中英文之美(7)——
中外文学中的自然之道
In the presence of nature a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. 读到这个句子的时候,我猛然产生一种强烈的感觉:东方文化和西方文化其实是可以交通的。因为西方的思想家和东方的思想家都不约而同地发现了自然对人类心灵的疗救作用。
东方的士大夫在宦海浮沉遭受打击、心情郁闷、心绪不宁的时候,往往寄情山水,寻求心灵的平和,即西方文化所谓 peaceful mind,致虚静,求中和,在自身的内在和外在之间寻求一种平衡和和谐,成为中国古代士人应对外部遭际的一剂良药。
Every Chinese is a Confucianist when he is successful and a Taoist when he is a failure. The naturalism of Taoism is the balm that soothes he wounded Chinese soul.
这是因为Taoism stands for the childish world of wonder and mystery for which Confucianism fail to provide. Taoism is the classic romantic school of Chinese Thought. Firstly, it stands for the return to nature and the romantic escape from the world, and revolt against the artificiality and responsibilities of Confucian culture. Secondly, it stands for the rural ideal of life, art and literature, and the worship of primitive simplicity. And thirdly, it stands for the world of fancy and wonder, coupled with a childishly naive cosmogony.
自然疗伤,中外如此。英国大诗人Wordsworth写道:
I wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company!
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.
水仙花成为疗治诗人孤独、沉郁、苦闷的一剂良药。
对大自然的赞美,对自然风光的审美,对自然间万物的纯然想象和天道运常的无限向往,神圣化,神秘化,成为中国古代文学中一道独特的风景线。
相看两不厌,只有敬亭山
到底是诗人不厌倦自然,还是自然不厌倦诗人?In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.
爱默生对面田野,发现了自然与人的和谐给人带来了极大快乐: They not to me and I to them. Its effects is like that of a higher thought or a better emotion coming over me, when I deemed I was thinking justly or doing right. Yet it is certain that the power to produce this delight, does not reside in nature, but in man, or in a harmony of both. Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.
李白之所以能够忘情于敬亭山,是因为李白有赤子之心。正如爱默生所说,To speak truly, few adults persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only that the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth becomes part of his daily food.李白诗诗仙,是道家,爱默生的这一段表白简直于李白心有戚戚。你是不是读出了庄子的感觉?
有赤子之心方能欣赏自然、得道自然、化归自然。爱默生就认为, A man’s power to connect his thought with its proper symbol, and so to utter it, depends on the simplicity of his character, that is, upon his love of truth and his desire to communicate it without loss. When simplicity of character and the sovereignty of ideas is broken up by the prevalence of secondary desires,- the desire of riches, of pleasure, of power, and of praise,-and duplicity and falsehood take place of simplicity and truth, the power over nature as an interpreter of the will is in a degree lost.
辜鸿铭The Spirit of The Chinese People 写道:What is the real Chinaman? The real Chinaman is a man who lives the life of a man of adult reason with the heart of a child. In short, the real Chinaman is a person with the head of a grown-up man and the heart of a child. The Chinese spirit, therefore, is a spirit of perpetual youth, the spirit of national immorality.
中国人崇尚简朴,古朴俩字就形象生动简明地反映了这样一种民族特性。The worship of the ancients became identical with the worship of simplicity, “ancient and simple” are closely related.
我们可以说,爱默生的自然之道与中国道家的自然之道,取得了高度的默契与和谐。
联系客服