威爾士向詩(shī)人迪倫·托馬斯的百年誕辰致敬

In Wales, a Toast to Dylan Thomas on His 100th Birthday

威爾士向詩(shī)人迪倫·托馬斯的百年誕辰致敬

Down the footpath from his writing shed, along the curve of the water and up the hill, you see what the poet Dylan Thomas once saw: tall birds on the “heron priested shore,” a “sea wet church the size of a snail” atop the ridge, the castle ruin to your left still “brown as owls.”

從詩(shī)人迪倫·托馬斯(Dylan Thomas)寫(xiě)作的小屋沿小徑直下，走過(guò)河流的拐彎，爬上山坡，你便能看到他當(dāng)年曾目睹的景致：那高大的鳥(niǎo)兒，“神父般棲于岸邊的鷺鷥”，山脊之上“被大海打濕的教堂如蝸牛殼大小”，左邊毀棄的城堡仍然是“夜梟般的棕色”。

“Poem in October,” in which Thomas reflects on his 30th birthday, unfolds verse after verse as you walk through the landscape that made him, and that he remade in turn, culminating with a final cliff-top exclamation:

在《十月的詩(shī)》(Poem in October)中，托馬斯思索自己的30歲生日，當(dāng)你沿著那段造就了他，并為他重新造就的風(fēng)景行走之時(shí)，這首詩(shī)便會(huì)一段段在你面前浮現(xiàn)，以終章對(duì)懸崖的驚嘆而結(jié)束。

“O may my heart’s truth

“啊，但愿我心中的真理

still be sung

猶自被歌唱

on this high hill in a year’s turning.”

在一年的轉(zhuǎn)折之期，在這高聳的山巒。”

Thomas died young, at 39, after boasting that he had downed 18 straight whiskeys (“I believe that’s the record”) in New York in 1953. On Monday, he would have turned 100. His small country, long ill at ease with its hard-living, hard-loving son who wrote in English, not in Welsh, and caricatured his roots as much as he claimed them, is celebrating perhaps its greatest poet.

托馬斯1953年于紐約英年早逝，時(shí)年39歲，死前吹噓自己連喝了18杯威士忌(“我相信這是紀(jì)錄”)。星期一(10月27日——編注)是他的 100周年誕辰。他的小小祖國(guó)一直為自己這位活得艱辛、愛(ài)得艱辛的兒子被視為它最偉大的詩(shī)人感到不安——他以英語(yǔ)寫(xiě)作，而非威爾士語(yǔ)，一邊強(qiáng)調(diào)自己的威爾士根源，一邊又對(duì)它進(jìn)行諷刺夸張的描述。

Thomas has been called the James Joyce of Wales and compared to his own hero, John Keats. He wrote some of the most recognizable verse of the 20th century: “Do not go gentle into that good night/Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

托馬斯被稱為威爾士的詹姆斯·喬伊斯(James Joyce)，亦常常與他的偶像約翰·濟(jì)慈(John Keats)相提并論。他寫(xiě)過(guò)若干20世紀(jì)最有特色的詩(shī)句：“不要溫柔地進(jìn)入這美好的夜晚/怒吼，怒吼，即使光芒即將熄滅。”

Gillian Clarke, the national poet of Wales, who grew up in this part of western Wales, traces her own poetic awakening to the day she first heard Thomas read on the BBC, his voice summoning her 15-year-old self to “the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack fishboat-bobbing sea” that she too knew so well. “He takes from and gives back to the landscape and the language, until the place speaks the poetry as much as the poetry voices the landscape,” Ms. Clarke said.

