試譯：〈掮水者〉 約翰·蒙塔格【The Water Carrier－John Montague】

掮水者　約翰·蒙塔格（試譯：淺白）
 
每日兩次，我會從泉裏掮回清水
在晨早，出發上學前；還有是在傍晚
平衡如一個支點，在兩邊水桶之間
 
一條荊棘杈生的小路通往泉流
在那兒你得小心踩過黏滑的溪石
其浸蝕的邊棱，蒼淺如白骨
 
在漸冉開闊的湖池前（那是供洗濯和牲口用的）
細小的魚影閃爍，當你舀下
並讓它迴旋、注滿，以鏽染的淡水……
 
而第二個桶（那搪瓷的）才是盛泉水用的；
水從一綴滿燈芯草的近甸奔來，噗簌
流響，復淌出，在那破裂的水管裏——
 
一道長年剝蝕的威化，薄帶鏽跡。
它是流得如此純然，且冷冽，測測碎落
像冰凝的手銬，落在腕上。
 
你一直站着，直至那水桶接近漾溢
一面聞着那些霉朽的、未被人擷摘的野莓的氣味：
那纍纍的鬱綠，由水扶育而成。
 
重新憶拾起這幕，我曾希望能將之風格化
即如那埃及掮水者在某肖像畫裏一般；
然而一頓，輒出神於那微瑣、但富藴記憶的生命——
 
我有時會過來這裏打水，
不是作為溯回或隱避，而只是為了些純粹的事物
一些生命的發源，半是想像，也半沿自真實
 
脈動在那我感到的、虛想的靜水之中。
 
21/1/2024初稿
 

The Water Carrier
By John Montague (from his 1961 collection Poisoned Lands and Other Poems)
 
Twice daily I carried water from the spring,
Morning before leaving for school, and evening;
Balanced as a fulcrum between two buckets.
 
A bramble-rough path ran to the river
Where you stepped carefully across slime-topped stones,
With corners abraded as bleakly white as bones.
 
At the widening pool (for washing and cattle)
Minute fish flickered as you dipped,
Circling to fill, with rust-tinged water.
 
The second or enamel bucket was for spring water
Which, after racing through a rushy meadow,
Came bubbling in a broken drain-pipe,
 
Corroded wafer thin with rust.
It ran so pure and cold, it fell
Like manacles of ice on the wrists.
 
You stood until the bucket brimmed
Inhaling the musty smell of unpicked berries,
That heavy greenness fostered by water.
 
Recovering the scene, I had hoped to stylize it,
Like the portrait of an Egyptian water carrier:
But pause, entranced by slight but memoried life.
 
I sometimes come to take the water there,
Not as return or refuge, but some pure thing,
Some living source, half-imagined and half-real,
 
Pulses in the fictive water that I feel.
 

圖片源自網絡。