[摘要]我给你早在你出生前多年的一个傍晚看到的一朵黄玫瑰的记忆……
【编者按】I love you not for who you are, but for who I am with you, 这是电影《剪刀手爱德华》中的经典台词。诚然,爱不是伪装,不是穿戴华美之后的盛宴,而是在知晓荒凉之后依然愿意留下的决心。如果需要依靠伪装来挽留你,那我将不再是我。今日,文化君推荐博尔赫斯的《我用什么才能留住你?》,邀您共赏。
What can I hold you with?
《我用什么才能留住你?》
I offer you lean streets,
我给你瘦落的街道,
desperate sunsets,
绝望的落日,
the moon of the jagged suburbs.
荒郊的月亮,
I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.
我给你一个久久地望着孤月的人的悲哀。
I offer you my ancestors, my dead men,
我给你我已死去的祖辈,
the ghosts that living men have honoured in marble:
后人们用大理石祭奠的先魂,
my father's father killed in the frontier of Buenos Aires,
我父亲的父亲阵亡于布宜诺斯艾利斯的边境,
two bullets through his lungs,
两颗子弹射穿了他的胸膛,
bearded and dead,
死的时候蓄着胡子,
wrapped by his soldiers in the hide of a cow;
尸体被士兵们用牛皮裹起。
my mother's grandfather
我母亲的祖父,
-just twentyfour-
那年才二十四岁,
heading a charge of three hundred men in Peru,
在秘鲁率领三百人冲锋,
now ghosts on vanished horses.
如今都成了消失的马背上的亡魂。
I offer you whatever insight my books may hold.
我给你我的书中所能蕴含的一切悟力,
whatever manliness or humour my life.
以及我生活中所能有的男子气概和幽默,
I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.
我给你一个从未有过信仰的人的忠诚。
I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved somehow -the central heart
我给你我设法保全的我自己的核心,
that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams
不营字造句,不和梦交易,
and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.
不被时间、欢乐和逆境触动的核心。
I offer you the memory of a yellow rose seen at sunset, years before you were born.
我给你早在你出生前多年的一个傍晚看到的一朵黄玫瑰的记忆。
I offer you explanationsof yourself,
我给你关于你生命的诠释,
theories about yourself,
关于你自己的理论,
authentic and surprising news of yourself.
你的真实而惊人的存在。
I can give you my loneliness,
我给你我的寂寞,
my darkness,
我的黑暗,
the hunger of my heart;
我心的饥渴,
I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.
我试图用困惑、危险、失败来打动你。
(摘自《另一个,同一个》,博尔赫斯著,王永年译,浙江文艺出版社,2008年2月)
作家简介
豪尔赫·路易斯·博尔赫斯(Jorge Luis Borges),阿根廷诗人、小说家、散文家兼翻译家,被誉为作家中的考古学家。掌握英、法、德等多国文字,作品涵盖短文、随笔小品、诗歌、文学评论、翻译文学多个领域。代表作有《小径分岔的花园》、《环形废墟》、《沙之书》。
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