威爾士國(guó)民詩(shī)人吉莉安·克拉克(Gillian Clark)也在西威爾士的這一片長(zhǎng)大，她回憶自己對(duì)詩(shī)歌的覺(jué)醒是第一次在BBC中聽(tīng)到托馬斯朗誦，他的聲音令15歲的她想起“野李子的黑色，緩慢、黑暗，有著烏鴉般的黑色，漁船往來(lái)的大海”，她對(duì)這片海域亦是非常熟悉。“他從這片風(fēng)景與這種語(yǔ)言中拿走了一些東西，又回饋了一些東西，直到這個(gè)地方訴說(shuō)著詩(shī)歌，詩(shī)歌的聲音也在風(fēng)景中回響，”克拉克說(shuō)。

Many here say Thomas’s poetry has been denied the recognition it deserves on teaching plans and in academic circles. The colorful stories of his drinking and womanizing — some true, some invented (often by himself) — might have contributed to a James Dean-like notoriety in the United States, where he counts two former presidents, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, among his fans. (Mr. Carter was instrumental in winning Thomas a memorial stone, belatedly, in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey, in 1982.)

很多本地人說(shuō)托馬斯的詩(shī)歌在學(xué)術(shù)圈和教案中沒(méi)有受到應(yīng)得的認(rèn)可。關(guān)于他的酗酒好色有許多豐富多彩的故事，有些是真的，有些是編造的(通常是他自己編的)，它們或許為他在美國(guó)贏得了詹姆斯·迪恩(James Dean)式的惡名，比爾·克林頓(Bill Clinton)和吉米·卡特(Jimmy Carter)兩位前總統(tǒng)都是他的粉絲(1982年，吉米·卡特幫托馬斯在威斯敏斯特教堂詩(shī)人角樹(shù)立了一塊遲來(lái)的紀(jì)念碑)。

But that reputation appalled many in Wales, as did Thomas’s flawless English accent. Denied the Welsh language and sent to elocution lessons by his father as a boy, Thomas was long considered too English for the Welsh and too Welsh for the English. (“He belongs to the English,” the Welsh nationalist Saunders Lewis scoffed.)

但在威爾士，托馬斯的名氣和他完美無(wú)瑕的英格蘭口音一樣，令很多人感到震驚。托馬斯拒絕使用威爾士語(yǔ)，小時(shí)候父親還曾讓他去上過(guò)演講課程，長(zhǎng)久以來(lái)，威爾士人認(rèn)為托馬斯過(guò)于英格蘭化，而英格蘭人又認(rèn)為他太威爾士(“他屬于英格蘭，”威爾士民族主義者桑德斯·劉易斯[Saunders Lewis]嘲諷說(shuō))。

Refocusing public attention on his work has been one of the aims of the centenary, said Hannah Ellis, president of the Dylan Thomas Society of Great Britain and a patron of this year’s events. (The other being, no doubt, to make him the tourist attraction that Joyce has long been in Ireland. Thomas’s melancholy portrait now appears on everything from whiskey bottles to aprons.)

英國(guó)迪倫·托馬斯社團(tuán)的主席，以及這一年若干活動(dòng)的贊助者漢娜·埃利斯(Hannah Ellis)說(shuō)，百年慶典的目標(biāo)之一就是令公眾重新關(guān)注他的作品(毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)，另一個(gè)目標(biāo)是讓他吸引游客，就像喬伊斯長(zhǎng)期以來(lái)為愛(ài)爾蘭吸引游客一樣。托馬斯憂郁的肖像如今出現(xiàn)在從威士忌酒瓶到圍裙在內(nèi)的各種東西上)。

It is a personal quest for Ms. Ellis, 36, who shares the poet’s short build and unruly locks. The daughter of Thomas’s daughter Aeronwy, she discovered her grandfather’s work only five years ago when she lost a baby and her mother, and then had a son. She found comfort in Thomas’s “timeless wisdom” about life and death and birth and God, she said. Ms. Ellis, a schoolteacher, wants his work to be taught more widely and creatively.

