試譯：〈童年聖誕〉 柏德烈·卡凡納【A Christmas Childhood－Patrick Kavanagh】

〈童年聖誕〉　　柏德烈·卡凡納（試譯：淺白）
 
一、
 
一邊的馬鈴薯坑結着白霜──
多麼美好，那可是多麼美好啊！
而當人將耳朵湊近木柵欄時，
那音聲傳來，是何等飄渺奇幻。
 
那點乾草與稻草垛間的光源
是個洞，在天堂的山牆外。一棵蘋果樹
和它爍閃的十二月的果實──
啊，夏娃，你就是那世界
 
誘我吃掉那生自黏坭的知識
而死于其內核！直至如今
我仍不時會想起那明亮的、屬於
童年的花園，那內裏的一點甚麼：如是
 
一行行牲口到飲水處的腳跡，
一塊躺在水溝旁的綠石；或任何
平凡底景象，那溶溶解變的面容：
源自一種美，未曾為世間觸及。
 
二、
 
我父親吹着口風琴
在自家的門柵外；
將曙的東方有星群閃耀
依着他的音樂起舞。
 
掠過一帶野沼地，他那琴聲
喚呼着藍儂和卡倫兩家人；
當我連忙穿上褲子，曉得
某些異事已然發生。
 
我媽媽在牛棚外
捻弄着擠奶的音樂；
她那馬廄內的燈泡是顆星
在伯利恒的霜中霎閃着。
 
一隻水雞在沼裏啼叫，
赴彌撒的腳步
踩裂路上窪坑的薄冰；有人
扭拽着風箱的輪，憂傷地。
 
我的小孩詩眼逐一識辨出
那灰石上的字體；
一個神奇的、裹銀的聖誕鎮區，
霜冷下閃閃䀹着眼的晨旦。
 
仙后座懸掛在
卡茜迪山的上方；
我望去，但見三個金雀花叢
馳逸過地平線——那東方的三賢王。
 
一個老人經過時說：
「他究竟會不會吹的──
那傢伙。」我躲在門道之後，
並勒緊了自己那工字褶夾衣的腰帶。
 
我刻了六條刻痕，在門柱上
用我的袖珍摺刀──
當中有把小的是將來切煙草的；
而我正是六個聖誕之齡。
 
我父親吹着口風琴，
我媽幫牛擠着奶，
而我暗自禱了個願，像朵白玫瑰
別在聖母瑪利亞的衣襟。
 
17/8/2025初稿

A Christmas Childhood 
By Patrick Kavanagh
 
I
 
One side of the potato-pits was white with frost—
How wonderful that was, how wonderful!
And when we put our ears to the paling-post
The music that came out was magical.
 
The light between the ricks of hay and straw
Was a hole in Heaven’s gable. An apple tree
With its December-glinting fruit we saw—
O you, Eve, were the world that tempted me
 
To eat the knowledge that grew in clay *
And death the germ within it! Now and then
I can remember something of the gay
Garden that was childhood’s. Again 
 
The tracks of cattle to a drinking-place, 
A green stone lying sideways in a ditch
Or any common sight the transfigured face 
Of a beauty that the world did not touch.
 
II
 
My father played the melodion 
Outside at our gate; 
There were stars in the morning east 
And they danced to his music.
 
Across the wild bogs his melodion called
To Lennons and Callans. 
As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry
I knew some strange thing had happened.
 
Outside in the cow-house my mother
Made the music of milking; 
The light of her stable-lamp was a star 
And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.
 
A water-hen screeched in the bog, 
Mass-going feet 
Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes, 
Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel. 
 
My child poet picked out the letters
On the grey stone,
In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,
The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.
 
Cassiopeia was over
Cassidy’s hanging hill, 
I looked and three whin bushes rode across
The horizon—the Three Wise Kings.
 
An old man passing said: 
‘Can’t he make it talk— 
The melodion’. I hid in the doorway 
And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat. 
 
I nicked six nicks on the door-post 
With my penknife’s big blade— 
There was a little one for cutting tobacco. 
And I was six Christmases of age. 
 
My father played the melodion, 
My mother milked the cows, 
And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned
On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.
 
Note: Part I first published in the Irish Press, 24 December, 1943; part II in the Bell, December 1940.
*“we are the clay, and thou our potter” (Isaiah 64:8)