文中使用了“本”、“原”两个词来表示之前的情形。
三、其他译者译文选录
葬礼布鲁斯
张祈
译
停掉所有的钟，切断电话线，
用一根多汁的骨头防止那狗再叫唤，
让那钢琴沉默，在压抑的鼓声里
抬出棺材，然后让那些哀悼者到来。
让那飞机在头顶盘旋悲泣
在天空胡乱涂写那消息：他已死去。
把黑纱在那广场鸽子的白色脖颈上缠绕，
让那交通警察也戴上黑棉线手套。
他是我的北，我的南，我的东和西，
是我工作的一周是我休息的星期日，
是我的正午，我的半夜，我的说，我的歌，
我想我们的爱终会永恒：可是我已错。
那些星现在已经不需要，让每一颗都消失，
拆除那太阳，把月亮打包整理，
我要倾倒那大海，把那森林清扫，
因为任何事都已没有意义，只是徒劳。
[张祈
于 2011-2-16 17:32
编辑 ]
http://www.jintian.net/bb/viewthread.php?tid=38646
葬礼蓝调
娜斯 译
停止所有的时钟，切断电话
给狗一块浓汁的骨头，让他别叫
黯哑了钢琴，随着低沉的鼓
抬出灵怄，让哀悼者前来。
让直升机在头顶悲旋
在天空狂草着信息他已逝去，
把黑纱系在信鸽的白颈，
让交通员戴上黑色的手套。
他曾经是我的东，我的西，我的南，我的北，
我的工作天，我的休息日，
我的正午，我的夜半，我的话语，我的歌吟，
我以为爱可以不朽：我错了。
不再需要星星，把每一颗都摘掉，
把月亮包起，拆除太阳，
倾泻大海，扫除森林；
因为什么也不会再有意味。
（翻译仅供参考，还是觉得原文的那种情感是很难通过译文表现出来的）
[http://site.douban.com/129821/widget/notes/5902967/note/217497644/]
四、关于原诗及其作者
在互联网上可以找到很多如何解读奥登这首名诗的资料。有兴趣的读者如果用百度检索关键词“Stop
all the clocks, cut off the
telephone”可以看到许多不同的网页和文档。
如何解读这首诗，笔者认为下面这篇文章尤为值得参考，谨收录于此，以方便读者。
An Explication of a Poem: W. H. Auden’s “Stop all the clocks,
cut off the telephone”
by Scott Hixson
W. H. Auden [Stop all the clocks, cut off the
telephone]
1.
|
Stop all the clocks, cut off the
telephone,
|
2.
|
Prevent the dog from barking
with a juicy bone,
|
3.
|
Silence the pianos and with
muffled drum
|
4.
|
Bring out the coffin, let the
mourners come.
|
5.
|
Let aeroplanes circle moaning
overhead
|
6.
|
Scribbling on the sky the
message He Is Dead,
|
7.
|
Put crepe bows round the white
necks of the public doves,
|
8.
|
Let the traffic policemen wear
black cotton gloves.
|
9.
|
He was my North, my South, my
East and West,
|
10.
|
My working week and my Sunday
rest,
|
11.
|
My noon, my midnight, my talk,
my song;
|
12.
|
I thought that love would last
for ever: I was wrong.
|
13.
|
The stars are not wanted now:
put out every one;
|
14.
|
Pack up the moon and dismantle
the sun;
|
15.
|
Pour away the ocean and sweep up
the wood;
|
16.
|
For nothing now can ever come to
any good.
|
W. H. Auden's poem, 'Stop all the clocks, cut off the
telephone' conveys the meaning of overwhelming grief, tragic loss,
and an unrelenting pessimism best exemplified in the last lines,
'For nothing now can ever come to any good.' The tone of the poem
is that of a melancholy sadness enforced by the internal rhyme
scheme (aabb) and the melodic iambic pentameter used.
The title and first line of the poem demonstrate the author's
inconsolable grief by commanding the audience to do something which
is not possible, 'Stop all the clocks.' This reference to time
could also be an allusion to the death and brevity of life which
cause the author such agony. The verbs of the first three lines of
the first stanza represent how the author wants to eliminate the
distractions; clocks ticking, telephones ringing, dogs barking,
pianos playing, of the day in order that everyone may mourn this
death. These imperative verbs are all forbidding something and not
until the mention of the coffin in line 4 do the verbs begin to be
more allowing; 'Bring out the coffin, let the mourners
come.'
The next stanza continues to develop the idea of public
mourning. The author has been so deeply touched by such a personal
loss that he feels the entire world should share in his grief. The
subjects of this stanza; the aeroplane, the sky, the white necks of
the public doves, and the traffic policemen, are not typically
associated with death. However, by incorporating these things into
an elaborate funeral procession, the author emphasizes the need for
public mourning. Lines 5 and 6 illustrate the importance of the
death to the author, for he wants news of it spread across the sky
where everyone on Earth can see it. Also emphasizing the
relationship between the two is the capitalization of the phrase
'He Is Dead' from line 6, in which the author tries to deify the
deceased.
The funeral procession described in lines 7 and 8 serves to
further represent both the importance of the deceased and the grief
caused by this death.
The third stanza, particularly lines 9, 10, and 11, again
conveys the intimacy of the relationship between the author and the
deceased. The author shows reverence for this man by using
exaggerated metaphors to imply his importance to the author. Line
9, 'He was my North, my South, my East and West,' demonstrates the
relationship between the two men and combined with the next line,
'My working week and my Sunday rest,' implies this relationship to
be of a very intimate nature. This is echoed in line 12, 'I thought
that love would last for ever: I was wrong.' This can be
interpreted to represent the speaker’s ignorance toward an
inevitable death. The author’s love for this man is so all
encompassing he describes him as the points of the globe. This love
is so strong that the speaker believes it will last forever, not
until the death of his companion was the realization made that
love, like everything else, will come to an end.
The last stanza and in particular line 16 affirms the
hopelessness of the poem. The motif of commanding verbs concludes
in this stanza where the author serves to convey a purposeless life
without the deceased. The readers are instructed to again perform
extraordinary tasks in order that the author may mourn. Lines 13
and 14, “The stars are not wanted now: Put out every one: Pack up
the moon and dismantle the sun;” express the despair of the author.
A world without the sun and moon would be void of everything,
including life. This sentiment is echoed in the following line,
“Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;” Both these hyperbolic
metaphors are again intended to symbolize the aimless feelings of
the author and the void left by the death of this man. By
commanding the audience to dispel of the oceans and remove the
forests of the world, the speaker shows both how meaningless life
is without his lover and how the world would be able to equate with
such a loss.
The pessimism of the poem is captured best in line 16, “For
nothing now can ever come to any good.” The death of this man has
devastated the speaker in such a way that he feels both without
purpose and unable to see any good in the world. This line
concludes the poem and emphasizes the melancholy tone evident
throughout. Like the death of his lover, the last line emphasizes
the finality of life and an end void of purpose.
Works Cited
Auden, W. H. “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.”
The Norton Introduction to Literature.
Shorter Ninth Edition. Eds. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and
Kelly J. Mays. New York,
London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006.
609-610.
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http://dc.cod.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1117&context=essai
]