這是埃利斯的個(gè)人訴求，36歲的她和這位詩(shī)人一樣，身材矮小，有著一頭凌亂的卷發(fā)。埃利斯的母親是托馬斯的女兒艾伊洛維(Aeronwy)，五年前，艾伊洛維去世，埃利斯也失去了一個(gè)嬰兒，之后又生了一個(gè)兒子，就是在這個(gè)時(shí)候，她發(fā)現(xiàn)了外祖父的作品。她說(shuō)，自己在托馬斯關(guān)于生命、死亡、分娩與上帝的“超越時(shí)代的智慧”中找到了安慰。埃利斯是一位教師，她希望學(xué)校里能夠更廣泛、更有創(chuàng)意地教授他的作品。

A duplicate of his writing shed — complete with a half-smoked pack of Woodbine cigarettes and paper balls of discarded verse strewn across the desk — has been set up at schools, housing projects, literary festivals and even last month’s NATO summit meeting, held mostly in Newport, Wales.

托馬斯寫(xiě)作小屋的復(fù)制品(桌上還有半包伍德拜恩香煙，以及揉皺的紙團(tuán)，上面是廢棄的詩(shī)句)已經(jīng)出現(xiàn)在學(xué)校、住房計(jì)劃和文學(xué)節(jié)之中，甚至出現(xiàn)在上個(gè)月的北約峰會(huì)上，這個(gè)峰會(huì)主要在威爾士的新港舉行。

Thomas’s birthplace, Swansea, that “ugly, lovely town,” where he wrote two-thirds of his work in a teenage outpouring, is erecting another statue. Thomas quotations zip around the city center on public maintenance vehicles and the No. 5 bus: “Swansea is still the best place,” reads one, an extract from a letter he wrote to a friend in 1938.

托馬斯出生在斯旺西，這是個(gè)“丑陋又可愛(ài)的小鎮(zhèn)”，青少年時(shí)代的他才思迸發(fā)，在這里寫(xiě)下了自己一生2/3的作品，如今這里又為他建起了一座雕像。坐上公共交通工具或5號(hào)巴士在市中心兜風(fēng)，托馬斯的名言快速?gòu)难矍伴W過(guò)，其中一句是“斯旺西仍然是最好的地方”，這句話選自1938年他寫(xiě)給朋友的信。

There are guided tours of nearly every aspect of Thomas’s life: His childhood home; Cwmdonkin Park, whose dense vegetation gave him nightmares of “terrifying half-people,” but also became the inspiration for a story about a love triangle; the near beaches of the Gower Peninsula, where he rehearsed for the Swansea Little Theater and debated politics with his friend Bert Trick, a socialist grocer; and a seemingly interminable list of the poet’s favorite haunts: the Uplands Hotel, the Bay View, the No Sign Bar, the Antelope, the Mermaid and more.

市內(nèi)有提供導(dǎo)游服務(wù)的旅游路線，幾乎涵蓋了托馬斯生活中的方方面面：他童年時(shí)的家;科姆多金公園，那里濃密的植被讓他做了關(guān)于“可怕的半身人”的噩夢(mèng)，但也給了他靈感，讓他寫(xiě)下一個(gè)三角愛(ài)情故事;還有高爾半島的近海海灘，他曾在那里為斯旺西小劇場(chǎng)的演出排練，還在那里和朋友、信仰社會(huì)主義的小販伯特·特里克(Bert Trick)討論政治;還有許多他最喜歡出沒(méi)的地點(diǎn)，這份名單看上去長(zhǎng)得可怕，包括阿普蘭酒店、灣景酒店、無(wú)標(biāo)記酒吧、安蒂洛普酒吧、美人魚(yú)酒吧等等。

But nothing is as it was in Swansea, badly bombed during the war. A more timeless glimpse can be found 40 miles west in Laugharne (pronounced LARN), in Thomas’s words, “the strangest town in the world.”

但是斯旺西在戰(zhàn)時(shí)曾遭嚴(yán)重轟炸，如今已經(jīng)沒(méi)有什么是當(dāng)初的原貌了。還是40公里以西的拉爾恩受時(shí)間影響較小，用托馬斯的話說(shuō)，那里是“世界上最奇異的小鎮(zhèn)”。

Thomas’s parents grew up across the estuary, and he spent his childhood summers in Fern Hill, his aunt’s farm and the title of one of his most famous poems. He lived in the area on and off for 15 years, including the last four, and is buried in the village cemetery with his wife, Caitlin.

托馬斯的父母在這里的港口長(zhǎng)大，童年時(shí)期的托馬斯常常去弗恩山避暑，那是他阿姨的農(nóng)場(chǎng)，他有一首著名的詩(shī)正是以此為名。他在這里斷斷續(xù)續(xù)住了15年，包括他人生的最后四年，他與妻子凱特琳(Caitlin)合葬在這座村莊的公墓。

“The soul of his poetry is here,” Ms. Clarke said.

“他詩(shī)歌的靈魂就在這里，”克拉克說(shuō)。

The Boathouse, where Thomas lived (“a seashaken house on a breakneck of rocks”), is still there, as is Browns Hotel, his local haunt and now a boutique hotel that calls itself “a bar with rooms.” At the corner table facing the door, Thomas would “molder,” collecting stories and picking up colloquialisms. “Under Milk Wood,” his best-known play, which locals insist is based on their town, chronicles a day in an imaginary seaside village called Llareggub. (Read it backward for a sense of his mischievous humor.)

托馬斯住過(guò)的船庫(kù)(“危險(xiǎn)的巖石之上，被海浪撼動(dòng)的房子”)仍然保留著，還有他常去的布朗斯酒店，如今已成為一個(gè)精品酒店，自稱為“帶客房的酒吧”。托馬斯常常在對(duì)著門的角落里“鑄造”，收集故事和俗語(yǔ)。本地人說(shuō)，他最著名的劇本《牛奶樹(shù)下》(Under Milk Wood)就是以這座小鎮(zhèn)為藍(lán)本的，它按時(shí)間順序描寫(xiě)了虛構(gòu)的海濱村莊拉來(lái)加布一天內(nèi)發(fā)生的事(Llareggub，這個(gè)詞從后往前讀是“bugger all”，即“全是蠢貨”，顯示了他惡作劇的幽默感)。

“If Dylan Thomas walked into Laugharne today, he could write ‘Under Milk Wood’ all over again,” Carl Thornton, a 48-year-old architect, said over a pint one recent evening. “In this town, if you say good morning to the wrong person, within 10 hours you are having an affair.”

“如果迪倫·托馬斯走進(jìn)今日的拉爾恩，他可以再寫(xiě)一部《牛奶樹(shù)下》，”前不久的某天晚上，48歲的建筑師卡爾·桑頓(Carl Thornton)一品脫酒下肚后這樣說(shuō)，“在這座小鎮(zhèn)，如果你對(duì)錯(cuò)誤的人說(shuō)了句早上好，十個(gè)小時(shí)之內(nèi)就會(huì)有艷遇上身。”

Bob Stevens, the mayor of Laugharne, feels a special relationship with Thomas: His birthday is in October, too. When his children were young, he would take them up Sir John’s Hill and read them Thomas’s “Poem in October,” telling them of the poet who lived across the water from their family farm.

拉爾恩市長(zhǎng)鮑勃·斯蒂文斯(Bob Stevens)覺(jué)得自己同托馬斯有著特殊的聯(lián)系——他的生日和托馬斯一樣也在10月。斯蒂文斯在自己的孩子們還小的時(shí)候，會(huì)帶他們?nèi)ヅ兰s翰爵士山，為他們讀托馬斯的《十月之詩(shī)》，給他們講這位詩(shī)人的故事，他居住的地方距離斯蒂文斯家的農(nóng)場(chǎng)只有一水之隔。

For the centenary, Mr. Stevens, 67, created the Dylan Thomas Birthday Walk, which guides literary pilgrims through the poem and its landmarks on a series of placards. The walk is free, and those who come on their own birthday get a free drink at Browns.

67歲的斯蒂文斯為這次的百年慶典創(chuàng)立了一條迪倫·托馬斯步行路線，用一連串的標(biāo)語(yǔ)牌向文學(xué)朝圣者們提示托馬斯的詩(shī)歌和詩(shī)歌中的地標(biāo)。步行路線是免費(fèi)的，當(dāng)天過(guò)生日的人還可以在布朗斯酒店享受一杯免費(fèi)飲料。